I use an iPhone leather case that I had for my iPhone 7 and that works fine and save my 7 more times than I care to mention.

The only thing I would recommend is to switch off all the Siri options including the iCloud and learn from this app bits for all installed apps that helped battery life for me.

I’m still mulling whether to update it to ios 17.1 or stay on the stock 16.6.

Hmm, I’m still wary of updating, I keep reading mixed reports. My SE 2022 is on stock 16.6. I’ve just shut off all the Siri settings so we will see next week how it fairs but that’s looking promising. I also saw the battery life tick down when screen was on. I don’t use much on the phone other than web, podcast/audiobook email and messaging