Note that they would replace the phone if it were basically destroyed accidentally.
I’d suggest an iPhone 17e, mainly because continuity is amazing. Calls from my iPhone 16 come through on my iPhone Air and iPhone 13, my AirPods sync to whatever is doing useful activities at the minute (like phone calls preference, with videos next and and then music) etc
This is true. Literally just download a benchmarking app and keep running benchmarks until you kill the battery then charge it 0-100 each time (preferably by MagSafe if you can). It will happen.