They will have to pry my iPhone 13 mini from my cold dead hands! Small phone gang unite! ✊
I want a smaller smartphone but not an iPhone. It's sad that Apple is the only manufacturer still producing reasonable sized phones.
Small phone gang unite and push for other manufacturers to follow Apple on this one!
Unfortunately even Apple has announced they are discontinuing their smaller phone, citing poor sales, so it seems the small phone gang is too small to have any market power.
Small people want small phones. Small people have small hands. Small hands can't carry very much money.
It's simple economics.
Lol. You would think that, but I’m a small person counter example, and the market is proving there are more like me than those who want small phones.
I don't believe the small phone gang is small, we just have one option: a pretty expensive iPhone mini.
I want a small phone but not an iPhone, I have no option therefore manufactures assume I want a humongous phone. That's flawed logic.
I was going to say that the Mini should be pretty cheap now that it's two generations old -- the 13 is down to $629 new, after all, and the Mini ought to be $100 cheaper...
But it looks like Mini demand has actually driven prices much higher than the normal 13. Strange, almost as if there IS demand for small phones...
almost as if there IS demand for small phones...
There is but the demand is small. The smaller the demand gets, the more they flock to whatever options are available.
Small supply means just about any demand change can have a big impact on price.
Apple doesn’t care about used phone pricing, and until they announced the discontinuation nobody really paid any attention to the 13 mini for a while.
If it is actually a larger demographic, then it would be huge opportunity for any of these other phone makers, especially those that are struggling. I highly doubt they are all unaware of the opportunity to make a smaller phone, so I suspect they have stayed away because they don’t think it will be a profitable market.
As production quantities go down, costs go up, and with the lower prices that these vendors sell at compared to Apple, their margins are already much thinner, so they have much more risk than Apple in introducing a smaller phone unless they are confident there is a large enough market for it. They simply have much less wiggle room than Apple in which to create a profitable product out of a smaller phone. Since Apple is pulling out and the others haven’t even bothered to try to compete with them in the decade that this big phone trend has been trending, I don’t think there’s any other conclusion that we can draw other than the small phone market is not large enough to pursue, but I’m open to other possibilities.
Edit: Someone else mentioned the small Asus Zenphone, which was also discontinued due to poor sales. That means at least one other manufacturer tried to make a small phone, and they came to the same conclusion that Apple did, so I see even less reason to doubt them.
ZenFone isn't small, it's the same size as a regular iPhone/Pro, not the Mini, so I can't see it proving anything about small phone demand that couldn't equally be applied to a regular iPhone or S23 etc. It also isn't discontinued.
What about Asus Zenfone?
Discontinued after the 10 🥲
ASUS has denied a previous report about the possible shutdown of the Zenfone division. The company issued a press statement, rubbishing claims from a Taiwanese media outlet that reported that the Zenfone 10 would be the last flagship in the Zenfone line.
Thanks for the news, you made my day!
I have an 8 which still works very well. I was on the verge of getting a 10 while I still could...
Did they cite any reason for the discontinuation?
Lack of sales
Make things up much?
And that only add validity to Apple’s reasoning. The small phone market is too small.
And apparently people buying small phones do not buy a new one every years but wait for them to die, further reducing the cash grab pot.
I don't believe the small phone gang is small, we just have one option: a pretty expensive iPhone mini.
You have it backwards. You have no options because your gang is too small. You used to have options but the market has moved far far away from that.
They haven’t made it in two years now. They stopped with the 13.
Right, but I’m pretty sure they never said anything about discontinuing it altogether when the iPhone 14 came out, and most people just assumed they were just skipping a year on it. It wasn’t until right before they released the 15 lineup that they said the smaller phone was actually discontinued.
They never officially discontinued the mini line in the first place. They just didn't release new models after the 13. The announcement that they discontinued it was that they were discontinuing production of the 13 mini, which they had kept making alongside the regular 13 after the 14 lineup was released. Up until the release of the 15s, you could still buy the 13 mini new from Apple. Discontinuing the 13 mini killed off any way to buy one new.
There's still strong rumors that they might use the mini frame for the next SE model. It has pretty close to the same external dimensions as the 3rd gen SE, but would bring more screen real estate in the same package since it would be edge to edge instead of have the bezels. And it would also fit the rumored "release a mini every few years" strategy since they only release an SE every couple of years anyway.
The SE cannibalized mini sales because, for the most part, people that wanted the smaller size cared more about price than features, and the SE was the same size and quite a bit cheaper. Replacing the old iPhone 8 based SE with an iPhone mini based SE would kill two birds with one stone. It would let them use up a bunch of the excess stock they have laying around due to the poor sales, would bring the mini to a lower price point which would make it more popular, and would remove the competition between the SE and the mini.
Yeah, we’re saying the same thing, but for the sake of brevity, I might have spoken in a way that led you to believe I’m saying something else. I did not know about the rumors of the new SE using the mini frame, so that is some slightly good news for the small phone gang.
They say that all the time because it disposes of the issue without them needing to provide any evidence.
What’s your alternative theory?
What do you mean?
They don't want to make a product. They say "consumers don't like it". You ask for evidence. They say it's confidential, or they deliberately sabotage the availability of the product and say, "see?"
It's standard marketing.
I’m asking for your theory as to Apple’s reason for cancelling the small phone since you don’t believe the reason they’ve provided.
Deciding to make or not make a product is not a simple thing. Lots of decisions are part of it.
They just don't want to talk about it and want you to buy one of their other products.
So you have no alternative theory, but you’re just assuming Apple are lying about their reason because they won’t share their company data that led them to that conclusion?
Who said anything about lying? Why is this place so toxic.
It's marketing. They are telling you a story to sell products.
Unless you consider marketing lying, which I suppose is one possible interpretation...
You said they are just saying it’s poor sales, but it actually isn’t the reason. That would make their posted reason a lie.
If marketing is not based in reality, yes, it is lying, and there is nothing toxic about calling it what it is. There is plenty of dishonest marketing out there, and some of it is even legal. But I would hardly call a discontinuation announcement “marketing” since you’re literally doing the opposite of trying to sell them the product. You’re telling them they can no longer buy the product.
Could partly be that they don't want to support the development effort. Fewer phone sizes to support means they can get away with fewer staff working new versions of ios.
Yea i wanted iPhone mini as well but it's hard for me to miss abilities such as using OG Firefox (not some stupid skinned safari) with ublock origin and NewPipe.
There is the samsung galaxy base line up of the 'S series'.
The base galaxy s is the same size as a base iPhone. 6.1 inch screen.
There’s nothing mini about it in the least. The iPhone mini had a 5.4 inch screen.
I see so many people asking for smaller phones, and, at the same time, the sales aren't very good when companies give it a try. How can both be true?
I believe (from my anedoctal observations) that small phone users tend to be people who don't want to replace their phones just for the sake of getting a newer one, and use their devices for several years, resulting in fewer sales than expected.
You see so many people asking for smaller phones in the forums and places you frequent.
They do not necessarily represent the views of the common public. I personally could do with a slightly smaller phone because the compact size allows for easier holding with single hands. But, sadly, I have not seen folks around me deciding which phone to buy based on their screen size. Neither is that a priority for them. Simply put, our Venn diagrams do not fully overlap.
I see a lot of people around me asking for smaller phones, from my family to work and friends. Perhaps it's something cultural, I don't know.
But I'm well aware that our perception can trick us in so many ways, and can't speak for itself. I would love to see atual data on phone size preferences around the world.
Still, I doubt that there aren't enough people wanting smaller phones to sustain a market niche.
I feel like when there is a small phone released, though, it has compromises on battery life and camera quality that people might not accept. I think a lot of people who “want a small phone” want a small phone with no other compromises other than the size of the phone.
I'm compromising on those things right now with a phone that's ten (!!) years old now. If I could get one running a current OS, that was between 120-150mm with a replaceable battery, headphone jack, usb c, and the ability to take a 1TB micro sd along with a physical sim, I would take that upgrade.
True, geographic diversity is a thing. Smaller phones like iPhone mini or Zenfone didn't caught up in the Indian market. But, should demand exist for them, atleast some companies ought to be making them in some parts of the world. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be happening and that presents one less choice to the customer.
I prefer smaller phones but none of them have the specs I want. I'm never looking for bleeding edge flagships either. I just want a good enough camera, good enough screen, goddamn micro SD slot damn it, and flat glass edges with a bit of a bezel so I can put a case and tempered glass on. And whatever the maker needs to make available for custom roms to be possible because I'm damn well going to keep using it after official updates end.
They wouldn't even need to make a new model as frequently, maybe minor revisions to replace no longer available components. USB port update shouldn't be needed for a good chunk of time since c seems pretty great. There's probably a shitload of tooling and supply chain issues to work out even ignoring the likely toxic workplace politics though.
If they ever produce a compact Fairphone that would be it
You meet them online, but they’re a vocal minority. Especially when a smaller phone means a smaller battery and worse camera system, two of the consistently top priorities for consumers.
Could be a larger demographic thing. Tech enthusiasts tend to have lots of devices(tablets, portable computers, etc.), so they tend to like the smaller form factor phones since they can always use their tablet/laptop when the small phone is limiting. Those people are also the ones you see in these kinds of online communities. For a lot of other people though, they’re getting the big phone and then not having a personal tablet/portable computer at all. Those aren’t the kind of people that hang out online and talk about tech stuff though.
The point I feel is that small phones have a small but vocal userbase and is not lucrative for smartphone manufacturers as more R&D is involved in the packaging for product which has a small audience
See also: manual transmissions in cars. I say this as someone who, until going electric, exclusively drove three pedal cars. People just weren't buying them, but toward the end it did seem like manufacturers were making it less appealing to buy them by only putting them in base models.
I also believe it's usually high(er) end model being smaller and people who want smaller phones want something cheaper. At least that's what's going on in my social bubble.
On the other hand I was genuinely torn between the pixel 7 pro and the pixel 7a when I lost my Pixel 5 because I wanted the pro features but the smaller size of the 7a. Ended up getting the pro because the size wasn't so far apart to make much of a difference, both were massive anyways compared to the 5.
But I bought second hand open box so maybe I'm not in the demographic that matters to Google.
Yes. I was shocked at the price of the iPhone mini.
I'm a staunch and unyielding small phone user and this does, admittedly, describe me. I used my LG Optimus (4.75" or 120mm) for something like 6 or 7 years and I loved it. I don't use my phone for games or video and just want something I can always tuck in a pocket (on women's clothes this means tiny). It was the perfect size for my hand. When it stopped working because of the 3G/4G change over I upgraded to the smallest, most decent phone I could find: a Samsung Galaxy S7. I am still using it something like 5 years later and I would never go bigger than this, it fits comfortably in one hand, is light, and the battery is replaceable and lasts me all day. It sticks out of pants pockets but fits in a coat or jacket pocket. I would be willing to pay a higher up front cost to get a new phone if it was exactly what I wanted though, about 5" with no bloatware, replaceable battery, headphone jack, and a great camera.
You're just like me hahaha. My first smartphone was an LG Optimus too, the L70 model. I used for almost the same amount of time, until 2020. It still works, but I stopped using it due to the lack of storage space (2GB only) and older android version. I still think that phone is the perfect size, and would love to have the same model, but with upgraded specs. Then I had to get another one, and moved to Samsung too, but the A01 core.
Yeah the older android version is what killed it for me really, as I would have even kept using it as a wireless device. I couldn't install my preferred browser, email app, reddit is fun etc on it after enough years. I even rooted it and looked into installing a new version of Android on it but couldn't haha. It was compact, comfortable to hold, but big enough to browse and read text or to use an onscreen keyboard without much trouble. I was really disappointed to learn that there just were no phones compatible with 4G/LTE running Android 8 or higher that size, not even cheapie ones.
I managed to install lineageos on mine and extend its life for a few years, but the storage limitation was the bottleneck, as I had about 600mb for all my apps and data. I still used that device for a good while, even after buying another, because that size is so comfortable to me. It was so sad when if stopped working after emmc wear :(
I think you may be on to something. I keep hearing podcast ads for a t-mobile phone upgrade service that brags about offering 2 year upgrades, which sounds bizarre to me because I want my phones to last at least 3 years.
Maybe it's about perspective. When smaller phones were the default, other phones were more of an exclusion. When bigger phones became the defacto default, smaller phones started to seem smaller in spec in comparison (mostly battery) while being at about the same price.
I don't want smaller phones, I'm just having a hard time growing my hands and pockets to keep up.
People have been saying this for the last 5 years and will continue saying this for the next 5 years. They make less smaller phones cuz people don't buy them
That will be a side effect of them locking abitrary features behind the bigger and thus more expensive models, if there was feature parity smaller phones would probably still be the norm.
Yeah, I only got the Pixel 6 Pro because of the zoom lense...i would not have chosen it otherwise. It's too big...
Me for the pixel 8 pro. I'd rather the regular pixel 8 but if I'm going to keep this thing for 7 years (which I will; typing from a pixel 2) then I want it to be as feature rich as possible. Not looking forward to how big it's going to be when it finally gets delivered
Good lucky keeping it for so long...
I'm having lots of little issues with my 6 Pro...
There is simply less space inside smaller phones to add same features and battery as a larger model.
And then they can't justify small model having same, high price as pro versions, so they cut features to go along with reduced price.
There are some features that just can't be equal between a bigger phone and a smaller one (or would require gimping the bigger phone) like a bigger screen (obviously), bigger battery and more size for larger camera sensors
Not true. Many of the smaller phones on the market have additional features that the bigger ones don't. Or at least they used to when they existed.
If you can figure out a way to cram all of the shit in a 15 Pro Max into a form factor the size of an iPhone 4 not only will Apple suck your dick in the form of a well-earned half million dollar salary but you'll likely get a Nobel Prize for breakthroughs in quantum computing and also making atoms smaller.
Is this bait?
No, I agree with his point. Features do take space. Maybe we can make space for a headphone jack (🙄), but consumers demand more cameras, with a larger sensor, faster and more power hungry processors, bigger batteries. With any space limitation (even the Pro Max comes with a space limitation because it can't become an iPad...) there are feature tradeoffs, and obviously a smaller phone will fit fewer cameras, less cooling, a smaller battery, etc.
Of course they do. The S23 for example is smaller than the iPhone 15, was the same price on release (came out Feb 2023) and has features beating the iPhone 15 Pro Max, a much bigger and more recent device. Most features/hardware on the bigger phones exist in smaller phones, most of the extra space on larger phones is usually just taken up by a larger battery anyway. They can go watch some teardowns, look into all the software locked features like with the recent Pixel 8 phones, instead of blindly jumping to the defence of these mega-corporations who only want to upsell.
But yes, obviously some features are a lot harder to fit in a smaller space, but I thought that was the obvious asterisk to my comment. Perhaps they should spend some R&D on figuring that out though, rather than rehashing the same devices year after year which is just leading to e-waste.
(I'd love the 3.5mm port back too, but they all want to sell their wireless 'buds' now, so not going to happen for that reason alone :c)
So in other words it wasn't bait and you fucking knew that but you wanted to be willfully obtuse.
Are you that dense?
It's a very realistic example of what you would have to do to cram all of the shit from a large phone into a small phone. The features that are cut aren't fucking "arbitrary" unless you want to classify every feature difference as "abitrary" thereby making your definition of arbitrary meaningless.
So yes, it was bait.
Sure, just make it fatter.
That solution has been rejected every time it has been tried.
Rejected by who though? And has it really? All phones used to be fatter
As a woman: I'd love to use bigger phones - as soon as they give me pockets I can fit them into.
It's one of the reasons I find foldables so interesting. The Google Pixel Fold has the perfect form factor. If only it wasn't so expensive...
As a woman - I don't have a problem with pockets, I usually get them enlarged. The problem is with our small hands, which would make using a large phone one-handed impossible. The older smartphone I am still sometimes using as a modem/mp3 player is 7x14 cm, and this is absolutely my maximum. I mostly use a dumbphone, it is smaller than my palm and fits even in a shirt pocket.
I feel like hopefully with a potential paradigm shift, maybe one SIM card and number shared between several devices, one large phone or tablet for work or movies and a smaller feature phone for on demand urgent communications, we'll hopefully see the market for OEMs open up a bit wider and allow for further competition/collaboration across the whole portable electronics sector
Absolutely untrue. It’s a heat dissipation issue. iPhone minis had so many issues with heat they can’t make em anymore.
Apple wants you to think that bigger phones are better only because they can’t make them smaller.
There was a time where 7" was a damn tablet (looking at you, my old pal nexus 7)
7" plus an inch of bezels on each side. A Nexus 7 was nearly 10 inches.
Those bezels are useful though. The bigger and heavier the device the better grip you need in it.
Modern devices try to get around it with crazy accidental touch recognition that works some of the time. But older tablets with bezels give you a place to grip it without the need for touch rejection.
Modern devices try to get around it with crazy accidental touch recognition that works some of the time.
What you do is you take your thousand dollar fragile crystal oblong and you wrap it in a 30 dollar hunk of plastic that adds the correct bezels for actual human interaction and also provides a moderate amount of physical protection and strength.
It's not an entirely unreasonable approach since the part that's most susceptible to wear and tear is cheap and replacable vs wear on the fragile crystal and metal slab of magic.
True. This could have been implemented by manufacturers, like Nokia did with the shells for their 33xx-series phones. Instead they seem to be focused on style rather than usability.
I can't think of anyone in my social circle who owns and uses a phone sans-case in exactly the way the manufacturer sells it. It's in a wallet case, or a normal case, or it's got a clear jelly case, or a case that facilitates mounting in the car, etc etc.
I am always surprised at the colour of my phone on the rare occasion I take it out of its case, it's white, and my case - that entirely wraps it - is black.
I never use cases. I like my phone to look the way it’s supposed to.
I do use a screen protector, but that’s it.
Interesting.
See much everyday damage? How long do you keep your phones?
2 years or so. The edges get slight dings from keys/change. They resell on eBay for same price as any other used phone, and I include very detailed pics.
I miss my bezel'd phones. It was nice having something I could grip onto that wasn't screen.
Using diagonal screen size to measure phones doesn't work because of bezels and taller aspect ratios. The 5.5" iPhone 6 Plus (2014) is pretty much the same size as the 6.7" iPhone 15 Pro Max
I actually carried a 7 inch tablet in my pocket before it was cool, bezels and all. This was back on Android 2.3 when people would moan about tablet UIs and say that it's just a giant phone, to which I would say: Yea, and having a giant phone is awesome.
Personally, the Pixel 5 was the perfect size and weight for a phone.
No bulky cameras. No thick chassis. No glass adding pointless weight. Very usable as a one handed device. Symmetrical bezels.
Typing this from my pixel 5. The best sized phone ever. I think imo the use case for big ass 15 feet phones is a little overkill. Most people are just buying it because it's "premium".
The best sized phone ever.
Steve Jobs called the first release of the iPhone with its 3.5" screen, "the perfect size for human hands".
Say what you want about Steve's other claims, he was probably fairly right on that one. Humans have opposable thumbs and the average range of said thumbs when touching something cradled in the palm without external movement is about 3-4 inches.
And yet I'm typing this on a "moderate" sized Samsung A71, and to tap something on the top of the screen I need to use my other hand or shift the phone downwards in my grasp to do so.
I still have mine on my desk but it has a screen issue so it's unusable. I still pick it up just to feel it. It's just so good in the hand.
Currently using an Essential Ph1 running Lineage (Android 13) and I'm about to switch to a Pixel 4a of all things, because of size, weight (its plastic), cheap as hell (so I can keep a hot spare around and do testing for a low cost), and it has one of the highest NIT ratings of any unlockable phones.
The 5 looks good too, just not as bright, slightly larger, and a little heavier.
Edit:spelling
My son has the 4a and it's a great phone. Same size as the Pixel 5 too.
From what I've seen online, the 5 is trivially larger (like 1mm each way).
What drives me to the 4a is the brighter screen, slightly lighter, and plastic. So when I drop it (not if), it'll bounce better.
Also, they're cheap as hell from Walmart of all places, about $100, lol. So I can afford 2 or 3 of them for the cost of a newer phone that has performance and features I really don't care about.
Yeah I wish my 5a was a little smaller, it'd be perfect. Still been a great phone so far. But my screen is scratched to hell because I forgot to put a protector on it.
Add a screen protector - it can hide the scratches.
Pixel 5 is great, but 4a was perfect
Nexus 5 was a good size for me, this 4a is too big to be comfortable. If rather have the bezels back, too. Much easier to use without 100% screen coverage.
Yeah, its super annoying that you can't grab phones without touching the screen
Puts the virtual keyboard uncomfortably low, as well. I didn't mind the buttons having a dedicated space.
The s23 is basically the same size as the pixel 5.
S23 will cut your palm with its sharp edges though
I just don't get on with Samsung devices. The software bloat ruins their great hardware for me. That's an amazing looking phone though.
5 years ago, I would've agreed, but it's pretty good today
My perfect phone would be a galaxys s5 with modern camere processer and compatibility with graphene os
I recently busted out my Pixel 5 (currently using Pixel 7) to try out Lineage OS and absolutely love how it feels in my hands. It's light and easy to reach all of the screen with one hand. Man I miss that phone.
Nice. And with Lineage its fast, root and add Kernel Adiutor to really tweak both performance and battery life.
The day mines dies I might just not have a phone lol
Pixel 3 and Samsung S4 and j series were good
Ooooh nexus..
My Nexus 5 and 5X were the best phones I had ever owned, period
Hey, your Nexus 5X has called... actually it can't because its still stuck in a bootloop.
That is deadass how it died and I was big sad
Same for me actually. In my case it died during travelling, which was also super inconvenient. Then it got repaired, even for free although slightly out of warranty. Then it happened again shortly after. Such a dumpster fire of a ticking time bomb.
My 5x was the best phone I owned because I paid 250 for it and got that back from my credit card warranty and then another 450+ from a class action against LG.
my first ever smartphone was the 4. it was my favorite for the longest time. i kept using it as a backup and i have 2 others I've harvested for parts. i love how easy it is to take old phones apart :D
6 was the best, period. Could still be on sale today and be an awesome phone
I believe the (old but still decent) best small Android is the Samsung s10e
That's still my current phone. Newer phones just look so absolutely massive.
Same, holding on for dear life with my S10E. It's the best form factor, great power button finger print reader, dual SIM, I mean, what's not to love. (battery is kind of meh, but I've added a halo ring and a magnetic induction battery).
What's the point of a small phone if you're going to stick a big battery to it?
My phone is big, but I don't need an external battery. I'm curious to see the size and weight comparison between my phone with a big built in battery, and your phone + battery combo.
Except for the Bixby button, I mostly like my s10e. I have large hands, but still wish it was slightly shorter.
Have you looked into remapping the button? I use Button Remapper and I have it configured to open Google maps and Spotify
Using this right now. If they revived the galaxy mini line (~4in screen) I'd absolutely buy it.
Pixel 5 and Zenphone come to mind, too.
Zenfone and pixel 5 are same size as galaxy S22/S23
What irks me about the larger phones is that there is so much wasted screen real estate. The phone doubled in size, but can only show me half the number of items on my shopping list?
That sounds more like an iPhone problem than a large phone problem. You have complete control over both text size and display scaling in Android.
Google and Android aren't perfect but fuck man I love Android.
Buttfuck Man, my favorite super hero of all time. Can't wait till he gets his own movie.
And this wasn't just any but fuck man. It was the "perfect but fuck man I love"!
I just wish phones would get thicker, instead of longer. So they can fit beefier batteries.
I'd love to be able to charge my phone like twice a week
I'm currently in the market for a new phone because Samsung ended security updates for my current one, not because there's anything wrong with it. And I'm noticing that my choices seem to be buy a phablet or buy a total POS.
Remember when Samsung made a flagship phone in multiple sizes, and then also made a giant phone so big it had a built-in stylus? It wasn't that long ago. Now the flagship phone comes with a stylus.
Look into rooting it and putting a different Android rom on it, I'm sure there's something for your phone to extend its life quite a bit.
...unless you're tired of that phone.
Yeah, I'm still weighing that as an option.
It's dumb, but I'd sort of hate to take a nice, private rom and then sully it with Google Play services so I can get the apps I have to use for work.
You may want to take a look at Fairphone if you want a phone that gets updates for a long time. The current one will be supported at least until 2028, maybe 2031.
I'd love to get a fairphone, but the 4 is only available on T-Mobile (or it's MVNOs) which doesn't work for me, and the 5 has no plans for a US release.
'merica, land of the free, and of shitty carriers 😅.
I just want phones that are shorter. They keep getting longer, which means more risk of breaking, and means the keyboard is unusable in landscape since it blocks the textfield.
Conspiracy part of my brain wants to say thats by design.. To artificially increase sales by replacing broken ones.
Same reason they sealed up the phones so you couldnt replace the batteries/repair them.
as far as conspiracies go I think you could probably do better
not everyone is bold enough to artificially slow down the phone to frustrate you into upgrading like Apple did.
I bought an unlocked pixel 7a because of lots of custom roms once it goes out of support
It's huge and doesn't have a headphone jack or SD card slot but it's very fast and has a good camera
My dream phone would be:
Unlocked bootloader
Replaceable battery
Small
Expandable storage
Good camera
IR blaster
Updates provided for a long time
Stock Android
Very durable
I'd add NFC to that list because mobile payments are awesome.
ir blaster gang gang
The Samsung flagships (s22, 23) are the only "small" phones, but they're actually pretty good. I've been using Samsung for a few years now and it actually improves on the things that annoy me with stock android.
I'd buy that phone for sure. Sounds hella good.
The closest you could get is the fair phone, its not perfect but once its available where I am I'm thinking on getting it.
Nah personally I would trade SD card support for headphone jack any day, but hey I get why they got rid of it, something to do with the environment
Agreed.
Manufacturers seem to think that we all need a massive screen to watch films and play games on.
man I just miss being able to type and reach all corners of the screen with one hand without having to be a contortionist or accidentally clicking on the one-handed keyboard that I never actually use because I've already resigned to always using two hands anyways
I've since realized that you can turn off the one handed keyboard completely but the fact that it has to exist at all still annoys me
It's not the manufacturers fault that your and my hand sizes haven't kept up with demand. /s
I think it's part of a push of making your smartphone your "everything" device. I love small phones but I will say that some tasks are just impossible with them.
I guess most people browse the web and that's why bigger screens work better. I happily bought bigger phones. Some people like to pretend phones are for calls but that's just not true IME.
I just find a smaller screen easier to operate.
The size of the pixel 7a was a good compromise.
Also agreed. However the manufacturers know how many of each device they sell and seem to think the smaller form factor devices aren’t very popular. I imagine there’s multiple reasons, like the smaller phones tend to also have lower battery life and lack other features due to size and they tend to appeal to people on tighter budgets that upgrade less often.
I want a small phone with easy replaceable battery and a plastic sturdy screen.
A plastic screen? Doesn't that get scuffed up really easily?
Plastic will get scratched, but won't shatter. I honestly think a plastic screen with a glass protector is the ideal option.
I actually went opposite on my Pixel 8. A matte tpu screen protector gives you a self-healing protective layer that feels like paper and doesn't have glare. A beautiful bright display with a high refresh that feels like a kindle.
I'm still on my pixel 3 which is line at the cusp of the size i can handle. I want smaller but every new phone is bigger. It's so infuriating.
The #a line is usually a bit smaller then the flagships. The 4a was the perfect size. 3a was huge compared to it. 6a is slightly larger than the 4a. The 6 is massive compared to the 6a
I'm on a pixel 3 also. The size is important but the front facing speakers are amazing. I can't find anything else like it.
I remember the last time this got brought up and I complained about my thumb not being able to reach the other side of the iphone 3 mini. Well, I tried the Samsung Z Fold the other day and I really like how narrow it is to the point where my thumb can effortly reach the other side when the phone is folded. Perhaps I'll get that phone in the future when my current iPhone 13 mini dies. At the same time, I do enjoy my Apple Watch though and I appreciate the longetivity of the iPhone compared to other brands.
It's a nice idea, but I'd be worried about the wear and tear on the folding screen. I can't imagine it would hold up through the years of use I put phones through.
This is the angle that makes me reconsider folding phones. Either fold direction, and you’ve got a smaller screen that’s usable in one hand.
The Z fold is 67.1mm across in folded mode. The iPhone 12 & 13 Mini is 64.2mm.
So that must be my the cover making my iPhone hard to reach, gotcha. Though I suppose I wouldn't expect to use a cover as thick if I use the fold
My friend got the original galaxy fold and kept it until this year when she bought a fold5. She still has the original fold as a backup phone, too. I'm not sure longevity is necessarily a worry, by that metric.
I got the fold 3 and the one thing that suprised me above everything else is how sturdy the phone is. How durable it is. Ive had it for just over 2 years and i domt think i will upgrade when the contract ends. Its exactly what i need and is still working perfectly without a scratch on it.
Have the new Z Fold after years of owning borderline-phablets and the usability is much better. My previous phone (Galaxy S20+) felt too big and painful to use one-handed, yet typing with two hands felt awkward. This splits the use cases. Slim one-hand phone on the outside. Mini-tablet typing monster on the inside. 🤌
My phone is about 15cm (~5¾ in) tall, and to me, that's the absolute maximum. It's slightly too big. The width, about 7cm (~2¾ in) is totally fine.
This (Galaxy XCover 5) was the smallest phone that seemed to exist (and I wanted one woth durability, removable battery, SD slot, headphones etc). It was very expensive though.
Trying to find cheaper ones for various people in the extended family, they all specified "oh, not bigger than my current one", but it was impossible. There's basically nothing less than 16cm tall, and most are even bigger.
I'm scared of this one breaking. The XCover 6 is 17cm x 8cm.
That size os about the max for me too. I wonder what I'm gonna do if my current phone fails...
If it were shoes I'd say "just get ten sets of what's the right size", but the problem with tech is we're still going to want more ram, more storage etc.
Like who is going to keep all the buttons, ports, dimensions and connectivity, whilst upgrading the innards?
Like a Thinkpad of phones?
I... don't really see your point. Could you elaborate?
Computers, for example, reduced significantly with time. Better technology is allowing to put more transistors in smaller packages and fit more components in the same space. At the same time, the move to digital connectivity allows to save more space.
Anyway, even if we had the thinkpad of phones, why can't we also have the raspberry pi of phones?
Sorry, I was unclear. I've got a pair of workshoes that fit me perfectly - so I bought 5 pairs exactly the same. When my current pair wears out in a year, I'll replace it with an identical pair.
It would be tempting to buy 5 copies of my current phone - except by the time this one breaks in 3-4 years, the innards (processor/ram/storage) will be poor in comparison to newer versions, and it may not be able to run newer versions of software.
It is a shame that no company is saying "lets keep it basically the same on the outside, but improve the internal specs" - they tend to do things like making it bigger, removing headphone ports, removing other physical buttons, or making it thinner but giving it a rubbish battery that's nonreplaceable.
I used Thinkpad as a comparison, as you can still buy an older model of Thinkpad and pack it with newer innards - so buy the older model with the case you like, but refurbished with more ram, a better processor etc.
If you put my 2 year old Thinkpad laptop next to my old one, they look pretty much the same, except the new one is thinner and much lighter - they still both have physical touchpad buttons, the trackpoint, lots of ports down both sides. I can still use my older laptop bag, because they're nominally the same size and shape.
I wish some phone models followed a similar process - "here's the same thing you already have, but better".
I would absolutely love a barebones, tiny, configurable Raspberry Pi of phones.
Now I get it, thanks for taking your time to explain.
I feel the same, not only about phones, but with hardware in general.
Xperia 10 V is 15.5x6.8 cm.
Might be worth a try
That's not bad actually, still bigger though - but not by as much as most :)
Galaxy S23 is 14.6×7.1cm, so almost the same.
That looks perfect - until I saw it's £850! My current phone was about £250, which was more expensive than I wanted - but the only one that was small enough and had the dust/water/drop-off-a-ladder resistance.
Still, those S23s may be cheap in a few years when they're "old" :)
I wanted small phone after 4 years with op7t and went logically for S23. But few years back it would be massive phone. Nowadays I found it like a perfect sweet spot of size, weight.. Performance, software and camera wise it's the only option.
I got the S23 because it was smaller, then returned it and got a bigger phone. I guess I'm one of the people that only thought they wanted a smaller phone.
I did the opposite.
I always found big phones very hard to use (even though I have big hands), so I preferred small phones.
Then I got an S21, which was borderline too big (relative to the S10e), so I was looking for a solution and found phoneloops. Using this is so comfortable, I figured I don't really need small phones anymore.
I dropped my S21 and a couple of things went broke, so I figured I would try an S23 ultra with phoneloops.
It was comfortable to use with the loops. I liked the huge screen for consuming content and I found the pen pretty handy at times. But I just couldn't get used to the thickness and weight. I didn't like using it because of it. After two months I grabbed my old phone and was blown away by it's small size and weight. I ordered some replacement parts and switched back (daughterboard, loudspeaker, battery, glue). I appreciate it's size even more now.
I guess if they would make a 170g, 8mm thick phone with a 7 inch display (FLAT), I would definitely give it a try.
I didn't try the S21, but I always thought the S8 was a very comfortable phone to hold. It was tall, but narrow, and very thin. I'm not sure I'd go back to that now, but I did like it a lot at the time.
The S21 is wider by a lot (71mm vs 68mm)
There are just a handful of flagship phones coming out in the last two years that are sub 69mm wide: the zenphones, and the xperia 5 IV and V (and the apple iphone SE 2022)
I think the main smartphone market is kind of like the market for cars. The only people that can afford to buy them, can afford to keep up heavy consumer traffic, are the ones who are convinced they need to swap to the top of the line model with some sort of trade-in payment plan, where they want every new trendy thing, and every piece of bullshit technology that's not going to last even to the next flagship model. Basically, stupid people who are rich and are insecure about it. I'm certainly vulnerable to that to, just as I'm vulnerable to the unbearable lag on even just like a 6 year old phone, which should really not be that old, and then security updates and support are always a concern, I suppose.
I think maybe the solution, individually, might just be to root my phone, or install some linux alternative operating system, cause I don't wanna keep up with this bullshit anymore.
I'm trapped in a world of large 19:9 and 21:9 smartphones, unusable with one hand, and with screen space that's useless 90% of the time. I'm stuck without aux ports, and without any physical style keyboard, no nothin. I also want stuff like the DS stylus port and the flip camera they had on the zenfone 7, that shit is cool.
On the contrary, poorer people tend to buy oversized phones since that's the only device they have
This exactly. If you're spending anywhere from €250 - €350 on a phone and this is a big spend, you'll want to keep the device for longer and have a bigger screen because it seems like you're getting the most value for money.
The majority of phones in the world which make up the bulk of sales are exactly these types of phones: Samsung A07, Xiaomi, Realme, TCL, Motorola etc
Which is why I keep saying about Flip phones that if the OEM wants to see more sales, they need to price them in this range. Not at 1000 bucks+. At that price it will remain a niche product for the few.
Every 5th grader I know has a phone (I'm a parent not a creeper). So it's not just the rich and stupid. Cell network companies give these things away under 2 year plans that most can afford. And it's not just two year plans, my kids have $50 phones from Motorola that are +6". I think most people like a big phone and it's only us few that want to see sub 5" phones.
It's not so surprising they all have +6" phones, since there are no smaller options available, irrespective of price.
The Z Flip is hard to wrap a hand around? Was this written by a toddler?
I'd really like Google to make smaller phones again. The Nexus size was the perfect size.
I found my old ipod touch (5th gen, 4 inch screen) in the closet and power it on yesterday. Can't believe how small it is. I swear the screen was a lot larger when I bought it years ago. I guess my perception is skewed by modern smartphone screen size which keep getting bigger.
You also got a lot a bigger and taller on this years.
Fake news! Unihertz sells the Jelly
Tipping this in my Jelly 2. Great phone, if a bit too small for me. I reckon 4" is the sweet spot.
Still, better than my old slab for daily use, though I keep the old one around for its camera.
There's also a few models by cubot.
never heard of cubot, thanks for sharing
The (assumedly) ex-redditor urge to still not read the article
But yeah, they did mention it lol. I'd never heard much of them, but they're cheaper than I expected
A small phone with flagship features are not happening.
To get a smaller phone, you have to give up screen quality, camera quality, fingerprint scanners and other flagship features.
I just want a small flip phone that acts as a smartwatch paired to my main phone. Nobody makes that either.
I just want a small flip phone that acts as a smartwatch paired to my main phone. Nobody makes that either.
I'm sorry but this sounds even more fucking stupid than smartwatches*
Yeah, it's a specific use case thing that wouldn't make sense for most people.
I could see it being good for construction or something, keep your main phone in a bag or whatever while you have a paired flip phone on ya. If it gets destroyed due to whatever reason itd be easier to replace.
Yes, that is the kind of use case I'm talking about. Rather than beefing up a thousand dollar phone with a case and a holster, I'd rather keep the good phone somewhere safe while I take a far cheaper handset in my pocket.
Right now, the way I could have that is to have 2 lines with different phone numbers and different phone plans, so the monthly cost doesn't work out.
One less camera is fine, the other things make no sense. Good screens don't take more space, and fingerprint readers are tiny.
It doubly makes no sense when you consider that we did have small flagship phones until recently.
I used to have a Motorola Droid Mini, which was just a Droid Maxx with a smaller screen and battery.
The mini had a terrible TFT LCD screen.
Loved the build quality of that phone.
Actually, the Xperia 5 series from Sony is "small" in comparison, so is the Pixel 8 and they all have the same hardware specs - except the zoom lense. Which is a damn shame, because my Pixel 6 Pro is just a tad too big. I wouldn't wanna go back to my Xperia Z1 Compact, tbh. 4,3" is not big enough anymore...
The zenfone would like to have a word with you.
Oh? Does it do some of the things I've come to believe are impossible?
I mean take a look at it's spec sheet, i love mine it's a really solid phone. Only thing i wish it had was a micro sd slot and ir blaster.
I just want a small flip phone that acts as a smartwatch paired to my main phone. Nobody makes that either.
This exactly.
I've been dying for a refreshed Galaxy Folder but with Samsung Dex.
Give me a basic flip phone, my essential Android apps, and key me use the powerful processor docked in desktop mode like a laptop.
Their idea is but I giant phone or a watch phone. I love the mini. It’s too bad.
Smart phones killed small phones. Really, a small smart phone runs into usability problems.
I loved my old Kyocera slider, but all it was good for was phone and SMS.
1" screen, phone is about the size of a credit card.
It still exists, just not for us consumers. How else they gonna force us to use the newer networks that cost so much to build.
2G is now available only to commercial entities using it for data connections for remote reporting stuff. Oil fields still use it for SCADA reporting, for example.
"Small smart phones run into usability problems" for you.
Samsung S4 Mini was fantastic for me. Still own a couple. I'd be happy with an updated version.
weeps in dead battery
I had it flashed with LineageOS and would still legitimately use it as a daily driver if its charge would last longer than it takes for me to disconnect it from the charger and bring it outside my doorstep.
I had also bought a replacement battery but it was still so old that it barely made any difference.
Bummer.
Try some other batteries out there. Mine will still chew through even a good battery (Verizon version, no lineage for me).
Well, yeah, I have giant, manly hands. :)
Lol, I didnt downvote you, BTW. That was someone without a sense of humor!
It's cool, I'm not QUITE as downvote proof as I was on reddit, but I'm getting there! ;)
I'm actually using a Titan Pocket currently. Works well enough for me. The security updates are lagging behind that's getting me considering switching back, but I'm otherwise cautious how I use it.
It's a nice feeling device, and makes me wish they'd make more BlackBerry style phones with bigger displays and Android capability.
People see you whip the titan out and think "oh he's doing that rollback technology thing", then you use Android Pay and they really flip out lol.
I hope more manufacturers would adopt the Blackberry style of phones. Titan Pocket has proved that you can have Android running decently on such a device. So why not bring back QWERTY keyboards?
Same experience when i was using the Jelly 2, people loved it when i pulled it out to pay with NFC.
Still using an S10e, & getting around 7-8 hrs SOT, great phone, perfect size, good cameras & screen, with the bonus of SD card support & a headphone jack..
If you have been using that phone since it was launched, I doubt SOT is still that long.
Have the s10e as well. Got it 3 months after launch and I håbe the same battery experience. I'm very impressed by it, even if the phone is starting to get a bit sluggish.
Oh. Well nevermind then
I had to get the pro max because the 12 pro was getting too hard for me to read comfortably 😭😭
I just turned 40
Me reading this on my zenfone 10.
Zenfone 9 here, small phones with big features.
Zenfone 8 here. I like it very much but... having come from the Sony Xperia XZ1 Compct previously, i prefer the size of the Sony. :p
Zenfone gang unite
Very interesting! What is your view on it? Do they use a stock android, or do they heavily modify or cram it with bloat ware? For the first time I would consider buying an Asus phone, as it is really the last compact phone with flagship features.
I wish they would also make a premium 8 inch tablet, as it is a low quality mediatek graveyard for the moment
I think the S23 is the perfect size, I wish that was the standard, with some larger ones for people who like that.
I just got S23 because I wanted a flagship phone, but got tired of large phones that don't fit in pockets properly. So far S23's size has been really good. It's large enough that it doesn't get annoying to use it for a long time or read long articles, but still small enough that it's generally more convenient to carry everywhere.
God I loved the Nexus 4, I had iPhones from iPhone 3G to 4 moved to a Galaxy S3 which I absolutely despised due to the bloatware.. sold that on eBay and bought a Nexus 4 16gb for £280... Had Nexus/Pixel branded phones ever since.
It's amazing that last year when I was looking for a new phone, the one I bought was one of the smallest I could find - asus zenfone. Same physical size as my precious sony, just a few grams heavier. I'm super happy with it and ny other phone seems super huge in comparison.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
But for gadget enthusiasts like me, Google had other plans: it’s arbitrarily pushing buyers to the ginormous Pixel 8 Pro instead, bragging about how its larger handset can handle niftier features even though both phones have the same cameras and chips.
Plus, Samsung doesn’t actually let you use it like a small phone by default — you’ve gotta jump through hoops to use apps on the outer screen.
It’s called Unihertz, and its Jelly line is tiny and has nifty features like a BlackBerry keyboard or programmable buttons and extra LEDs.
The project hasn’t had a meaningful update in five months, and team leader Benjamin Bryant admits he had to pause to look for consulting work on the side.
“Samsung Display US is willing to champion us; the challenge will be convincing the Korean HQ that we are a viable enough project for them to invest time and resources into,” Bryant tells me.
Bryant admits that, in general, the small phone outlook is “bleak” and that some of his prospective customers “will be forced to upgrade in the coming year.”
The original article contains 809 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 78%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Haven't thought of small phones in a while, unless you look into dumb phones, like Nokia 3310 reboot.
Great little phone, but does not have smart features that smart phones have.
Nice to see the sizes being compared, I was not expecting it, but wow have phone become huge.
I wonder if Pine64 or similar would create a small phone, they have launched phones before...
The PPP is still too far from being useful for me to think they could deliver a uzbl small phone
Currently in the process of switching to a degoogled OnePlus 5 which is only taking a long time because I'm having to find the right combo of system apps and replacements for googles apps which I've all but done.
Seriously if you're trying to make a google free phone try LineageOS microG. It's a spin on Lineage that gives you replacements for a lot of core apps like a location provider, and a load of other stuff you wouldn't realise wasn't in pure android.
Now all I need is a new battery and I have a FOSS( bar firmware, blobs, and magic earth, because no FOSS map app works well in the UK for me) phone.
But honesty I love this phone it's just the right size and it still has touch buttons for home, back, and recent apps instead of on screen ones( which I kinda hate). Paired with dual cameras and a gorgeous 1080p OLED display.
And you want to know the best part?
It only cost me £50!
Seriously if you're sick of modern phones and yern for the good old days this is a pretty great middle ground.
Have you tried Organic Maps?
It's been awesome for me and it's saved me in the mountains by finding gas stations without service.
Close to a no frills Google Maps experience.
I did and unfortunately until they have a better database of the UK I'm stuck with magic maps. But I hope one day I can switch
That's why I switched to a flip phone. It's smaller in my pocket.
I really liked it when I tried my Samsung GT-S5830i again. It only has a 3.5" screen. It's just perfect for one-handed use. And it has a home button. I miss those.
But anyway, I still probably wouldn't choose a small phone. I prefer bigger ones overall. I really liked phablets when that was a thing. 6-7 inch screen but in 16:9 aspect ratio. For me, that's gold, as I usually use my phone in landscape (I am typing this on phone in landscape too).
Galaxy S8 was my perfect phone, I still keep it around and throw my SIM card in for certain things.
Try a large phone and you'll stay for the battery life alone.
God, the small phone crowd are so exhausting. The iPhone Mini. We get it, some people do like tiny phones, but as an example, for iPhone buyers that seems to be <3% of buyers. There is simply not a large enough market for them.
They will have to pry my iPhone 13 mini from my cold dead hands! Small phone gang unite! ✊
I want a smaller smartphone but not an iPhone. It's sad that Apple is the only manufacturer still producing reasonable sized phones. Small phone gang unite and push for other manufacturers to follow Apple on this one!
Unfortunately even Apple has announced they are discontinuing their smaller phone, citing poor sales, so it seems the small phone gang is too small to have any market power.
Small people want small phones. Small people have small hands. Small hands can't carry very much money.
It's simple economics.
Lol. You would think that, but I’m a small person counter example, and the market is proving there are more like me than those who want small phones.
I don't believe the small phone gang is small, we just have one option: a pretty expensive iPhone mini.
I want a small phone but not an iPhone, I have no option therefore manufactures assume I want a humongous phone. That's flawed logic.
I was going to say that the Mini should be pretty cheap now that it's two generations old -- the 13 is down to $629 new, after all, and the Mini ought to be $100 cheaper...
But it looks like Mini demand has actually driven prices much higher than the normal 13. Strange, almost as if there IS demand for small phones...
There is but the demand is small. The smaller the demand gets, the more they flock to whatever options are available.
Small supply means just about any demand change can have a big impact on price.
Apple doesn’t care about used phone pricing, and until they announced the discontinuation nobody really paid any attention to the 13 mini for a while.
If it is actually a larger demographic, then it would be huge opportunity for any of these other phone makers, especially those that are struggling. I highly doubt they are all unaware of the opportunity to make a smaller phone, so I suspect they have stayed away because they don’t think it will be a profitable market.
As production quantities go down, costs go up, and with the lower prices that these vendors sell at compared to Apple, their margins are already much thinner, so they have much more risk than Apple in introducing a smaller phone unless they are confident there is a large enough market for it. They simply have much less wiggle room than Apple in which to create a profitable product out of a smaller phone. Since Apple is pulling out and the others haven’t even bothered to try to compete with them in the decade that this big phone trend has been trending, I don’t think there’s any other conclusion that we can draw other than the small phone market is not large enough to pursue, but I’m open to other possibilities.
Edit: Someone else mentioned the small Asus Zenphone, which was also discontinued due to poor sales. That means at least one other manufacturer tried to make a small phone, and they came to the same conclusion that Apple did, so I see even less reason to doubt them.
ZenFone isn't small, it's the same size as a regular iPhone/Pro, not the Mini, so I can't see it proving anything about small phone demand that couldn't equally be applied to a regular iPhone or S23 etc. It also isn't discontinued.
What about Asus Zenfone?
Discontinued after the 10 🥲
https://www.androidauthority.com/asus-zenfone-division-shutdown-official-statement-3358842/
Thanks for the news, you made my day! I have an 8 which still works very well. I was on the verge of getting a 10 while I still could...
Did they cite any reason for the discontinuation?
Lack of sales
Make things up much?
And that only add validity to Apple’s reasoning. The small phone market is too small.
And apparently people buying small phones do not buy a new one every years but wait for them to die, further reducing the cash grab pot.
You have it backwards. You have no options because your gang is too small. You used to have options but the market has moved far far away from that.
They haven’t made it in two years now. They stopped with the 13.
Right, but I’m pretty sure they never said anything about discontinuing it altogether when the iPhone 14 came out, and most people just assumed they were just skipping a year on it. It wasn’t until right before they released the 15 lineup that they said the smaller phone was actually discontinued.
They never officially discontinued the mini line in the first place. They just didn't release new models after the 13. The announcement that they discontinued it was that they were discontinuing production of the 13 mini, which they had kept making alongside the regular 13 after the 14 lineup was released. Up until the release of the 15s, you could still buy the 13 mini new from Apple. Discontinuing the 13 mini killed off any way to buy one new.
There's still strong rumors that they might use the mini frame for the next SE model. It has pretty close to the same external dimensions as the 3rd gen SE, but would bring more screen real estate in the same package since it would be edge to edge instead of have the bezels. And it would also fit the rumored "release a mini every few years" strategy since they only release an SE every couple of years anyway.
The SE cannibalized mini sales because, for the most part, people that wanted the smaller size cared more about price than features, and the SE was the same size and quite a bit cheaper. Replacing the old iPhone 8 based SE with an iPhone mini based SE would kill two birds with one stone. It would let them use up a bunch of the excess stock they have laying around due to the poor sales, would bring the mini to a lower price point which would make it more popular, and would remove the competition between the SE and the mini.
Yeah, we’re saying the same thing, but for the sake of brevity, I might have spoken in a way that led you to believe I’m saying something else. I did not know about the rumors of the new SE using the mini frame, so that is some slightly good news for the small phone gang.
They say that all the time because it disposes of the issue without them needing to provide any evidence.
What’s your alternative theory?
What do you mean?
They don't want to make a product. They say "consumers don't like it". You ask for evidence. They say it's confidential, or they deliberately sabotage the availability of the product and say, "see?"
It's standard marketing.
I’m asking for your theory as to Apple’s reason for cancelling the small phone since you don’t believe the reason they’ve provided.
Deciding to make or not make a product is not a simple thing. Lots of decisions are part of it.
They just don't want to talk about it and want you to buy one of their other products.
So you have no alternative theory, but you’re just assuming Apple are lying about their reason because they won’t share their company data that led them to that conclusion?
Who said anything about lying? Why is this place so toxic.
It's marketing. They are telling you a story to sell products.
Unless you consider marketing lying, which I suppose is one possible interpretation...
You said they are just saying it’s poor sales, but it actually isn’t the reason. That would make their posted reason a lie.
If marketing is not based in reality, yes, it is lying, and there is nothing toxic about calling it what it is. There is plenty of dishonest marketing out there, and some of it is even legal. But I would hardly call a discontinuation announcement “marketing” since you’re literally doing the opposite of trying to sell them the product. You’re telling them they can no longer buy the product.
Could partly be that they don't want to support the development effort. Fewer phone sizes to support means they can get away with fewer staff working new versions of ios.
Yea i wanted iPhone mini as well but it's hard for me to miss abilities such as using OG Firefox (not some stupid skinned safari) with ublock origin and NewPipe.
There is the samsung galaxy base line up of the 'S series'.
The base galaxy s is the same size as a base iPhone. 6.1 inch screen.
There’s nothing mini about it in the least. The iPhone mini had a 5.4 inch screen.
Asus makes small phones (for now).
Fellow 13 mini user here, and I’ve never loved a phone more.
I still have an SE 2020 and now wondering if I can get a Mini. I had a 6+ and got rid of it because it made my hand cramp. I hate big phones.
The 13 mini made me switch to apple after years of android and even Ubuntu phone.
The form factor is the only reason I buy a new phone so let’s hope there’s still be a market for people like us.
Damn, Steve Jobs got his posthumous hooks in ya
They won't. It'll break and you won't be able to repair it before then.
iphone 13 is gaint! I don't I'm on the same page as you lol
I have a theory about small phones:
I see so many people asking for smaller phones, and, at the same time, the sales aren't very good when companies give it a try. How can both be true?
I believe (from my anedoctal observations) that small phone users tend to be people who don't want to replace their phones just for the sake of getting a newer one, and use their devices for several years, resulting in fewer sales than expected.
You see so many people asking for smaller phones in the forums and places you frequent.
They do not necessarily represent the views of the common public. I personally could do with a slightly smaller phone because the compact size allows for easier holding with single hands. But, sadly, I have not seen folks around me deciding which phone to buy based on their screen size. Neither is that a priority for them. Simply put, our Venn diagrams do not fully overlap.
I see a lot of people around me asking for smaller phones, from my family to work and friends. Perhaps it's something cultural, I don't know.
But I'm well aware that our perception can trick us in so many ways, and can't speak for itself. I would love to see atual data on phone size preferences around the world.
Still, I doubt that there aren't enough people wanting smaller phones to sustain a market niche.
I feel like when there is a small phone released, though, it has compromises on battery life and camera quality that people might not accept. I think a lot of people who “want a small phone” want a small phone with no other compromises other than the size of the phone.
I'm compromising on those things right now with a phone that's ten (!!) years old now. If I could get one running a current OS, that was between 120-150mm with a replaceable battery, headphone jack, usb c, and the ability to take a 1TB micro sd along with a physical sim, I would take that upgrade.
True, geographic diversity is a thing. Smaller phones like iPhone mini or Zenfone didn't caught up in the Indian market. But, should demand exist for them, atleast some companies ought to be making them in some parts of the world. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be happening and that presents one less choice to the customer.
I prefer smaller phones but none of them have the specs I want. I'm never looking for bleeding edge flagships either. I just want a good enough camera, good enough screen, goddamn micro SD slot damn it, and flat glass edges with a bit of a bezel so I can put a case and tempered glass on. And whatever the maker needs to make available for custom roms to be possible because I'm damn well going to keep using it after official updates end.
They wouldn't even need to make a new model as frequently, maybe minor revisions to replace no longer available components. USB port update shouldn't be needed for a good chunk of time since c seems pretty great. There's probably a shitload of tooling and supply chain issues to work out even ignoring the likely toxic workplace politics though.
If they ever produce a compact Fairphone that would be it
You meet them online, but they’re a vocal minority. Especially when a smaller phone means a smaller battery and worse camera system, two of the consistently top priorities for consumers.
Could be a larger demographic thing. Tech enthusiasts tend to have lots of devices(tablets, portable computers, etc.), so they tend to like the smaller form factor phones since they can always use their tablet/laptop when the small phone is limiting. Those people are also the ones you see in these kinds of online communities. For a lot of other people though, they’re getting the big phone and then not having a personal tablet/portable computer at all. Those aren’t the kind of people that hang out online and talk about tech stuff though.
The point I feel is that small phones have a small but vocal userbase and is not lucrative for smartphone manufacturers as more R&D is involved in the packaging for product which has a small audience
See also: manual transmissions in cars. I say this as someone who, until going electric, exclusively drove three pedal cars. People just weren't buying them, but toward the end it did seem like manufacturers were making it less appealing to buy them by only putting them in base models.
I also believe it's usually high(er) end model being smaller and people who want smaller phones want something cheaper. At least that's what's going on in my social bubble.
On the other hand I was genuinely torn between the pixel 7 pro and the pixel 7a when I lost my Pixel 5 because I wanted the pro features but the smaller size of the 7a. Ended up getting the pro because the size wasn't so far apart to make much of a difference, both were massive anyways compared to the 5.
But I bought second hand open box so maybe I'm not in the demographic that matters to Google.
Yes. I was shocked at the price of the iPhone mini.
I'm a staunch and unyielding small phone user and this does, admittedly, describe me. I used my LG Optimus (4.75" or 120mm) for something like 6 or 7 years and I loved it. I don't use my phone for games or video and just want something I can always tuck in a pocket (on women's clothes this means tiny). It was the perfect size for my hand. When it stopped working because of the 3G/4G change over I upgraded to the smallest, most decent phone I could find: a Samsung Galaxy S7. I am still using it something like 5 years later and I would never go bigger than this, it fits comfortably in one hand, is light, and the battery is replaceable and lasts me all day. It sticks out of pants pockets but fits in a coat or jacket pocket. I would be willing to pay a higher up front cost to get a new phone if it was exactly what I wanted though, about 5" with no bloatware, replaceable battery, headphone jack, and a great camera.
You're just like me hahaha. My first smartphone was an LG Optimus too, the L70 model. I used for almost the same amount of time, until 2020. It still works, but I stopped using it due to the lack of storage space (2GB only) and older android version. I still think that phone is the perfect size, and would love to have the same model, but with upgraded specs. Then I had to get another one, and moved to Samsung too, but the A01 core.
Yeah the older android version is what killed it for me really, as I would have even kept using it as a wireless device. I couldn't install my preferred browser, email app, reddit is fun etc on it after enough years. I even rooted it and looked into installing a new version of Android on it but couldn't haha. It was compact, comfortable to hold, but big enough to browse and read text or to use an onscreen keyboard without much trouble. I was really disappointed to learn that there just were no phones compatible with 4G/LTE running Android 8 or higher that size, not even cheapie ones.
I managed to install lineageos on mine and extend its life for a few years, but the storage limitation was the bottleneck, as I had about 600mb for all my apps and data. I still used that device for a good while, even after buying another, because that size is so comfortable to me. It was so sad when if stopped working after emmc wear :(
I think you may be on to something. I keep hearing podcast ads for a t-mobile phone upgrade service that brags about offering 2 year upgrades, which sounds bizarre to me because I want my phones to last at least 3 years.
Maybe it's about perspective. When smaller phones were the default, other phones were more of an exclusion. When bigger phones became the defacto default, smaller phones started to seem smaller in spec in comparison (mostly battery) while being at about the same price.
I don't want smaller phones, I'm just having a hard time growing my hands and pockets to keep up.
People have been saying this for the last 5 years and will continue saying this for the next 5 years. They make less smaller phones cuz people don't buy them
That will be a side effect of them locking abitrary features behind the bigger and thus more expensive models, if there was feature parity smaller phones would probably still be the norm.
Yeah, I only got the Pixel 6 Pro because of the zoom lense...i would not have chosen it otherwise. It's too big...
Me for the pixel 8 pro. I'd rather the regular pixel 8 but if I'm going to keep this thing for 7 years (which I will; typing from a pixel 2) then I want it to be as feature rich as possible. Not looking forward to how big it's going to be when it finally gets delivered
Good lucky keeping it for so long... I'm having lots of little issues with my 6 Pro...
There is simply less space inside smaller phones to add same features and battery as a larger model.
And then they can't justify small model having same, high price as pro versions, so they cut features to go along with reduced price.
There are some features that just can't be equal between a bigger phone and a smaller one (or would require gimping the bigger phone) like a bigger screen (obviously), bigger battery and more size for larger camera sensors
Not true. Many of the smaller phones on the market have additional features that the bigger ones don't. Or at least they used to when they existed.
If you can figure out a way to cram all of the shit in a 15 Pro Max into a form factor the size of an iPhone 4 not only will Apple suck your dick in the form of a well-earned half million dollar salary but you'll likely get a Nobel Prize for breakthroughs in quantum computing and also making atoms smaller.
Is this bait?
No, I agree with his point. Features do take space. Maybe we can make space for a headphone jack (🙄), but consumers demand more cameras, with a larger sensor, faster and more power hungry processors, bigger batteries. With any space limitation (even the Pro Max comes with a space limitation because it can't become an iPad...) there are feature tradeoffs, and obviously a smaller phone will fit fewer cameras, less cooling, a smaller battery, etc.
Of course they do. The S23 for example is smaller than the iPhone 15, was the same price on release (came out Feb 2023) and has features beating the iPhone 15 Pro Max, a much bigger and more recent device. Most features/hardware on the bigger phones exist in smaller phones, most of the extra space on larger phones is usually just taken up by a larger battery anyway. They can go watch some teardowns, look into all the software locked features like with the recent Pixel 8 phones, instead of blindly jumping to the defence of these mega-corporations who only want to upsell.
But yes, obviously some features are a lot harder to fit in a smaller space, but I thought that was the obvious asterisk to my comment. Perhaps they should spend some R&D on figuring that out though, rather than rehashing the same devices year after year which is just leading to e-waste.
(I'd love the 3.5mm port back too, but they all want to sell their wireless 'buds' now, so not going to happen for that reason alone :c)
So in other words it wasn't bait and you fucking knew that but you wanted to be willfully obtuse.
Are you that dense?
It's a very realistic example of what you would have to do to cram all of the shit from a large phone into a small phone. The features that are cut aren't fucking "arbitrary" unless you want to classify every feature difference as "abitrary" thereby making your definition of arbitrary meaningless.
So yes, it was bait.
Sure, just make it fatter.
That solution has been rejected every time it has been tried.
Rejected by who though? And has it really? All phones used to be fatter
As a woman: I'd love to use bigger phones - as soon as they give me pockets I can fit them into.
It's one of the reasons I find foldables so interesting. The Google Pixel Fold has the perfect form factor. If only it wasn't so expensive...
As a woman - I don't have a problem with pockets, I usually get them enlarged. The problem is with our small hands, which would make using a large phone one-handed impossible. The older smartphone I am still sometimes using as a modem/mp3 player is 7x14 cm, and this is absolutely my maximum. I mostly use a dumbphone, it is smaller than my palm and fits even in a shirt pocket.
I feel like hopefully with a potential paradigm shift, maybe one SIM card and number shared between several devices, one large phone or tablet for work or movies and a smaller feature phone for on demand urgent communications, we'll hopefully see the market for OEMs open up a bit wider and allow for further competition/collaboration across the whole portable electronics sector
Absolutely untrue. It’s a heat dissipation issue. iPhone minis had so many issues with heat they can’t make em anymore.
Apple wants you to think that bigger phones are better only because they can’t make them smaller.
There was a time where 7" was a damn tablet (looking at you, my old pal nexus 7)
7" plus an inch of bezels on each side. A Nexus 7 was nearly 10 inches.
Those bezels are useful though. The bigger and heavier the device the better grip you need in it.
Modern devices try to get around it with crazy accidental touch recognition that works some of the time. But older tablets with bezels give you a place to grip it without the need for touch rejection.
What you do is you take your thousand dollar fragile crystal oblong and you wrap it in a 30 dollar hunk of plastic that adds the correct bezels for actual human interaction and also provides a moderate amount of physical protection and strength.
It's not an entirely unreasonable approach since the part that's most susceptible to wear and tear is cheap and replacable vs wear on the fragile crystal and metal slab of magic.
True. This could have been implemented by manufacturers, like Nokia did with the shells for their 33xx-series phones. Instead they seem to be focused on style rather than usability.
I can't think of anyone in my social circle who owns and uses a phone sans-case in exactly the way the manufacturer sells it. It's in a wallet case, or a normal case, or it's got a clear jelly case, or a case that facilitates mounting in the car, etc etc.
I am always surprised at the colour of my phone on the rare occasion I take it out of its case, it's white, and my case - that entirely wraps it - is black.
I never use cases. I like my phone to look the way it’s supposed to.
I do use a screen protector, but that’s it.
Interesting.
See much everyday damage? How long do you keep your phones?
2 years or so. The edges get slight dings from keys/change. They resell on eBay for same price as any other used phone, and I include very detailed pics.
I miss my bezel'd phones. It was nice having something I could grip onto that wasn't screen.
Using diagonal screen size to measure phones doesn't work because of bezels and taller aspect ratios. The 5.5" iPhone 6 Plus (2014) is pretty much the same size as the 6.7" iPhone 15 Pro Max
I actually carried a 7 inch tablet in my pocket before it was cool, bezels and all. This was back on Android 2.3 when people would moan about tablet UIs and say that it's just a giant phone, to which I would say: Yea, and having a giant phone is awesome.
Personally, the Pixel 5 was the perfect size and weight for a phone.
No bulky cameras. No thick chassis. No glass adding pointless weight. Very usable as a one handed device. Symmetrical bezels.
Typing this from my pixel 5. The best sized phone ever. I think imo the use case for big ass 15 feet phones is a little overkill. Most people are just buying it because it's "premium".
Steve Jobs called the first release of the iPhone with its 3.5" screen, "the perfect size for human hands".
Say what you want about Steve's other claims, he was probably fairly right on that one. Humans have opposable thumbs and the average range of said thumbs when touching something cradled in the palm without external movement is about 3-4 inches.
And yet I'm typing this on a "moderate" sized Samsung A71, and to tap something on the top of the screen I need to use my other hand or shift the phone downwards in my grasp to do so.
This is funny to watch after Apple killed the mini iPhone and replaced it with another plus sized iPhone
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
This is funny to watch after Apple killed the mini iPhone and replaced it with another plus sized iPhone
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I'm still using mine.
I still have mine on my desk but it has a screen issue so it's unusable. I still pick it up just to feel it. It's just so good in the hand.
Currently using an Essential Ph1 running Lineage (Android 13) and I'm about to switch to a Pixel 4a of all things, because of size, weight (its plastic), cheap as hell (so I can keep a hot spare around and do testing for a low cost), and it has one of the highest NIT ratings of any unlockable phones.
The 5 looks good too, just not as bright, slightly larger, and a little heavier.
Edit:spelling
My son has the 4a and it's a great phone. Same size as the Pixel 5 too.
From what I've seen online, the 5 is trivially larger (like 1mm each way).
What drives me to the 4a is the brighter screen, slightly lighter, and plastic. So when I drop it (not if), it'll bounce better.
Also, they're cheap as hell from Walmart of all places, about $100, lol. So I can afford 2 or 3 of them for the cost of a newer phone that has performance and features I really don't care about.
Yeah I wish my 5a was a little smaller, it'd be perfect. Still been a great phone so far. But my screen is scratched to hell because I forgot to put a protector on it.
Add a screen protector - it can hide the scratches.
Pixel 5 is great, but 4a was perfect
Nexus 5 was a good size for me, this 4a is too big to be comfortable. If rather have the bezels back, too. Much easier to use without 100% screen coverage.
Yeah, its super annoying that you can't grab phones without touching the screen
Puts the virtual keyboard uncomfortably low, as well. I didn't mind the buttons having a dedicated space.
The s23 is basically the same size as the pixel 5.
https://m.gsmarena.com/size-compare-3d.php3?idPhone1=10386&idPhone2=12082
S23 will cut your palm with its sharp edges though
I just don't get on with Samsung devices. The software bloat ruins their great hardware for me. That's an amazing looking phone though.
5 years ago, I would've agreed, but it's pretty good today
My perfect phone would be a galaxys s5 with modern camere processer and compatibility with graphene os
I recently busted out my Pixel 5 (currently using Pixel 7) to try out Lineage OS and absolutely love how it feels in my hands. It's light and easy to reach all of the screen with one hand. Man I miss that phone.
Nice. And with Lineage its fast, root and add Kernel Adiutor to really tweak both performance and battery life.
The day mines dies I might just not have a phone lol
Pixel 3 and Samsung S4 and j series were good
Ooooh nexus..
My Nexus 5 and 5X were the best phones I had ever owned, period
Hey, your Nexus 5X has called... actually it can't because its still stuck in a bootloop.
That is deadass how it died and I was big sad
Same for me actually. In my case it died during travelling, which was also super inconvenient. Then it got repaired, even for free although slightly out of warranty. Then it happened again shortly after. Such a dumpster fire of a ticking time bomb.
My 5x was the best phone I owned because I paid 250 for it and got that back from my credit card warranty and then another 450+ from a class action against LG.
my first ever smartphone was the 4. it was my favorite for the longest time. i kept using it as a backup and i have 2 others I've harvested for parts. i love how easy it is to take old phones apart :D
6 was the best, period. Could still be on sale today and be an awesome phone
I believe the (old but still decent) best small Android is the Samsung s10e
That's still my current phone. Newer phones just look so absolutely massive.
Same, holding on for dear life with my S10E. It's the best form factor, great power button finger print reader, dual SIM, I mean, what's not to love. (battery is kind of meh, but I've added a halo ring and a magnetic induction battery).
What's the point of a small phone if you're going to stick a big battery to it?
My phone is big, but I don't need an external battery. I'm curious to see the size and weight comparison between my phone with a big built in battery, and your phone + battery combo.
Except for the Bixby button, I mostly like my s10e. I have large hands, but still wish it was slightly shorter.
Have you looked into remapping the button? I use Button Remapper and I have it configured to open Google maps and Spotify
Using this right now. If they revived the galaxy mini line (~4in screen) I'd absolutely buy it.
Pixel 5 and Zenphone come to mind, too.
Zenfone and pixel 5 are same size as galaxy S22/S23
What irks me about the larger phones is that there is so much wasted screen real estate. The phone doubled in size, but can only show me half the number of items on my shopping list?
That sounds more like an iPhone problem than a large phone problem. You have complete control over both text size and display scaling in Android.
Google and Android aren't perfect but fuck man I love Android.
Buttfuck Man, my favorite super hero of all time. Can't wait till he gets his own movie.
And this wasn't just any but fuck man. It was the "perfect but fuck man I love"!
I just wish phones would get thicker, instead of longer. So they can fit beefier batteries.
I'd love to be able to charge my phone like twice a week
I'm currently in the market for a new phone because Samsung ended security updates for my current one, not because there's anything wrong with it. And I'm noticing that my choices seem to be buy a phablet or buy a total POS.
Remember when Samsung made a flagship phone in multiple sizes, and then also made a giant phone so big it had a built-in stylus? It wasn't that long ago. Now the flagship phone comes with a stylus.
Look into rooting it and putting a different Android rom on it, I'm sure there's something for your phone to extend its life quite a bit.
...unless you're tired of that phone.
Yeah, I'm still weighing that as an option.
It's dumb, but I'd sort of hate to take a nice, private rom and then sully it with Google Play services so I can get the apps I have to use for work.
You may want to take a look at Fairphone if you want a phone that gets updates for a long time. The current one will be supported at least until 2028, maybe 2031.
I'd love to get a fairphone, but the 4 is only available on T-Mobile (or it's MVNOs) which doesn't work for me, and the 5 has no plans for a US release.
'merica, land of the free, and of shitty carriers 😅.
I just want phones that are shorter. They keep getting longer, which means more risk of breaking, and means the keyboard is unusable in landscape since it blocks the textfield.
Conspiracy part of my brain wants to say thats by design.. To artificially increase sales by replacing broken ones.
Same reason they sealed up the phones so you couldnt replace the batteries/repair them.
as far as conspiracies go I think you could probably do better
not everyone is bold enough to artificially slow down the phone to frustrate you into upgrading like Apple did.
Jtlyk, you can use a custom keyboard, like Swift Key. Many have the option to scale according to your preferences.
I bought an unlocked pixel 7a because of lots of custom roms once it goes out of support
It's huge and doesn't have a headphone jack or SD card slot but it's very fast and has a good camera
My dream phone would be:
Unlocked bootloader
Replaceable battery
Small
Expandable storage
Good camera
IR blaster
Updates provided for a long time
Stock Android
Very durable
I'd add NFC to that list because mobile payments are awesome.
ir blaster gang gang
The Samsung flagships (s22, 23) are the only "small" phones, but they're actually pretty good. I've been using Samsung for a few years now and it actually improves on the things that annoy me with stock android.
I'd buy that phone for sure. Sounds hella good.
The closest you could get is the fair phone, its not perfect but once its available where I am I'm thinking on getting it.
Nah personally I would trade SD card support for headphone jack any day, but hey I get why they got rid of it, something to do with the environment
Agreed.
Manufacturers seem to think that we all need a massive screen to watch films and play games on.
man I just miss being able to type and reach all corners of the screen with one hand without having to be a contortionist or accidentally clicking on the one-handed keyboard that I never actually use because I've already resigned to always using two hands anyways
I've since realized that you can turn off the one handed keyboard completely but the fact that it has to exist at all still annoys me
It's not the manufacturers fault that your and my hand sizes haven't kept up with demand. /s
I think it's part of a push of making your smartphone your "everything" device. I love small phones but I will say that some tasks are just impossible with them.
I guess most people browse the web and that's why bigger screens work better. I happily bought bigger phones. Some people like to pretend phones are for calls but that's just not true IME.
I just find a smaller screen easier to operate.
The size of the pixel 7a was a good compromise.
Also agreed. However the manufacturers know how many of each device they sell and seem to think the smaller form factor devices aren’t very popular. I imagine there’s multiple reasons, like the smaller phones tend to also have lower battery life and lack other features due to size and they tend to appeal to people on tighter budgets that upgrade less often.
I want a small phone with easy replaceable battery and a plastic sturdy screen.
A plastic screen? Doesn't that get scuffed up really easily?
Plastic will get scratched, but won't shatter. I honestly think a plastic screen with a glass protector is the ideal option.
I actually went opposite on my Pixel 8. A matte tpu screen protector gives you a self-healing protective layer that feels like paper and doesn't have glare. A beautiful bright display with a high refresh that feels like a kindle.
I'm still on my pixel 3 which is line at the cusp of the size i can handle. I want smaller but every new phone is bigger. It's so infuriating.
The #a line is usually a bit smaller then the flagships. The 4a was the perfect size. 3a was huge compared to it. 6a is slightly larger than the 4a. The 6 is massive compared to the 6a
I'm on a pixel 3 also. The size is important but the front facing speakers are amazing. I can't find anything else like it.
cries in Pixel 6a I miss my pixel 3...
I remember the last time this got brought up and I complained about my thumb not being able to reach the other side of the iphone 3 mini. Well, I tried the Samsung Z Fold the other day and I really like how narrow it is to the point where my thumb can effortly reach the other side when the phone is folded. Perhaps I'll get that phone in the future when my current iPhone 13 mini dies. At the same time, I do enjoy my Apple Watch though and I appreciate the longetivity of the iPhone compared to other brands.
It's a nice idea, but I'd be worried about the wear and tear on the folding screen. I can't imagine it would hold up through the years of use I put phones through.
This is the angle that makes me reconsider folding phones. Either fold direction, and you’ve got a smaller screen that’s usable in one hand.
The Z fold is 67.1mm across in folded mode. The iPhone 12 & 13 Mini is 64.2mm.
So that must be my the cover making my iPhone hard to reach, gotcha. Though I suppose I wouldn't expect to use a cover as thick if I use the fold
My friend got the original galaxy fold and kept it until this year when she bought a fold5. She still has the original fold as a backup phone, too. I'm not sure longevity is necessarily a worry, by that metric.
I got the fold 3 and the one thing that suprised me above everything else is how sturdy the phone is. How durable it is. Ive had it for just over 2 years and i domt think i will upgrade when the contract ends. Its exactly what i need and is still working perfectly without a scratch on it.
Have the new Z Fold after years of owning borderline-phablets and the usability is much better. My previous phone (Galaxy S20+) felt too big and painful to use one-handed, yet typing with two hands felt awkward. This splits the use cases. Slim one-hand phone on the outside. Mini-tablet typing monster on the inside. 🤌
I used my galaxy 4s mini for literally a decade.
My phone is about 15cm (~5¾ in) tall, and to me, that's the absolute maximum. It's slightly too big. The width, about 7cm (~2¾ in) is totally fine.
This (Galaxy XCover 5) was the smallest phone that seemed to exist (and I wanted one woth durability, removable battery, SD slot, headphones etc). It was very expensive though.
Trying to find cheaper ones for various people in the extended family, they all specified "oh, not bigger than my current one", but it was impossible. There's basically nothing less than 16cm tall, and most are even bigger.
I'm scared of this one breaking. The XCover 6 is 17cm x 8cm.
That size os about the max for me too. I wonder what I'm gonna do if my current phone fails...
If it were shoes I'd say "just get ten sets of what's the right size", but the problem with tech is we're still going to want more ram, more storage etc.
Like who is going to keep all the buttons, ports, dimensions and connectivity, whilst upgrading the innards?
Like a Thinkpad of phones?
I... don't really see your point. Could you elaborate?
Computers, for example, reduced significantly with time. Better technology is allowing to put more transistors in smaller packages and fit more components in the same space. At the same time, the move to digital connectivity allows to save more space.
Anyway, even if we had the thinkpad of phones, why can't we also have the raspberry pi of phones?
Sorry, I was unclear. I've got a pair of workshoes that fit me perfectly - so I bought 5 pairs exactly the same. When my current pair wears out in a year, I'll replace it with an identical pair.
It would be tempting to buy 5 copies of my current phone - except by the time this one breaks in 3-4 years, the innards (processor/ram/storage) will be poor in comparison to newer versions, and it may not be able to run newer versions of software.
It is a shame that no company is saying "lets keep it basically the same on the outside, but improve the internal specs" - they tend to do things like making it bigger, removing headphone ports, removing other physical buttons, or making it thinner but giving it a rubbish battery that's nonreplaceable.
I used Thinkpad as a comparison, as you can still buy an older model of Thinkpad and pack it with newer innards - so buy the older model with the case you like, but refurbished with more ram, a better processor etc.
If you put my 2 year old Thinkpad laptop next to my old one, they look pretty much the same, except the new one is thinner and much lighter - they still both have physical touchpad buttons, the trackpoint, lots of ports down both sides. I can still use my older laptop bag, because they're nominally the same size and shape.
I wish some phone models followed a similar process - "here's the same thing you already have, but better".
I would absolutely love a barebones, tiny, configurable Raspberry Pi of phones.
Now I get it, thanks for taking your time to explain. I feel the same, not only about phones, but with hardware in general.
Xperia 10 V is 15.5x6.8 cm. Might be worth a try
That's not bad actually, still bigger though - but not by as much as most :)
Galaxy S23 is 14.6×7.1cm, so almost the same.
That looks perfect - until I saw it's £850! My current phone was about £250, which was more expensive than I wanted - but the only one that was small enough and had the dust/water/drop-off-a-ladder resistance.
Still, those S23s may be cheap in a few years when they're "old" :)
I wanted small phone after 4 years with op7t and went logically for S23. But few years back it would be massive phone. Nowadays I found it like a perfect sweet spot of size, weight.. Performance, software and camera wise it's the only option.
I got the S23 because it was smaller, then returned it and got a bigger phone. I guess I'm one of the people that only thought they wanted a smaller phone.
I did the opposite.
I always found big phones very hard to use (even though I have big hands), so I preferred small phones.
Then I got an S21, which was borderline too big (relative to the S10e), so I was looking for a solution and found phoneloops. Using this is so comfortable, I figured I don't really need small phones anymore.
I dropped my S21 and a couple of things went broke, so I figured I would try an S23 ultra with phoneloops.
It was comfortable to use with the loops. I liked the huge screen for consuming content and I found the pen pretty handy at times. But I just couldn't get used to the thickness and weight. I didn't like using it because of it. After two months I grabbed my old phone and was blown away by it's small size and weight. I ordered some replacement parts and switched back (daughterboard, loudspeaker, battery, glue). I appreciate it's size even more now.
I guess if they would make a 170g, 8mm thick phone with a 7 inch display (FLAT), I would definitely give it a try.
I didn't try the S21, but I always thought the S8 was a very comfortable phone to hold. It was tall, but narrow, and very thin. I'm not sure I'd go back to that now, but I did like it a lot at the time.
The S21 is wider by a lot (71mm vs 68mm)
There are just a handful of flagship phones coming out in the last two years that are sub 69mm wide: the zenphones, and the xperia 5 IV and V (and the apple iphone SE 2022)
I think the main smartphone market is kind of like the market for cars. The only people that can afford to buy them, can afford to keep up heavy consumer traffic, are the ones who are convinced they need to swap to the top of the line model with some sort of trade-in payment plan, where they want every new trendy thing, and every piece of bullshit technology that's not going to last even to the next flagship model. Basically, stupid people who are rich and are insecure about it. I'm certainly vulnerable to that to, just as I'm vulnerable to the unbearable lag on even just like a 6 year old phone, which should really not be that old, and then security updates and support are always a concern, I suppose. I think maybe the solution, individually, might just be to root my phone, or install some linux alternative operating system, cause I don't wanna keep up with this bullshit anymore. I'm trapped in a world of large 19:9 and 21:9 smartphones, unusable with one hand, and with screen space that's useless 90% of the time. I'm stuck without aux ports, and without any physical style keyboard, no nothin. I also want stuff like the DS stylus port and the flip camera they had on the zenfone 7, that shit is cool.
On the contrary, poorer people tend to buy oversized phones since that's the only device they have
This exactly. If you're spending anywhere from €250 - €350 on a phone and this is a big spend, you'll want to keep the device for longer and have a bigger screen because it seems like you're getting the most value for money.
The majority of phones in the world which make up the bulk of sales are exactly these types of phones: Samsung A07, Xiaomi, Realme, TCL, Motorola etc
Which is why I keep saying about Flip phones that if the OEM wants to see more sales, they need to price them in this range. Not at 1000 bucks+. At that price it will remain a niche product for the few.
Every 5th grader I know has a phone (I'm a parent not a creeper). So it's not just the rich and stupid. Cell network companies give these things away under 2 year plans that most can afford. And it's not just two year plans, my kids have $50 phones from Motorola that are +6". I think most people like a big phone and it's only us few that want to see sub 5" phones.
It's not so surprising they all have +6" phones, since there are no smaller options available, irrespective of price.
The Z Flip is hard to wrap a hand around? Was this written by a toddler?
I'd really like Google to make smaller phones again. The Nexus size was the perfect size.
I found my old ipod touch (5th gen, 4 inch screen) in the closet and power it on yesterday. Can't believe how small it is. I swear the screen was a lot larger when I bought it years ago. I guess my perception is skewed by modern smartphone screen size which keep getting bigger.
You also got a lot a bigger and taller on this years.
Fake news! Unihertz sells the Jelly
Tipping this in my Jelly 2. Great phone, if a bit too small for me. I reckon 4" is the sweet spot.
Still, better than my old slab for daily use, though I keep the old one around for its camera.
There's also a few models by cubot.
never heard of cubot, thanks for sharing
The (assumedly) ex-redditor urge to still not read the articleBut yeah, they did mention it lol. I'd never heard much of them, but they're cheaper than I expected
A small phone with flagship features are not happening.
To get a smaller phone, you have to give up screen quality, camera quality, fingerprint scanners and other flagship features.
I just want a small flip phone that acts as a smartwatch paired to my main phone. Nobody makes that either.
I'm sorry but this sounds even more fucking stupid than smartwatches*
Yeah, it's a specific use case thing that wouldn't make sense for most people.
I could see it being good for construction or something, keep your main phone in a bag or whatever while you have a paired flip phone on ya. If it gets destroyed due to whatever reason itd be easier to replace.
Yes, that is the kind of use case I'm talking about. Rather than beefing up a thousand dollar phone with a case and a holster, I'd rather keep the good phone somewhere safe while I take a far cheaper handset in my pocket.
Right now, the way I could have that is to have 2 lines with different phone numbers and different phone plans, so the monthly cost doesn't work out.
One less camera is fine, the other things make no sense. Good screens don't take more space, and fingerprint readers are tiny.
It doubly makes no sense when you consider that we did have small flagship phones until recently.
I used to have a Motorola Droid Mini, which was just a Droid Maxx with a smaller screen and battery.
The mini had a terrible TFT LCD screen.
Loved the build quality of that phone.
Actually, the Xperia 5 series from Sony is "small" in comparison, so is the Pixel 8 and they all have the same hardware specs - except the zoom lense. Which is a damn shame, because my Pixel 6 Pro is just a tad too big. I wouldn't wanna go back to my Xperia Z1 Compact, tbh. 4,3" is not big enough anymore...
The zenfone would like to have a word with you.
Oh? Does it do some of the things I've come to believe are impossible?
I mean take a look at it's spec sheet, i love mine it's a really solid phone. Only thing i wish it had was a micro sd slot and ir blaster.
This exactly.
I've been dying for a refreshed Galaxy Folder but with Samsung Dex.
Give me a basic flip phone, my essential Android apps, and key me use the powerful processor docked in desktop mode like a laptop.
Their idea is but I giant phone or a watch phone. I love the mini. It’s too bad.
Smart phones killed small phones. Really, a small smart phone runs into usability problems.
I loved my old Kyocera slider, but all it was good for was phone and SMS.
1" screen, phone is about the size of a credit card.
https://a.co/d/0xKoRVp
2G is dead in most places
It still exists, just not for us consumers. How else they gonna force us to use the newer networks that cost so much to build.
2G is now available only to commercial entities using it for data connections for remote reporting stuff. Oil fields still use it for SCADA reporting, for example.
"Small smart phones run into usability problems" for you.
Samsung S4 Mini was fantastic for me. Still own a couple. I'd be happy with an updated version.
weeps in dead battery
I had it flashed with LineageOS and would still legitimately use it as a daily driver if its charge would last longer than it takes for me to disconnect it from the charger and bring it outside my doorstep.
I had also bought a replacement battery but it was still so old that it barely made any difference.
Bummer.
Try some other batteries out there. Mine will still chew through even a good battery (Verizon version, no lineage for me).
Well, yeah, I have giant, manly hands. :)
Lol, I didnt downvote you, BTW. That was someone without a sense of humor!
It's cool, I'm not QUITE as downvote proof as I was on reddit, but I'm getting there! ;)
I'm actually using a Titan Pocket currently. Works well enough for me. The security updates are lagging behind that's getting me considering switching back, but I'm otherwise cautious how I use it.
It's a nice feeling device, and makes me wish they'd make more BlackBerry style phones with bigger displays and Android capability.
People see you whip the titan out and think "oh he's doing that rollback technology thing", then you use Android Pay and they really flip out lol.
I hope more manufacturers would adopt the Blackberry style of phones. Titan Pocket has proved that you can have Android running decently on such a device. So why not bring back QWERTY keyboards?
Same experience when i was using the Jelly 2, people loved it when i pulled it out to pay with NFC.
Still using an S10e, & getting around 7-8 hrs SOT, great phone, perfect size, good cameras & screen, with the bonus of SD card support & a headphone jack..
If you have been using that phone since it was launched, I doubt SOT is still that long.
Have the s10e as well. Got it 3 months after launch and I håbe the same battery experience. I'm very impressed by it, even if the phone is starting to get a bit sluggish.
Oh. Well nevermind then
I had to get the pro max because the 12 pro was getting too hard for me to read comfortably 😭😭
I just turned 40
Me reading this on my zenfone 10.
Zenfone 9 here, small phones with big features.
Zenfone 8 here. I like it very much but... having come from the Sony Xperia XZ1 Compct previously, i prefer the size of the Sony. :p
Zenfone gang unite
Very interesting! What is your view on it? Do they use a stock android, or do they heavily modify or cram it with bloat ware? For the first time I would consider buying an Asus phone, as it is really the last compact phone with flagship features.
I wish they would also make a premium 8 inch tablet, as it is a low quality mediatek graveyard for the moment
I think the S23 is the perfect size, I wish that was the standard, with some larger ones for people who like that.
I just got S23 because I wanted a flagship phone, but got tired of large phones that don't fit in pockets properly. So far S23's size has been really good. It's large enough that it doesn't get annoying to use it for a long time or read long articles, but still small enough that it's generally more convenient to carry everywhere.
God I loved the Nexus 4, I had iPhones from iPhone 3G to 4 moved to a Galaxy S3 which I absolutely despised due to the bloatware.. sold that on eBay and bought a Nexus 4 16gb for £280... Had Nexus/Pixel branded phones ever since.
It's amazing that last year when I was looking for a new phone, the one I bought was one of the smallest I could find - asus zenfone. Same physical size as my precious sony, just a few grams heavier. I'm super happy with it and ny other phone seems super huge in comparison.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
But for gadget enthusiasts like me, Google had other plans: it’s arbitrarily pushing buyers to the ginormous Pixel 8 Pro instead, bragging about how its larger handset can handle niftier features even though both phones have the same cameras and chips.
Plus, Samsung doesn’t actually let you use it like a small phone by default — you’ve gotta jump through hoops to use apps on the outer screen.
It’s called Unihertz, and its Jelly line is tiny and has nifty features like a BlackBerry keyboard or programmable buttons and extra LEDs.
The project hasn’t had a meaningful update in five months, and team leader Benjamin Bryant admits he had to pause to look for consulting work on the side.
“Samsung Display US is willing to champion us; the challenge will be convincing the Korean HQ that we are a viable enough project for them to invest time and resources into,” Bryant tells me.
Bryant admits that, in general, the small phone outlook is “bleak” and that some of his prospective customers “will be forced to upgrade in the coming year.”
The original article contains 809 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 78%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Haven't thought of small phones in a while, unless you look into dumb phones, like Nokia 3310 reboot.
Great little phone, but does not have smart features that smart phones have.
Nice to see the sizes being compared, I was not expecting it, but wow have phone become huge.
I wonder if Pine64 or similar would create a small phone, they have launched phones before...
The PPP is still too far from being useful for me to think they could deliver a uzbl small phone
Currently in the process of switching to a degoogled OnePlus 5 which is only taking a long time because I'm having to find the right combo of system apps and replacements for googles apps which I've all but done.
Seriously if you're trying to make a google free phone try LineageOS microG. It's a spin on Lineage that gives you replacements for a lot of core apps like a location provider, and a load of other stuff you wouldn't realise wasn't in pure android.
Now all I need is a new battery and I have a FOSS( bar firmware, blobs, and magic earth, because no FOSS map app works well in the UK for me) phone.
But honesty I love this phone it's just the right size and it still has touch buttons for home, back, and recent apps instead of on screen ones( which I kinda hate). Paired with dual cameras and a gorgeous 1080p OLED display.
And you want to know the best part?
It only cost me £50!
Seriously if you're sick of modern phones and yern for the good old days this is a pretty great middle ground.
Have you tried Organic Maps?
It's been awesome for me and it's saved me in the mountains by finding gas stations without service.
Close to a no frills Google Maps experience.
I did and unfortunately until they have a better database of the UK I'm stuck with magic maps. But I hope one day I can switch
That's why I switched to a flip phone. It's smaller in my pocket.
I really liked it when I tried my Samsung GT-S5830i again. It only has a 3.5" screen. It's just perfect for one-handed use. And it has a home button. I miss those.
But anyway, I still probably wouldn't choose a small phone. I prefer bigger ones overall. I really liked phablets when that was a thing. 6-7 inch screen but in 16:9 aspect ratio. For me, that's gold, as I usually use my phone in landscape (I am typing this on phone in landscape too).
Galaxy S8 was my perfect phone, I still keep it around and throw my SIM card in for certain things.
Try a large phone and you'll stay for the battery life alone.
God, the small phone crowd are so exhausting. The iPhone Mini. We get it, some people do like tiny phones, but as an example, for iPhone buyers that seems to be <3% of buyers. There is simply not a large enough market for them.
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/21/iphone-13-mini-unpopular-march-quarter/
You only see tech nerds having small hands and small cocks what a coincidence 🤕