My cynical take is that small phones don't exist because they are not the product. Similar to vape pens the product is the addictive substance the device loads. In this case its apps and ads. A smaller screen probably negatively impacts KPIs on many levels, at Google/Apple/Meta/X and on down through the ecosystem.
I understand that Apple did not make enough money to make it worth their while to continue the iphone mini line. However, it does seem like there is a profitable business for someone there given how beloved it was/is.
I only traded out my iphone 12 mini just recently for an iphone 16 pro (likely the last apple product I will ever buy but thats another story) and aside from the camera it is basically the same. Just heavier, awkward to hold and slightly worse designed.
No major player wants a smaller screen because it has downstream impacts on the pipeline of addictive material and ad pixels they can stuff into ocular nerves.
What was so odd was how Apple fumbled the iPhone mini launch by launching the iPhone SE first. At that point there hadn't been a small phone for a few years, There was pent up demand. The SE came out and it was a big success, lots of people wanted ti because it was a small phone.
Then few months later they launched the mini expecting it to sell even more or something. Somehow they missed that everyone that wanted a small phone had just bought the SE, and it just wasn't long enough for them to be worth upgrading to the much better mini.
Had they waited for a year to pass the mini might have done much better because those who wanted a more powerful phone could find an excuse for an upgrade after a year, less then 6 months, not so much.
This is my take as well. I bought the SE 2nd gen because of its size, a longer support cycle, and granular app permissions on iOS. It was my first iPhone and has probably been my last when its time is due.
My phone isn't some entertainment device, it's a utility tool. I don't need it to be "smart", it should be useful on the go. The persona sketched by GP just isn't me: Messaging, maps, weather, 2FA, and calculator come first, email (read only) and news feed second, the camera is a third for documenting purposes (if even, I'd rather take my full frame). The easier it is to carry this thing around and the longer lasting its build quality, the better. Why would I pay almost double (USD 699 VS 399 on launch) for a less robust mini with sharper edges?!
If Apple were to continue the offer of rehashed designs from previous generations (preferably with rounder edges) for a SE line, limit its dimensions to never go beyond 140x67.5x8mm, and make it last for solid 5-year release cycles, then count me in as your most loyal customer. As it currently stands I'm looking out for a small sized phone from any manufacturer. I would even lower my expectations on support cycle and build quality quite a bit (if reasonable priced) before I'd give in on the size.
I've been an iPhone user since late 2007. I current use an SE 2022 and love it.
I've gone iPhone -> 3GS -> 4 -> 5s -> 6s -> 7 -> SE 2020 -> SE 2022.
The Mini never interested me. I love the SE. I love the home button and TouchID. I love the traditional size. If I want more I have an iPad Pro (12.9" original 2015 model bought in 2015 -- the battery still lasts 2 weeks with my usage pattern) or M1 Mac Mini with a 32" 4k screen.
If they don't make a new SE model I don't know what I'll do. I guess, firstly, get a new battery for it before it's out of the support window. Maybe sometime next year. And then see how long app updates support whatever the last OS version it will run is.
The ONLY thing I'd change in my SE, if it was possible, is more than 4 GB of RAM. The latest models have 8 GB and the others at the time the SE was sold already had 6 GB.
With recent system updates I'm getting a lot more of applications restarting when I switch back to them. This is mostly not a huge problem, except that the X app loses your place in the "Following" stream if you're more than a few hours behind and the app reloads.
I'm still using a 13 mini, it's fractionally too large, I think the original SE is perfection.
Regardless, battery life is horrendous now, and it's starting to lag and fail so when the new ultra watch is released I'm going to replace my phone with it.
Getting the battery replaced fixed mine (and seemed to mildly improve system performance, although maybe that’s placebo), might be worth a shot if you like the form factor.
Depending on how degraded the original battery was it isn't necessarily placebo. If iOS detects a severely degraded battery it will clock down the CPU slightly to cope with it, sacrificing a little performance to keep the device stable.
With 3rd party batteries it can't do this, so it doesn't (I think, will admit I'm not entirely sure exactly how iOS deals with 3rd party batteries it can't determine the status of), and if you replaced it with an official part then it would have been in good condition, so regardless which road you took, it's possible that you went from a state where the OS was clocking down, to one where it wasn't anymore.
> If iOS detects a severely degraded battery it will clock down the CPU slightly
I currently have this problem (iPhone 11). It's not slight at all. Keyboard inputs sometimes has up to a full 1000ms latency and that's with autocorrect, suggestions, and spellcheck turned off. Scrolling in most apps are jumpy rather than smooth. When this phone dies, I don't know what I'll get. Hopefully a good linux phone exists by then.
The problem is not the battery, it's the battery, processor and price.
The iPhone 13 Mini made up around 3% of total iPhone sales, so there's clearly a market for compact, mid-range phones ($600-$700). You can manufacture them in China or India for somewhere between $250 and $400, depending on the battery, camera, and overall performance.
The real challenge is that the retail price of a mid-range Android phone can't go over the $500 mark. People in developing countries are always stuck trying to balance quality with price. And for $500 bucks they expect a prime phone nowadays.
it has a few dings on the frame and I'm not especially attached to the form factor more significantly I am addicted to it and need a viable alternative.
Same here. Stuck with SE2 till it stopped catching pokemon properly. Currently pleased with the iPhone 13 mini. I think part of why I like small phones is I carry a laptop and hate web browsing / typing on the phone. It's mostly a modem and camera for me.
Also having a laptop means the battery doesn't matter that much as you can just charge it off that.
I love my iPhone 13 Mini. Its only issues are battery life (now), and non-competitive camera. I'm personally happy with the photos it takes, but then I look at my girlfriend's shots and get FOMO.
While I doubt it's economical, I'd love a small, simple phone with juiced up camera. I'd be fine with worse battery life as external batteries can remedy that in a pinch.
I have a 12 mini, it's about as large a phone as I'd want. I wish the back and/or bezel were a little "grippier" as the phone as it's made is so slippery it almost demands a case, but that adds bulk.
Unlike many it seems, I don't care much about the camera. I'd probably want some sort of camera for scanning QR codes, or snapping a quick photo of something I want to look up later, but otherwise I don't take photos or videos on my phone. I don't use any social media on my phone other than text messaging. This makes the smaller battery size/capacity a non-issue.
Since Apple no longer makes a reasonably-sized phone I'll probably go back to Android after this one dies or becomes unsupported.
I also think it's silly to carry a $1,000 device around with you everywhere, so a "premium" small phone is probably a non-starter for me. My favorite phones were the ~$200 Moto-G phones I had before I got the iPhone (it was a gift).
I don't know. I think the SE was there there to generate services income (Apps, Apple Music, etc.) from people who wouldn't buy an iPhone otherwise. The design was intentionally very stale to avoid cannibalization of their flagships. I don't think a lot of people who bought flagship iPhones before would go to an SE. Imagine going from an iPhone X or XS to an SE, it's a big downgrade. People were not buying the SE because of the size, but because it was cheap (the iPhone 16e that is the cheaper model now, has the same size as the 16).
My wife, I, and several people I know had iPhone 12 or 13 Mini. Their battery life was pretty terrible and word soon got out it was. I think this was in the end what killed it for people who are normally buying Apple flagships and were considering a Mini. It was very hard to get through the day with a Mini.
Besides the abysmal battery life, I think the market for small phones is maybe simply not there. Samsung keeps around one smaller model (base S-series) and arguably the Z Flip is a smaller model (but persistent hardware issues). If there was a large demand for flagship-class small phones, I am sure some Android manufacturers would make them.
They could have made the SE large but slow (instead of small and slow) and avoided all cannibalization future and present.
My hypothesis about the supposed non-existence of the small phone buyer is that they very much do exist (personally, haven't bought anything other than whatever was the smallest Xperia at the time in more than a decade), but that this group has little overlap with the group willing to buy for list price on release day. But the perception of success of a given phone is very much dominated by the latter, the long tail of buyers isn't really seen. Even if the release day premium over mid-lifecycle street price (in countries where price fixing is not allowed) goes to the retailer and is of very little interest to the manufacturer.
Manufacturers should just move compacts to a three year cycle and forget everything about hyper-optimizing desirability for the kind of buyer who spends too much time reading questionable review sites.
I’ve never had battery issues with my mini. But then again, I just want an unobtrusive tool. You can make a lot more money selling phones that are targeted to compulsive/addictive “whales” than you make selling normal phones for normal people.
Your theory makes sense until it falls apart if you consider SE and Mini as the same category of small iPhones. If the only reason why Mini failed was bad launch time, then why haven't Apple launched anything small (SE or Mini) after 2022? Isn't 2024 or even 2025 the perfect time to launch an upgrade for SE or Mini? They now have enough data since the last launch of a small phone.
The problem is that people who want a small phone prioritize the size.
Most of them don't care about the premium features of larger phones. So the Mini was a weird niche within a niche. Small phone with premium price and features.
The Mini and SE2 were virtually identical in physical size. For the 16e they should have used the iPhone 12/13 Mini body and the 13 Mini screen. Use the 15 Pro SoC with 8GB memory, and the 15 camera. Sell it for an SE price. Now you have fused the small phone and budget iPhone markets.
I can confirm, that Apple my misunderstood the market:
I was eager to buy a new iPhone because I just finished my masters degree and started a new job, had a bit of money and than the SE2 launched. My 5s or SE1 started to age and as an beginner app developer a current phone was important. I was so happy because I could not see my self using one of those bigger phones even though the SE2 was still bigger than my 5s/SE1. A few months later the mini was released and my initial reaction was "OMG this is THE perfect phone, but I just got a new one... i can not afford to buy another one".
You’re way too cynical and have let your cynicism cloud history.
The first phablets were probably the Galaxy Note line starting in 2011 which was met with some skepticism due to the size of them. These were well before the edge to edge screen days. So you had 5.7 inch screens with a bezel.
They were huge but I would routinely see small women pull these things out of their hand bags and press a device that obscured almost their whole face and start chatting.
Things steadily got bigger from there. The general population WANTED this.
Parent's take is not whether bigger phones shouldn't exist, it's why smaller phones stopped being produced, which is a fairly different angle.
> women
To note, the initial smartphones were already too big for he taste of many: a clamshell feature phone was almost a third of the size of the original iPhone. From that POV, going to a phone that is twice as big is less of a barrier, as they had to keep it in a bag/purse in the first place.
The return of foldables is also pretty well received in that regard.
Just tonight, I saw a friend of mine, pull a new foldable Razr from her purse.
They are cool phones, but I do iOS. I still use a 13 Mini, and will continue to do so, for quite some time.
As to the point of this article, I seem to recall a couple of very small Android phones, some years ago (about credit-card sized). I guess they didn’t sell well.
IMHO this is just not viable in the current world.
I agree with line the article sets (5"4 for 1080p, almost the size of the Pixel 4a), as mainstream apps will properly work at that size. I still have a working 4a, and some banking apps are getting pretty cramped for instance. And many websites already need furious panning and zooming.
A credit card size phone would only work for people who basically hate their phones I think.
>A credit card size phone would only work for people who basically hate their phones I think.
Probably. It's people who know they have to own a smartphone for so many things like park their car but don't really want one.
This was a number of years back but I know a then tech executive who got a phone (I think it may have been a feature phone at the time) only because their nanny absolutely insisted.
Completely agree. Although not even on "small phones", my S23 isn't small but the design of these apps has regressed so much that I barely see any useful information.
On my old WAP phone I could see bank balance and maybe the last transaction or two. Now half the screens taken up with upselling account levels, invest in shares, buy crypto, you've been pre-approved!
It's the padding! And the UX teams that add them into the designs!
My cynical take is that an unholy pact was formed between FE devs and UX designers:
By adding in "design" and "user experience" you essentially reduce features, complexity and general "dev time" of every single user-screen or page or component. They're no longer cram-packed with oodles of features, toggles, buttons, menus, etc. Most pages are glorified lists of things, with maybe a menu on each item if you are lucky. Devs dev less, have less bugs, just use FE-library of the day and go home happy because they made a CRUD screen essentially.
Meanwhile, UX designers get to play around and constantly fiddle with design because let's all be honest, nothing will ever be truly good and in a perfect "user experience" space because complexity and functionality are never what the user is happy about having, until they need it.
I don't think so. Yesterday I was browsing phones and there was a Google Pixel 9 Fold on dislpay, closed and showing something. That has a display on the outside and a foldable display on the inside.
I opened it, and most of the screen looked like a big, roundish black blob of ink, centred on the fold, on top of the Android animations working perfectly underneath, but only visible at the edges. I was impressed that the rest of the screen around worked perfectly, but it was unusuable due to the size of the black blob.
Something had broken at or near the fold while it was on display.
All other devices were in great condition; it was a well-maintained store.
Apple did a horrible job marketing the mini. I ran into a lot of people who saw my 12 mini and said they would prefer that size, but didn’t know it existed.
When I went to buy it, and the case, the employees at the Apple Store questioned me and tried to push me toward the normal iPhone. This is the first and only time I’ve ever felt Apple Store employees steering purchasing decisions. I had to go in there knowing what I wanted, and had to assert that it was what I wanted repeatedly.
Are people buying big phones because they are addicted to their screens, or are people addicted to their screens because of big phones?
When I went to buy it, and the case, the employees at the Apple Store questioned me and tried to push me toward the normal iPhone.
Probably because they knew that customers would come back to complain about the abysmal battery life of the Mini? I had a 12 Mini, I loved that phone, but man was it hard to get through the day on a single charge.
I generally only charge my 13 mini every other day or so.
The only time I recently struggled getting through the day was when on vacation and constantly using google maps & translate. But that is with a 3 year old phone.
Worth noting that (so I've heard) the most impactful hardware change between the 12 mini and the 13 mini was improvements to the battery life. I've never struggled with the battery life on my 13 mini, either, but the handful of people I know with a 12 mini have always bemoaned it.
13 mini here, also not charging every day. My screen time is around 2 hours a day, which IMO is still to much. I try to keep battery between 20 and 80 percent.
Yes, and people are using their phones for what they previously used TVs, laptops, music players and other dedicated devices for. It's a bit of a cycle.
There's also the accessibility factor. Many people become farsighted later in life. It's much easier to see things on a big phone, especially with increased zoom. (I see this all of the time when I fly.)
> There's also the accessibility factor. Many people become farsighted later in life. It's much easier to see things on a big phone, especially with increased zoom. (I see this all of the time when I fly.)
Or for those of us with higher end myopia whose lenses effectively “shrink” everything they see. I’m -6.75 in each eye and my glasses make my everything seem significantly smaller than it is.
Sometimes I look at my phone or monitor without my glasses and am momentarily shocked at how large they seem and then saddened when I put them back on.
The other problem is that more and more content now is designed for (or only tolerable on) larger phone screens. Go to any website these days on a smaller phone like an iPhone mini and more than 50% (being charitable here) of the screen will be taken up by garbage like ads, cookie banners, popups, etc.
It's a vicious cycle. Phone manufactures make the screen bigger, app and website developers realize they can cram more junk on the page, consumers demand larger screens as a result, return to step 1.
This is HN. OP is 100% right to be flabbergasted that people on this site are not using the best and brightest of the ad blockers available. I know I am.
Ironically, I have the opposite problem with website design. So many sites are clearly designed for mobile screen sizes, with a teensy-tiny strip of text on my large monitor. It's very unpleasant to read lines of text that short, so on a lot of sites I have to go into dev tools and set the text width to 1200px to make it an actual comfortable reading experience. I should not have to mess with CSS to make websites readable, but here we are.
I want larger phones because I am at that particular stage of middle age where I should probably start using reading glasses, but I'm also damned if I'm going to start carrying reading glasses everywhere with me.
I’m even older, walking around with reading glasses on my head all day. Had an iPhone 13 mini, miss the form factor, would prefer a mini as my next phone. But for most mobile use, on the couch, watching videos, etc, I use an iPad, not my phone. For me a large phone is mostly a tablet that’s too small.
> The general population wants larger phones because they are addicted to their screens.
I would rephrase that to: The general population wants a larger phones because phones are defacto PCs these days. They can watch movies, browser the news, listen to music, FaceTime, Maps, ..
Outside of business applications likes Word / Excel, phones basically handles 90% of people's requirements for "computers".
I’m not sure if your comment is sarcastic, but in case it isn’t: my friend group had a get-together two days ago, three out of six had a laptop with them, and it even came in handy when I started talking about the problem I’m working on, somebody got interested and I was able to show the plots and calculations. Also we have PowerPoint Parties somewhat regularly, where most of us bring their computers to make last minute changes or simply have a known environment.
Not sarcastic at all. I have never seen people (not even my nerdy friends, least of all normies) bring laptops to a friend hangout. People might bring laptops if they were getting together to work on stuff, but then that isn't just hanging out any more, there's a purpose to the gathering. I would be astonished if someone could show that non-techy people ever brought laptops when they would hang out. Techy people (like your friend group), maybe. But not your average person.
When I was still working full-time, a co-worker told me their kid had told them they didn't need or want a computer. Probably changes at some point with long writing assignments, etc. but still.
I do increasingly think about whether I need to bring a laptop on various trips. It can be handy but I try to pack light and another few pounds is a lot for me. I've experimented with a newish tablet but it's a bit too in-between for my taste.
I remember people would always be surprised about how home computer ownership was not that high but smartphones (well, Japanese "garakei") were were ubiquitous.
Well, do you think this is a good state of affairs? On one hand, phones are pretty accessible devices, on the other hand there are many aspects of phones that are objectively pretty terrible for consumers (talking about cost and difficulty of repair, walled garden ecosystems, and generally being geared towards consuming things and a lot less effective at producing them than laptops and desktops.)
(Tangential: of course I don't blame anyone for bringing their phone with them everywhere but if you're going to go to a friend group hangout, consider how annoying it is when you're trying to talk to someone and they're clearly checked out browsing some slop on Twitter or talking to someone else entirely. Take a damn break from the phone!)
Yeah and I also remember how Apple fans said "this is ridiculous, nobody needs a screen that big that doesn't fit in your pocket easily", and here we are 15 years later mourning the iPhone Mini/SE.
10 years ago, if your phone was bigger than 5 inches, it looked ridiculous. You'd pull it out and people would look at you like you'd just escaped from a nut house
I am 6ft tall and feel like my hands are above average in size. I have a regular iPhone 16 pro. I still don’t understand how people use bigger devices.
Do they like using two hands? I can’t single hand a phone any larger without having to shift it in my hand.
I don’t want to use two hands on my phone outside of typing.
People type a lot though. It's also better for video, games, reading, general browsing. If you value one handed operation above all that though, then obviously smaller is better.
I just refuse to accept that the first phablet I ever saw, the Galaxy Note, which covered the person's face and looked absolutely comical in their hands, was smaller than my current, very regular-sized phone.
The Samsung Galaxy Note (the first one) had a screen size of 5.3 inches.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 had a screen size of 5.5 inches. I had one and regularly had strangers ask me if that was really a phone. I had friends say, "Give me a call on your tablet" as a joke.
I loved it. Now my 6.1 inch iPhone feels on the small side.
The Dell Streak (shoutout to the other 3 people who bought one) had a 5 inch screen in 2010, a notable jump from contemporary phones like the iPhone 4 which was still 3.5", and other Android devices like the HTC Droid series which were around 3.7" and slowly starting to creep upwards to differentiate themselves from the iPhone. I think the largest Android devices you could get at the time were still smaller than 4".
I remember Dell showing this off at the All Thing D conference and Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal asked the Dell spokesperson to put it up to his head, and told him it looked like a waffle. To this days it’s all I think of when I see someone holding a massive phone up to the side of their head.
That thing could really stand out in a crowd. I was at a baseball stadium for a concert that year, and spotted someone with a Dell Streak as I was heading down to the field. In a sea of people that was the one phone I spotted. I stopped to ask the guy about it briefly.
I remember Steve Jobs berating phablets as "the Hummer of phones" and dissing 7-inch Android tablets as too small, and disparagingly saying users would need to "file down their fingers" to use them - without considering how much smaller Apple users' fingers would need to be to use 3.5-inch iPhones.
I also remember the viral, doctored image showing the reachability of phone screens which "proved" that 3.5 inches was the "ideal" phone size.
It's amusing how people try an memory hole their negative reaction and pieces written about the Note. People's mocking web pages have disappeared. Arguments based on the size of the human hand completely forgotten. The very notion that a 5.7 inch screen is big an unwieldly is now met with disdain.
When I first saw the ad on tv, my reaction was "Holy moley, wow, who's going to buy that monstrosity?"
And then a few weeks later I bought one. All the guys in my office laughed and said "Wow, look at that huge thing, it's ridiculous". I chuckled and agreed, though I was quietly enjoying the larger screen.
Smaller phones has always been limited in performance, batter life, the app support and the camera quality. Camera is the most important factor and battery is the second.
General population doesn't buy phones every year and they don't want a nerfed phone when they have to pay 500-1000 $/€s. So they gravitate towards higher end ones.
Companies including Apple has always treated the small size as an entry to mid segment phone. The only exception I know is Sony z3 and z5 compact which suffered heat and battery swelling issues due to Qualcomm messing 810 series SoCs up.
Companies also want you to buy the most expensive phone. So they market the premium models and train their store personnel to sell more of the premium line. If they stop intentionally nerfing the smaller phones, I think there is a market there. However, it will still be smaller.
I used to lug a dedicated camera around all the time. Except for special purposes I just bring a phone these days. And I'm not the only one. I do know people who do a lot of nature photography but I also know people who always had a camera with them who now reserve them for "serious" portraiture and things like that.
It helps, but less than you'd think. The main board's power doesn't dramatically change, and because the full space under the screen isn't battery, reducing the screen size by 40% might cause the battery size to be reduced by 60%
This is the part that frustrates me. Apple keeps introducing software “solutions” for hardware problems. Reachability, Screen Time, Focus Modes, etc. A smaller phone naturally solves most of these problems. Small phones act as more of a utility device for when you’re away from a proper computer. This is all I want my phone to be. I really think they got it right the first time in 2007.
I ended up switching from a 13 mini (I had the 12 mini as well) to a 16 Pro. I was having a lot of battery life issues, and kept running into apps that clearly didn’t fully test with the smaller screen. I also really missed having a telephoto lens.
My phone usage went up; my laptop/desktop usage went down. I don’t like that. Compared to a normal computer, a phone is still worse in almost every way, other than mobility. It’s just now tolerable enough to put up with more of the time. I’m writing this on the phone, it would have been easier on a keyboard and mouse.
"Small phones act as more of a utility device for when you’re away from a proper computer. This is all I want my phone to be."
You, like me, are not representatives of a market phone manufacturers are interested in. Utilitarian and minimal use only sells one phone every few years.
They are catering for the overwhelming market that spends upwards of 5 hours screen time per day, watches movies and TVs, plays games, and generally spends as much time as possible on them, with as much payment and ad revenue as that comes with on top of the original device sale.
I always personally liked the idea of computers being fixed, or semi-fixed (like a laptop), as a place to work or study, and then leave once that is done. The replacement of computers and laptops by tablets and phones is a wider cultural shift from computers being tools and productive technology to entertainment and consumerist technology, in my opinion.
This was the internal debate I was having with myself. I bought the 13 mini the day the 14 was released and saw they were killing the mini line. The goal was to keep it until it was literally dead, replacing the battery as needed. The battery of the 13 mini was supposed to be better than the 12 mini, but that was not my experience.
The battery also wasn’t the main issue, just a contributing factor. I was ok using the battery as a signal for when I was using the phone too much and taking it as a signal to reevaluate my usage. Seeing software bugs related to the screen size, as figuring that would only get worse now that new phones didn’t come in the smaller size… that’s what made me think I might as well get the transition over with.
I’ve had battery issues with the 16 Pro, but those are software bugs. Some days my phone will give me a low battery warning by noon. I end up killing all the apps, charging it up again, and then it’s fine. It’s happened about 4 or 5 times, but I haven’t been able to tell what’s doing it.
The 13 mini didn't solve any of these issues for me plus the worse battery life. I upgraded to 16 pro max. My laptop usage also went down from there. Total screen time probably stayed, but now i carry most of the time just a phone instead of phone and laptop. If you want something less addictive there is probably the apple watch but you still need the phone to configure
and now you're strapped to a device 24/7 just for the sake to be used less.
>No major player wants a smaller screen because it has downstream impacts on the pipeline of addictive material and ad pixels they can stuff into ocular nerves.
There are lots of phone manufacturers who have no ads business. They just make phones so why would they care?
Size is dictated by trouser pocket size/handbag size and usage. Editing photos and movies to upload onto social media is probably better on a big screen.
Also screen size is dictated by common panel sizes, as low volume will mean a higher price.
Folding screens and iPad Mini's existence suggests people want larger screen real estate.
I think photos are a big deal, but IMO it's more about the photo quality. And if you put a nice fancy camera on the phone, suddenly the device gets pretty expensive.
And so while there are people who want "small screen + nice camera". There are people who want "small screen + small price". There are many people who _don't want the small screen_. So you have this phone that can cost a lot of money (in a pretty messy market where most phone models seem to not make money anyways), and you're going to cut off chunks of the market?
So we end up with small screen + shitty camera and specs etc. And people here who want a small phone (but really want a small phone that isn't miserable to use) still are unsatisfied.
I have an iPhone mini, and my understanding is that I lose quite a bit of battery life also by not having the full sized version. The market definitely prefers long runtimes, free from frequent charging, while I need to carry a charge pack sometimes, although just when I expect it to be needed.
> There are lots of phone manufacturers who have no ads business. They just make phones so why would they care?
There are still bound to the screen resolution dictated by the platforms/environment. A maker selling an android phone with a 480x640px screen
would face a huge uphill battle to see any sales.
Going for a smaller physical screen means higher DPI, so higher production costs and quality control issues. It can make more sense to buy cheaper, low DPI screen and make the whole device bigger to match the needed pixel count.
Agreed. I'd prefer a modern iPhone the size of an iPhone 4, it was perfegt. I made the same "upgrade" from 12 mini to 16 Pro, and the 16 Pro is so large and heavy. Feels like we're moving backwards in time.
For... well, most people. Half of people are women, so I don't know how they do it. I'm a man, with man hands, and modern phones are not one hand operable. You need two hands. Even if you can do a particular operation with one hand, the phone is unsteady and it's awkward.
I think people with large hands are definitely the minority. So, we're not optimizing for hand size. We're optimizing for engagement, I think.
It was observed a long time ago on HN that women, with their tiny hands, loved huge phones - since they were using small phones two-handed anyway - and it was the men who complained that small, one-handed phones stopped being sold.
You don’t speak for most people. You can only speak for yourself. The feelings of “Most people” are clear as demonstrated by the market; they not only find large phones fine, they find them preferable.
> modern phones are not one hand operable
So? I mean for me they are so it’s irrelevant, but what should it matter if they are not? The market obviously does not share your interest in devices to be operated in such a manner as a priority or something of particular importance.
That being said, it’s of course unfortunate that if that is your preference, that nothing in the market caters for it. Your preferences and wants are obviously entirely valid and it’s a shame there is no interest even from a boutique vendor in meeting them.
I have plenty of preferences for products that are not catered too, as I am sure is true for us all and of course I don’t love it, but I must live in the reality that the larger market doesn’t always want what I do.
> We’re optimizing for engagement
The market is optimizing for what consumers asked for, which was larger devices. You say I am in a minority, I claim equally that you are in a minority as well.
We are in agreement - you appear to be replying to my comment piece by piece without reading all of it.
I'm speaking about the one-hand operability, which I then conclude must not be very important and obviously the market prefers something else.
I will only address this part:
> The market is optimizing for what consumers asked for
This is hopelessly naive. This is true in the same sense that butane rings in cigarettes is optimizing for "what consumers asked for" - more pleasant to smoke cigarettes. Consumers don't know what they want, they're fed whatever is going to make the most money by advertisers. And they will like it, because there is no other choice.
The market is not some perfectly rational machine. It is, often, a self-eating beast, concerned with it's own self-preservation to such a degree that it destroys itself. Had the Tobacco industry chilled, they wouldn't have been eviscerated by legislation. But no - they had to target children, they had to make the death sticks as addictive as possible. As if to put a bright flashing sign on themselves that says "look at me! Regulate me!"
> Consumers don't know what they want, they're fed whatever is going to make the most money by advertisers. And they will like it, because there is no other choice.
Except we know this is not the reality in this case as the worlds most successful mobile device marketer has made multiple attempts to create and market smaller devices which time and time again the majority of consumers have rejected.
The majority having a preference not matching your own doesn't need to be a conspiracy of consumer stupidity. Apple held out for a long time on making larger devices and ultimately caved to consumer sentiment, they didn’t grow that sentiment, they reacted to it.
Yes, again, similar to how a Tobacco consumer would reject older styles of Cigarettes. They were objectively worse - less nicotine, less impact on the brain, slower burning, and uneven burning. I used to smoke, ask me how I know.
> conspiracy of consumer stupidity
You misunderstand. Consumers aren't stupid, they're human. Human are remarkably easy to exploit. Exploiting the human mind is orders of magnitude easier than exploiting a computer.
I mean, you put a shiny machine in front of a human and tell them there's little to no chance they'll win money and they'll destroy themselves in front of it. Drain their bank accounts, ruin their marriage. You don't even have to lie - you can tell them gambling is bad, you can tell them they won't win, but that doesn't actually affect the exploit. Monkey brain see bright light, dopamine hits.
It's really quiet simple, and you're a market-minded man so you should be able to deduce this: it's all about incentives. You can continue to believe that the devices best for advertisers also happen to be what consumers want most. I think it's painfully naive, almost child-like.
I mean, look at smart TVs. Why do we have those? Do consumers prefer them? Sure. Is it to everyone's benefit that consumers prefer it? Certainly. So then we must ask - how did consumers come to prefer them? Was it, maybe, forced? Were they, maybe, exploited?
Just consider this. If I want to enter the Tobacco market, anywhere in the world, should I enter with a nicotine-free cigarette, or even a low-nicotine cigarette? Would those be successful? No, I think, the company would sink remarkably fast. We'd have no sales, consumers wouldn't buy it.
At 193 cm in height, I have large hands too. I currently use a Zenfone 10 and a Galaxy S10e before that, and I can grip them both just fine in one hand, but I can't also control them with that same hand without awkward contortions and a reliance on gravity.
The only phones I've had that I could comfortably use one-handed were my old BlackBerry Q10 (2013) and BlackBerry Classic (2014). The Q10 because it's short enough to hold between my thumb and ring finger such that I could use my index and middle fingers on the touch screen (slightly unorthodox but it worked really well), and the larger Classic because it has an optical thumbpad and excellent software support for it (it was so good I rarely used the touch screen at all). And both had physical keyboards.
I don't have especially small hands and I can't stand my Nokia XR20 (which isn't even close to the biggest phone out there). If I can't reach every corner of the screen with my thumb while holding the phone, it's uncomfortable and unpleasant to use. Sadly that is most phones these days.
The margins are also worse, which is way, way closer to a manufacturer’s bottom line than the software ecosystem.
There is demand for larger phones, yes, but manufacturers also charge more for bigger devices and most of that is margin. Following their own logic, they also charge less for smaller phones.
If your customers are sticky, then many of the people who buy the smaller phone would have otherwise bought a bigger phone for more money. Introducing a smaller phone brings down profits.
Bigger equals better consumer perception, I imagine driven in part by the top-tier phones being larger to fit additional battery capacity in for the higher performance processors making all larger devices carry some premium cachet.
> I only traded out my iphone 12 mini just recently for an iphone 16 pro (likely the last apple product I will ever buy but thats another story) and aside from the camera it is basically the same. Just heavier, awkward to hold and slightly worse designed.
Just did the exact same thing 5 months ago.. I still miss my 12 mini. Would strongly consider buying a 13 mini instead of its even being sold anymore.
i have a 13 mini. Its beat up, battery life is getting worse (even though I rarely use it) and both cameras are smashed (in my pocket during a motorcycle accident), but I look at all the options now and figure I'll just keep using this one. I'd rather be using an iPhone 4, but I need some stuff that that one didn't have to work with a glucose monitor.
I ended up replacing my 12 mini with a 6z flip from samsung. The only real annoyance is that Apple hasn't enabled RCS for Danish telecom companies yet. Well that and sand... We'll see how long it lives though. The reason I originally went to apple was because my first smartphone (a galaxy 2) sort of did the planned obsolescence thing exactly the same way my two buddies galaxy 2's did at the time. If the flip lives for 5ish years then I'll likely never go back to apple. Unless they make a phone that will actually fit comfortable in my pockets again.
The little half screen on the flip is useless though. Basically nothing works on it.
FM radio uses the headphone cable as an antenna, so with the move to bluetooth I assume it got squashed for similar reasons. The other aspect is it assumes if you want live radio that you're happy needing an active data connection and allowance, any any local stations have a stream available. One of the things I love about streaming (via RadioDroid, etc) is that you can get a station from anywhere on the planet but sometimes you want something a bit more basic.
> FM radio uses the headphone cable as an antenna, so with the move to bluetooth I assume it got squashed for similar reasons.
Some may prefer Bluetooth headphones, and there are countless apologists who now retroactively parrot the manufacturers' excuses for why headphone jacks were eliminated, but it wasn't something the _users_ asked for or wanted.
"Oh, but phones are waterproof now," they claim! Well, so was the Samsung Galaxy S5 I bought in 2014. And by the way, it also had a user-removable battery, removable storage, an FM radio, and an IR blaster. All these years later, you can't find a new phone with all of those features and it's very difficult to find a flagship phone with even _one_ of them.
Just like 16e, Mini and SE were meant to push up the sales of their "other" phones. Otherwise they would not have had both Mini and SE. I mean it was a joke.
But Hanlon's razor and the way Apple has been on a screwing up spree of late I doubt it was anything intentional. They f'ed up knowing not what to do at all. They don't anymore.
I think most major players have the same incentives and minor players don't have the economies of scale to make it work economically.
Also the longer I used my iphone mini and the rest of the world moved to comically large phones the more it became apparent that nobody is thinking about small screen form factors in design and when they do its only around ad placement.
But, for example, what is the money flow from google/advertising in general to Motorola, that makes them not want to release a small screen model in their lineup of cheap phones?
Instagram, Tiktok, and Google have gotten users addicted to consuming content, and larger screens help with that.
We are helplessly addicted to digital cocaine, and so we demand large phones, and so motorola will not make money selling a small phone.
It's like the parent said: our addiction is the product, and so just like a chain-smoker will say "I want to quit" as they buy 5 packs a day, a modern smartphone user will say "I want a smaller screen and to look at ads less" as they hopelessly buy a 10 inch phablet and can't go 5 minutes without pulling it from their pocket to check tiktok.
It is not that the money from advertising flows, it is that the addicted users have already been ruined, and will not buy the devices they say they want.
Sure, but that's something totally different. Basically just "customers don't want it and won't buy it". I understood the root comment to imply some kind of more direct incentive: "A smaller screen probably negatively impacts KPIs on many levels" - if advertising KPIs are supposed to be given precedence over demand from consumers there has to be at least some kind of mechanism for it.
"No major player wants a smaller screen because it has downstream impacts on the pipeline of addictive material and ad pixels they can stuff into ocular nerves." -- what is the direct (or indirect) pressure that the major players can exert over some more or less independent hw manufacturer like Motorola? I'm not saying it's impossible, it reminds me of e.g. the situation where (pre iphone) carriers blocked phones from having wifi because they wanted them to be dependent on their network, but if something like this is happening it should be possible to roughly point out how.
Couldn’t we make it thicker though? The rumored iPhone air is the exact opposite of what I want. Give me a thicker phone with a smaller screen and I’d pay Pro prices for it.
Thicker things don't fit in pockets as well, they're unwieldy.
I've gotten my EDC down to 1 leather ID sleeve with my credit card and drivers license in it, and my phone. This is probably still thicker then it should be, but it's soft so I don't feel the bulk or edges.
This is it, for a while battery life got worse for a while with more powerful chips. But then Samsung goes full in on the big size 6"+ phone and it got better again.
Now even at 80% original capacity, a Samsung can still last me throughout the day given that I am not watching videos constantly. The Iphone 6 back in the day would go to 40% in 3 hours, then suddenly to 5% in minutes.
Plus most people replace their laptop with a phone now. So the big screen size is a must.
That’s how I see it. Screen size is area (x^2) and battery size is volume (x^3). As battery life is a critical feature, a bigger screen fits better battery life.
I think the other thing is pretty much everyone has a smartphone android/ios, and so the rev model has changed for android its youtube/movies, and for ios its apple tv.
I posted a bit too late and didn't see your post first, which more or less is exactly along my thinking.
Modern phones are sold (even at profit) with the intent that there is more payments/ad revenue coming down the line, for movies, TV, games and web browsing/social media. A big screen makes that experience better for people and advertisers. It's a cynical take, but the entire business model is based on building and promoting addiction.
They have no interest in selling phones for utility purposes only, even though that's largely how they advertise the phones, because advertising a 5 hour plus daily screen time isn't sexy at all.
Out of curiosity, why's it your last Apple product?
Watching lots of Louis Rossmann has put me almost ideologically against Apple (even though they design great hardware and smooth UX within their ecosystem), but I'm not good at forming coherent points to present to Apple loving friends.
For me so far, I think it's about control over what I buy - but the rebuttal is always "you're buying a product from them, if you don't like it then tough".
The opinion I got from Louis's content is that in a sense he is right, but also almost every brand is even worse. Apple does pretty much nothing to help 3rd party repair and sometimes actively impeeds it, but most other tech products do that while also not even having 1st party repair options.
I remember when Samsung had removable batteries, I went in to a Samsung store to buy a replacement for my S5 battery and they told me they didn't sell them, only new phones. Meanwhile I can take my iPhone in to any Apple store and they will replace the battery for me.
So yeah Apple does need to be forced to massively improve their practices but so does pretty much the entire tech industry aside from a few small projects that focus on being repairable.
I just don't see the value add anymore and the company appears to have lost its product vision and the design sensibilities are slipping. Apple is controlled by a geriatric board and a logistics expert and it shows.
I feel I am more frequently encountering software bugs, vaporware,(dESiGnEd fOr ApPle InTelLiGeNce), and ridiculous "innovation" (genmoji). I feel the hardware advances are not very relevant to me, I don't need VR or augmented reality. I want a computer to get out of my way and solve problems for me so I can spend time in plain old reality. The hardware upgrades I DO care about are ridiculously overpriced (Ram upgrades are abusively expensive).
While I prefer my computer to be a tool to get a job done and don't want the computer itself to be a hobby. I also do not want to be forced to use AI. I also dislike the rent seeking and toolbooth behavior of iMessage and the App store. Now that linux has more paved paths, things increasingly "just work" and hardware has basically caught up I don't see a good reason to support Apple's non-vision with my money.
What Linux computer can you buy with the battery life, quietness, lack of heat and speed of a modern ARM based Mac?
Battery life, probably none. For the rest it's pretty ok now - I recently got a ThinkPad T14. Performance-wise it's in M1/M2 territory and yes the fans can spin up, but they are not very loud.
I have used MacBooks since 2007, but I have started using the ThinkPad more and more. Why?
I put in 64GiB RAM and a 2TB SSD and it cost me almost nothing. The laptop plus these expansions was 1400 or 1500 Euro, a MacBook with 64GiB RAM and 2TB SSD would cost me 5000 Euro. When the battery has had its time, I can replace it by removing a few screws. I added a PCI cellular modem. The expandability and maintanability is just great.
Even though the GPU in my MacBook Pro (M3 Pro) blows away the ThinkPad's GPU on paper, the ThinkPad with Wayland actually renders everything super-smoothly on my 120Hz 4K screen, while on the MacBook the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz is barely noticeable. On the ThinkPad I can run NixOS, which is generally much nicer than macOS.
The primary thing that my MacBook has over my ThinkPad are battery life and a bunch of really good Mac applications like the Affinity Suite. But since more and more applications are switching to Electron, it has become less of a problem. Heck, I even have 1Password with fingerprint unlock, etc. like if it was a MacBook.
As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard.
Or I don't know, you buy a Pixel, install GrapheneOS, and you have better privacy than on an iPhone? And no F1 movie ads too.
I think there are a lot of offerings out there now. Maybe not to the minute with respect to battery life but Apples chip advantage is steadily evaporating. I typically don't need more than 8 hours of battery personally.
Have heard good things about framework computers. As a more efficient chip or battery comes out you just upgrade that component if your use case requires it.
By the way, it's not a lack of heat in the Air. The M4 will hit 105°C and start throttling pretty soon in sustained workloads. At any rate, modern Ryzen laptop CPUs have narrowed the gap with Apple Silicon performance-wise. It's mostly battery life that's still lagging behind. It not only requires a mainboard optimized for power use (which is pretty good nowadays on modern laptops), but also very strong OS integration. I am not sure if non-Apple laptops will get that far, because Linux and Windows simply have to target much more hardware.
At any rate, non-Apple laptops have other benefits, like being able to get 64GiB/128GiB memory and large SSDs without breaking the bank.
In the end it's all a trade-off. If you are a sales representative that needs all-day battery life, MacBook is probably the only option. If you are a developer that needs something portable to hop between desks or on the train, but usually have access to a power socket (yay, Dutch/German trains), a few hours of battery is enough and you might prefer to get an insane amount of memory/storage, a built-in cellular modem, and an ethernet port instead.
Most people don't really need more than 2 hours of battery life anyway[1] as their laptops barely ever leave the house. >8H of battery is nice to have but it is really an important parameter for a specific population while for others it is just convenience. I wouldn't trade an OS/desktop I don't like over my linux setup just because it last longer when I never need more than a couple of hours on battery[3].
[1] which means you need a 4 to 6h range when new if you don't plan to replace the battery too often
[2] students, construction companies, people who are always on the road...
Is that where we are going? Most people don’t need a laptop that has more than 2 hours battery life?
When I was in the office full time in the bad old days, you would be in a conference room and every one would plug their laptops in.
After I started working remotely and still doing business trips, one charge could last a full day either going back and forth between conference rooms, in “war rooms” etc and no one with M series MacBooks even worried about charging.
Heck my MacBook Pro (work laptop) can last a full day on power with my portable USB C powered external monitor where the power and video come from one cord.
I spent almost 10 hours at a coworking space and didn't even worry about charging my M4 MacBook Pro. Apple Silicon is a game changer: incredible performance and long battery life, generally totally silent, no thermal throttling. 10 hours may be extreme, but it's nice to be able to go to a coffee shop and not worry about not having charged your laptop since last week.
I used to run Linux on a laptop (10+ years ago) and you couldn't even close the laptop lid without risking it not going to sleep and overheating in your bag.
It is exactly what I am saying, it is nice, a convenience. But that's it.
I don't worry about closing my thinkpad lid. Well I do because I disable sleep on lid close and prefer using the dedicated button for that. But my thinkpad goes to sleep when I ask it to.
I have an Asus Vivobook S14 laptop with an Intel Core Ultra 258v processor. In Linux, it gets 12-15 hours of real usage (i.e. not manufacturer "playing videos off local storage with wifi off and the screen all the way down" battery life numbers). If I'm doing something like web browsing or streaming videos, the laptop doesn't get hot and the fan doesn't turn on. I've only had the fan turn on when I'm doing something intensive like compiling GCC or video encoding. It feels just as fast as my ARM Macbook Air.
I'd sacrifice some battery life to have a Thinkpad (example: T14 gen 5), with the superior keyboard, Touch point and smaller touchpad (the Mac one is annoyingly too large).
I have stopped caring so I caved in to work policy and got an iPhone, and I really do not see the point. It is just a thing no better or worse than an Android...
That’s cool, but you represent a tiny slice of the market that as devices get more powerful, isn’t addressable in the low volumes needed to make you happy.
When the chips needed to make a phone are priced like toys, maybe you’ll find the product for you.
I feel that the problem with small phones roots in software. Obviously you would need to run smaller resolution. My sweet spot was iPhone 4S. It has 3.5" display with 640x960 resolution. If you would try to run modern Android with this resolution, you would hit multiple obstacles, from popular apps to popular websites scaling badly.
I don’t know.If I have a “big” phone (anything bigger than the iphone mini, at least for me), I’ll leave it at home most of the time. But if it’s small, I’ll take it with me everywhere. So I can be bombarded with crap more time if I use a small phone.
Phones are big now because people want better cameras and longer battery life. Also, people are spending 4-5 hours more per day on screens than they did 15 years ago, so they want bigger screen for reading, playing games and watching videos.
I know I can’t claim to be “the norm”, but all I want is a smaller phone with 1–2 day battery life. I don’t need a better screen, a better camera, or ever more compute. (It’s a freaking smartphone, not a game console!) All I need my phone to do is run a web browser, messaging apps, maps, my banking app, and random little apps some organisations force you to use – like my university’s app, my city’s public transport app, or half the restaurants here. Things that could easily be done with 10–15 year old hardware. Sadly, the industry chose to keep the power consumption constant increasing while computational power, instead of focusing on smaller devices and longer battery life with the same power.
Again, I’m not angry that current phones exist; I’m just sad there aren’t (good) alternatives – at least that I know of.
Yep, in my area a couple of dining places only list their menu in an app [1], a bunch of places have some kind of membership program accessible through the app, and one standup club requires (!) an app to order drinks and food.
[1]: There’s a paper one in the restaurant, of course, but I like to choose beforehand.
I thought the theory behind the 12 and 13 minis was that Apple had a huge surplus of parts that they needed to offload, and making the minis was a profitable way of doing that.
It’s an interesting take but I believe most people just prefer bigger phone. I know it’s weird to those of us who like the opposite and funnily enough it’s often women who have gigantic phone, which they can’t put in their tiny jean pocket.
I don’t explain it and every time I get explained they like it better because it’s got bigger battery and bigger screen, I just don’t understand how you could live your life with a brick constantly on you but it’s what people want.
The market just adapted to the demand and it’s not a 40k « petition » that will change much.
> I know it’s weird to those of us who like the opposite and funnily enough it’s often women who have gigantic phone, which they can’t put in their tiny jean pocket.
Most women carry their phone in a hand bag anyway as the pockets on most pants for women are way to small either way [1].
The pants thing is another baffling mystery. I know exactly zero women who want their pants to not have pockets. Yet manufacturers absolutely refuse to add pockets. It seems like a complete market failure.
I used to buy ZenFones, but they're huge now. It feels like there's some combination of poor sales and parts commonality that causes the problem, not a shadowy conspiracy, since I don't think ASUS and other manufacturers have a significant way to benefit from phone addiction.
Phones had smaller screens when you needed the keypad to interact with the largest number of features.
Phone screen sizes grew as the applications that could use screen space grew in demand.
People are watching 1080p films on the train now. The people who want smaller screens are usually willing to deal with a larger one. People who want larger screens usually cant operate their use cases on a smaller screen. Larger screens also tend to mask larger case meaning less miniaturisation required for the components.
None of this explains why it's just impossible to get small phones.
You have people who want them unusably large and people who want them to fit in your hand. The solution in every other market is that products are manufactured to fit both sets of needs. You don't see pants coming in one size with the advice "wear a belt".
>You don't see pants coming in one size with the advice "wear a belt".
Great example. Because people who are shorter than average tend to have to get pants taken up, and people who are vastly taller than average tend to go to specialty stores.
The average height of pants is largely dictated by what the market will permit, requiring people to make adjustments or leave the market. Having a 2d matrix of height and width defined pant sizes is too complex for the market to bother with.
Technology is worse, anything that requires tooling is done the least number of times possible. While small phone enjoyers are disadvantaged, they arent disadvantaged enough to force them out of the market. Larger tooling is easier to make and caters to all other preferences.
> Technology is worse, anything that requires tooling is done the least number of times possible. While small phone enjoyers are disadvantaged, they arent disadvantaged enough to force them out of the market. Larger tooling is easier to make and caters to all other preferences.
No, you're making up a claim that you know perfectly well is false. Just blank most of your day out of your mind, and then... what? Why?
You don't like pants? Televisions come in dozens of different sizes. Laptops come in dozens of different sizes. Are phones different in some way?
>No, you're making up a claim that you know perfectly well is false. Just blank most of your day out of your mind, and then... what? Why?
I cant even parse this? What am I blanking?
>You don't like pants? Televisions come in dozens of different sizes. Laptops come in dozens of different sizes. Are phones different in some way?
Where did I claim not to like pants?
Laptops come in tons of different sizes. So do phones.
They tried sub 10 inch laptops, in the form of netbooks, the form factor barely exists anymore outside of hobbyists. Netbook enthusiasts either have to exit the market, or go for something 10 inch or higher. Because its not worth the tooling to deal with a niche market.
Phones come in dozens of different sizes too, what are you on about? TVs come in a greater range of sizes because they're designed for different viewing distances and room configurations. Phones don't have this variable, you hold them in your hand.
I don't think it's meaningful. There are not enough people who would buy such a device to make it profitable to design and manufacture. Your priors -
"You have ... people who want them to fit in your hand"
Are incorrect. The number of people who will actually buy small devices is ... small. The number of people who are so interested in small devices they'll overlook things like a lower battery life and whatever other compromises are needed to achieve the smaller size, likely even fewer.
It's not like it hasn't been tried in the past, people in this thread talk about iPhone minis disappearing - Apple couldn't make them a success. Sony couldn't make them a success either and stopped making them AFAICT. As a market segment you're too small to warrant the investment in designing a small flagship. And if nobody's investing in a small flagship, small midmarket isn't going to happen either.
There do appear to be niche manufacturers in this segment (take a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/smallphones/). If the untapped demand is so huge, I would expect to see them become much more mainstream over time.
Unless you're asserting the number of people who will actually buy small devices is zero (which I would hope you aren't given the evidence to the contrary in this thread), his priors are in fact correct. If there exists any number of people willing to buy small phones, then the statement "you have people who want them to fit in your hand" is true.
> If there exists any number of people willing to buy small phones, then the statement "you have people who want them to fit in your hand" is true.
But the subtext is that this is enough of a population to make a viable market, that in fact any number of people, however small, make a viable market. It's just not a reasonable prior.
So I'm asserting that it may as well be zero as far as the big manufacturers are concerned, that with such a small audience it's not profitable. Further, that this dynamic does indeed play out in other markets.
OP is looking for a conspiracy as to why phone manufacturers are leaving money on the table. The truth is they aren't. This situation is exactly what you'd expect when there's no real market - a few niche providers making a few niche products for die-hards (without the scale, support or quality of the majors) and not making a lot of money at it, while the rest of the market ignores them.
That makes no sense. The only phone companies that make money from how often you use your phone and buy apps on it are Apple and Google. If there were a market for it other companies would make them.
As far as the mini phones - because physics - the battery life is atrocious. That was one of the main drivers for me to get a larger phone. Well that and because I can pull down the Control Center and use the widget to make everything on my phone larger and still be able to use it without wearing my glasses. With my glasses, I keep everything the smallest size
Sorry, in my national market. Apple has 51%, Samsung has around 28% and Google 5%. These 3 hold almost 85% of the UK market.
Samsung, from what I remember used to side-load tons of apps (some alongside identical stock Android apps), so it's in their best interest to maximise screen time through media apps, which generally work best on a bigger screen.
It's against all of these companies interests to sell you a phone which you quickly use and put away. They all have every incentive to keep you staring, because they're all getting extra money from every ad you see in a game, TV show, movie, web browsing, or wherever else they can slot it.
Pointless rant. Apple does not earn more or less depending on how many ads it can show.
The market has spoken, it's not worthwhile for Apple to produce small phones.
There are a million companies that are not Google that could also produce mini phones and don't for the same exact reason: most people want large screens to enjoy videos and photos.
Nobody cares about small screens and pockets, everyone holds their phones in their hands or purses at all times.
Like it or not, Apple keeps cancelling smaller phone lines because they don't sell well. That's it. If they sold really well then they'd keep selling them, but they don't.
I would also love more capable small phones personally, but I can't deny that people overall don't seem to want them.
I thought that was the case but I tried going small.
I owned an iPhone 13 mini. Basically the perfect small phone if there ever was one.
The downsides are extensive and the upsides are few.
- Battery life sucked. Since a phone is a 3D object making it bigger substantially increases battery capacity. It also makes packaging difficult especially if the goal is a flagship-quality phone. Good luck fitting in good hardware with a lot of features.
- Eyestrain. It’s small.
- Typing. It sucks. The phone is small.
And it turns out the upside of one-handed operation is limited. A simple PopSocket or OhSnap! will make large phones easy to use in one hand.
Plus, if pocketability is your issue, you can buy a folding phone like a Motorola Razr and still get a nice big screen when you pull it out.
I disagree. I'm reading and typing this from an iPhone 13 mini. I use a big one for work so it's not like I don't know what I'm missing. I very strongly prefer the small form factor
I mean, are the phones themselves really making money off ads or are those totally separate companies? I don't disagree that this brings in business, but I don't agree that this is a significant motivator in terms of phone sizes
The hard reality is that there is no PAYING market for such a device, because when it comes to the point-of-sale, most people still choose the normal-size device with better screen/battery/camera.
This is equivalent to something I called the "QWERTY paradox" more than a decade ago:
Back when the Smartphone market exploded, people disliked typing on a touchscreen and repeatedly stated that they want a device with a physical keyboard.
There was plenty of evidence, surveys, market studies, trend predictions, devices for these "Messaging-centric" use-cases were always part of this market-demand roster.
But whenever someone answered the call and built a Smartphone with QWERTY keyboard, the product failed commercially, simply because also to people claiming they want such a phone, at the point of sale they were less attractive than their slimmer, lighter, all-screen counterparts.
Every major vendor went through this cycle of learning that lesson, usually with an iteration like "it needs to be a premium high-spec device" --> (didn't sell) --> "ah, it should be mass-market" --> (also didn't sell).
You can find this journey for every vendor. Samsung, LG, HTC, Motorola, Sony.
The same lessons were already learnt for small-screen devices: There was a "Mini" series of Samsung Galaxy, LG G-series, HTC One, Sony Xperia. It didn't sell, the numbers showed that it didn't attract additional customers, at best it only fragmented the existing customer-base.
Source: I work in that industry for a long time now
> when it comes to the point-of-sale, most people still choose the normal-size device with better screen/battery/camera.
My theory is that much of this effect is an error, or at least a far-less-than-ideal effort, on the part of the designers. Of course it’s hard to sell a low-end “mini” device with a worse camera, worse battery life, etc. But that’s not actually what I, or many people I discuss this with, want. I would happily buy a premium device that is short and narrow, and possibly even thicker as a tradeoff. There’s plenty of unexplored room in the design space here. For example: start with an iPhone Pro or whatever the Android equivalent du jour is. Keep the camera unchanged. Shrink the display but keep the same quality (at least equal pixel density). Now puff out the back so that the camera lenses are flat or even slightly recessed. Use the resulting added volume to compensate for the decrease in volume due to decreasing the other dimensions. Market the think as a Whatever Phone Pro Compact, and advertise clearly that the battery life is every bit as good as the non-Compact model version. Show off cool pictures models sticking this thing in their cool jeans pockets without them sticking out. Charge the same price as the ordinary Pro model.
As far as I know, no one has tried anything like this in recent memory. The iPhone 12 and 13 Mini were always marketed as the cheaper versions, and the cute little old SE model was very much a low-end version. Last I checked, there was no 5G Android device with similar dimensions from any manufacturer.
> much of this effect is an error, or at least a far-less-than-ideal effort
No, the vast majority of people use their phones as video viewers, increasingly so after the rise of TikTok. I have family members in their 30s who don't have laptops or TVs, all media is consumed through their phone, and for most kids/teens across the world it is their primary video consumption device.
The average person is trying to maximize screen size relative to portability. And the market is everyone on earth. That's it.
There’s a bias here: video consumption is continuous, somewhat long and eye catching (both the movement on the screen and the focussed-starring position à la "look at the sky!"). Therefore we’re more encline to notice video consumption than other usages like music, navigation or notifications check.
Don’t take me wrong: I do agree that "the vast majority of people use their phones as video viewers", but the duration/day is not uniform and many don’t want/need to carry a half-tablet all day long in case someone shared a tiktok on the messaging group.
> Therefore we’re more encline to notice video consumption than other usages [..]
That's not relevant, as this is then forming our decision at the point-of-sale towards a media consumption device.
> many don’t want/need to carry a half-tablet all day long in case someone shared a tiktok on the messaging group.
Only while no media is consumed. Many people take less than one photo a day on average, but still the camera quality is a dominant decision-factor.
I'd even argue that the majority of price-premium paid by a customer today is for camera and display. Those will be the factors at the point of sale to decide whether to pay 50-100 USD more or not...
>No, the vast majority of people use their phones as video viewers, increasingly so after the rise of TikTok. I have family members in their 30s who don't have laptops or TVs, all media is consumed through their phone, and for most kids/teens across the world it is their primary video consumption device.
That is one thing that is more disgusting about using a smart phone now days. When iPhone first came out it is about a music player and phone with extra features to facilitate real life things.
I don't want a freaking small computer in my pocket, and looking at small screens for long period of time is just NOT good for our eyes or postural.
We need to start treat these small devices as something we interact with very occasionally to facilitate real life interaction, not get our face stuck to it.
Not that working on laptop or workstation is much better, but it is better than writing on and viewing a video on small screen.
> The iPhone 12 and 13 Mini were always marketed as the cheaper versions [...]
No, they were not. They were literally a scaled down version of their respective regular sized counterparts, the 13 Mini had the same cameras, SOC, memory, screen quality and storage options as the regular 13 [0], yet its sales success (or lack thereof [1]) was enough to instantly cure me of any previously held notions that there is a sufficiently large group of buyers for these devices out there.
It isn't because the specs are inferior, the cameras are changed, the display has a lower pixel density (the Mini actually had slightly higher ppi) or anything else. There simply is no sufficient market, the 13 Mini was the worst selling phone in that generation by a frankly impressive margin. 38% for iPhone 13 vs 3% for iPhone 13 mini, despite them being as close to just being scaled down and otherwise identical as one can make a phone speaks a very clear language that any manufacturer wanting to succeed has hear loud and clear. Most certainly why Asus has seized with their more compact smartphones. The amount of people I know that praised Asus for making a more compact flagship with a very large battery [2] was not in any way proportional to their sales. In this case, the battery life was actually superior to many larger competitors. Same for my Xperia 5 V, the compact phone I bought and used at the time, cause I walk my talk and have been following phone releases to a sufficient degree that I can assure everyone, there have been and are flagship speced, compact phones with good battery life, that no one ever buys. I'd love more options in the market, heck, I use both the Xperia 5 and an iPhone 15 Pro Max in a Clicks case, either for different situations, so am on both sides as a consumer. Simply, the lack of any actual market demand beyond online comments makes that impossible, we need to be honest here.
The Asus Zenfones were not compact phones. They were almost exactly the same size as the regular iPhones and Galaxy S phones at the time (slightly narrower but thicker). And expecting them to sell well against those two is unreasonable.
It wasn't that the batteries were "substandard". I'm sure they were the same technology and quality as the standard iPhone 12 and 13 batteries. It's just that they were compressing the same hardware into a smaller form factor and, therefore, a smaller battery.
The only thing that used less power on the mini was the smaller screen, but that doesn't save enough power to make up for a physically smaller battery.
As a 12 mini user daily since it came out in 2020, I've only just now started to hit any noticeable battery dip (~85% after almost 5 years usage). It's still pretty solid on a daily basis. On very rare occasions, the smaller battery has required charging before evening due to excessive photos taken and/or nav without a plug.
FWIW, I will probably replace the battery by end of year, or next, and keep it going as long as I can... I refuse the massive "normal" phone size.
Imma big Mini fan but the battery is sorely disappointing after a year on both my 12 and 13. It's especially true in daylight when the display goes max; walking the dog for 15 minutes sees a 10+ % battery drop. It's nuts.
That said I wish they'd release a thicker version to compensate
For a while, I was optimistic that Apple would at least continue to release the SE every 3-ish years. I'm guessing they wanted to finally kill the fingerprint reader and other SE-specific features[1]. And maybe even the SE with its reduced price didn't sell that well.
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1. Yes, I understand that these features were present in other phones, but the SE was the last phone actively sold by Apple that had them
The SE has always seemed, to me, a way to repurpose older iPhone components into a more modern shell, which is why the SE line has been replace by the 16e. 16e uses iPhone 13 dimensions.
You’re right but you’re kind of missing my point. The iPhone 13 Mini started at $699. The normal iPhone 13 started at $799. The Pro started at $999. People were largely not looking at detailed specs — the Mini was obviously the smaller, cheaper version for if you couldn’t afford the standard model, and if you wanted the dramatically better camera, you would pay $999.
Per my suggestion, Apple should have scrapped the 13 Mini completely and instead offered a 13 Pro Compact for $999. Or maybe even $1049 if it had a bigger battery than the standard Pro model. The profit would have been much higher per unit than the 13 Mini, and I imagine they might have sold more units as well.
I’m typing this on a 13 Mini, and I would have paid an extra $400 for a better camera and more battery life. Before I had this phone, I bought a 15 Pro, used it for a week, and returned it because it was uncomfortably large.
As per my source, the iPhone 13 outsold both the Pro and Pro Max together, so no the cameras could not have been the reason:
> Combined, all four iPhone 13 models made up 71 percent of iPhone sales, with the standard 6.1-inch iPhone 13 responsible for 38 percent of sales. The iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max weren't quite as popular as the iPhone 13, but sold much better than the iPhone 13 mini.
In fact, the iPhone 13 alone sold more (38%) than the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max combined (30%). The plain old 13 was the most popular SKU, because no, most people do in fact not spend more for an added telephoto camera only a specific few have a true need for. The regular non Pro iPhone has across most years been the best seller, because it is a solid middle ground for the vast majority of people, making it the best basis for a small SKU to have any hope of succeeding. A 13 Pro Compact would have absolutely sold as poorly, maybe even worse than the 13 mini, considering both Pros did not outsell the regular 13 by itself. But even if a 13 Pro Compact had sold twice as well as the 13 mini (a very generous assumption considering it would have been 300usd more expensive), that would still be only 6% of total sales, a drop in the bucket.
Lastly, there are the Xperia 5s and there have been the Zenfones, both having better battery life than their large competitors, both being as (un)popular as Apples efforts.
Again, I like small smartphones, I'd love there to be a significant market for them. There simply is no way to look at the data and claim there is one beyond a tiny niche that a company such as Apple cannot realistically serve.
Apple tried converting their most successful SKU into a small smartphone. That failed to sell even a tenth of its large brother, despite being 100usd cheaper.
Sony literally scales their flagship down and gives it better battery life. Not really a success either.
ASUS made their own, fully dedicated line of compact smartphones which again, had better battery life than most large competitors and even included a 3.5mm jack, getting a second niche of customers to bolster sales. They too saw so few sales that they were forced to pivot to gigantic phones.
No matter what conditions, no matter how favorable, the same result.
My wife would have paid more as well. She still has her 13 because it's the smallest available smartphone. Unfortunately the new flip phones are a bit too thick for now.
>No, they were not. They were literally a scaled down version of their respective regular sized counterparts, the 13 Mini had the same cameras, SOC, memory, screen quality and storage options as the regular 13 [0], yet its sales success (or lack thereof [1]) was enough to instantly cure me of any previously held notions that there is a sufficiently large group of buyers for these devices out there.
You're being willfully obtuse here. It is the smaller version of the cheaper version of the iPhone. It's not a small pro, and that's what the original person was talking about.
No official LineageOS support according to https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/. And no, missing vendor support is still an issue even with Lineage support, as soon as firmware (and sometimes driver) updates are needed.
I would be all over the Unihertz stuff if that wasn’t the case. I see people talking about Lineage working, but I haven’t looked into it.
My ideal phone is something small and rugged with physical keys that supports Android Auto for navigation and a few other basic apps I need (Bitwarden basically).
I’m not completely against it yet, especially if it looks like I can use something like Lineage.
Software aside, I’ve heard mixed things about the keyboard on the Titan. Keeping an open mind though, I would like to support companies filling this niche.
The Jelly Max looks really tempting, but I'm a little apprehensive after running the Jelly Star for a while and dealing with constant dropped calls and bad call quality all around.
I'm in a similar boat. I really (really!) wanted to love the jelly star (when I used it for almost a month), but on Verizon I didn't have an LTE signal most of the time in the Seattle area, including downtown, which I find unreasonable. Also the battery life was horrible, 20% per hour of active use and 4% per hour of standby.
Using the jelly star proved that using a small screen is not a problem for me and I would gladly pay money for an experience like that.
But it also proved that it is not an acceptable option in terms of quality. Hopefully the Jelly Max is better in these regards.
I think Jelly Max the ideal size for me too (jelly star was a little too small for doing driving navigation). I'll keep an ear out
Maybe you haven't heard, but Samsung has been making folding phones that fold up to be very small. The Galazy Flip 7 is pretty much what you describe as far as easily being able to fit in a pants pocket, has plenty of battery life, high-res screen, and it even flips out to have a large screen. No, folding phones are not a gimmick, been using a fold 4 for a few years and it's been amazing.
It's simpler than that. People often don't know what they want until they're actually presented with the buying decision. Economists call this stated vs revealed preferences and it's a well documented and understood phenomena.
No, I don't really accept that in the discussion about phones re: size and keyboard.
People do ask the wrong questions.
Yes, I would buy the phone with the keyboard, but the keyboard is not the single most important feature. After the Desire Z there simply was nothing comparable. If it was 400 instead of 300 I would have said no, if it was from a brand I hate because they mess up the default Android install I might have said no. If it was 1:1 like some other phone except the battery being atrocious I might have said no.
The problem is that they are changing 10 variables at a time, including size, cost, software, camera, battery, whatever.
They don't like the black one more. The yellow one caught their attention, but when it comes to the actual buying-decision, they find that drawing attention is not a feature they want.
But the existence of the yellow one helped sell the black one.
A bunny walks into a bakery. There he asks the baker if he has any carrot cake.
The bakers says: ‘No, I don’t sell carrot cake.’
So the bunny leaves, but returns the next day. He once again asks if the baker has any carrot cake.
Once more the baker answers: ‘No, I don’t sell carrot cake.’
Once the bunny left, the baker started making a carrot cake thinking the bunny would return the next day for the cake. And so the bunny did, and he asks: ‘Do you have carrot cake?’
To which the bakers answers: ‘Yes, today I DO sell carrot cake.’
So the Bunny says: ‘YUCK, isn't it disgusting, why do people sell these things?!’
Well there's certainly not no paying market. But the market is apparently too small to be viable.
Apple apparently sold a couple million iPhone 13 minis. Ford reliably sold more than 100,000 Focus cars in the US annually before deciding to discontinue it. But Apple and Ford decided they were better served redirecting that engineering effort towards more profitable projects.
It just frustrating when these gaps occur and there's no smaller player to fill them. A couple million small smartphones or a couple hundred thousand compact cars sounds like enough to sustain a business, but it isn't enough for the big players to care, and small players can't affordably create a competitive offering.
> The hard reality is that there is no PAYING market for such a device, because when it comes to the point-of-sale, most people still choose the normal-size device with better screen/battery/camera.
This kind of over-generalization is always annoying me deeply.
Of course there IS a market for such a product, because at the very least I exist (as well as a good fraction of the 320 other people from HN who upvoted this submission so far).
The problem is that this market is tiny, and even a smaller share of this market is willing to make massive concessions on other aspects of the phone to have a smaller phone, so you end up with a much harder design space (because size is a big engineering constraint) for a minority market, and the endeavor is often not profitable enough for that reason.
It doesn't mean there's no market, it just means addressing this particular market is a tough business, these two statements aren't equivalent.
The problem is that the bar for "commercial failure" is too low. I not only would pay more for a qwerty device but I have multiple times and I've delayed purchases of a device when no qwerty option was available. And I know there are thousands of people like me.
But there aren't hundreds of millions of people like me. And the bar for "success" is selling that many units so it gets considered a "failure"
Well if company can't profit selling such device in small quantity it is commercial failure. There is not much qualification to it beyond that.
The bar appears too low to prospective customer because they lose nothing if they try this product but ultimately decide to not buy but for business it is clear loss.
This is like those mythical users who'd buy Macs once its fully hackable and officially support linux. Apple thinks it is just better to not serve those buyers.
> Smartphone with QWERTY keyboard, the product failed commercially
Well, there was BlackBerry. Multiple phone vendors assuming they could refresh a previously world-dominating form factor with contemporary smartphone guts only seems unreasonable in hindsight.
Every time I see messages and posts like this, I hope that big companies were being dissatisfied with the product factory scaling issue and device sell effectiveness.
I hope that small companies would launch device like this with 500-1000 devices being created and sold in a year just fulfill the niche and doesn't go bankrupt
I don’t think you could manufacture a small run like that without the price being extremely high.
Say you charge $1,000 per device. That means you need to build an entire company, pay staff, and prototype then manufacture a custom hardware device with customized software with less than a million dollars. Costs add up real fast.
Why does the cost need to be so high? Chinese markets have many small phone options like Soyes and Servo that cost less than $100. Unfortunately, these devices are potentially loaded with malware.
Can a similar device without malware not be made in small batches? At a selling price of $500 or less?
I actually had a brief email conversation with the folks running the project in the OP. Basically they said they can't get a reasonable-quality screen in that size. No one makes it. They would have to spin up a whole new manufacturing line for a quality, small screen and the cost on that is insane. The screens on the small phones you're talking about are very low quality.
I've seen this pattern before, with laptops ("I want a laptop with" specific spec+feature combo not in the market) and cars ("I just want an electric car with physical controls and no subscription services or extra electronics") immediately coming to mind.
Which is a shame, because I can sympathize with most of these requests.
I want something like Kick-starter which operates the same way but isn't meant for funding the creator to get the upfront capital investment - just avoiding existing companies getting burned out of the "let's listen to a niche slice of our customers instead of appealing to the masses" mindset. Companies put up a weird product proposal and see if enough people will commit to buying it to at least break even.
Then, if there's enough of a commitment, those people get something they actually want. If there's not enough, then there's a specific reason that you can point to to explain why.
This is almost equivalent to the normal market model (people buy things they want, and niche products don't get made much), except with a more explicit feedback step, to help people realize that if they don't actually put their money where their mouth is, then things won't get made.
There's probably a better way to do this, but I'm not sure how. Ultimately I just want my non-electronic electric car.
Depending on how stringently you define "no extra electronics" you can get there with a 1st generation Hyundai Ioniq. The only things I need to use the touch screen for in daily life is navigation and choosing media.
Be aware that you'd need to live in a place with very good public charging infrastructure due to the ~220 km range. The infrastructure is there here in Denmark where I live and daily-drive a 2017 Ioniq.
All-in-all the Ioniq sold well enough that Hyundai release a facelift in 2020. And the most recent facelifts of the successor-Ioniqs (5 and 6) have moved back to a more button-based interface (AFAIK).
People report struggling to buy a Ford Maverick. Shadowy organizations can't stand it that Americans demand Kei Trucks and get legislation so they can't get them. Increasingly I see rural people driving compact cars... Maybe they'd like a big-ass truck but they can't afford one at $90k.
Yeah, mainly I mean I don't get the hype over it. At $28k with no EV tax credit it makes no sense to me. Just get a Maverick, it's actually got features.
My original point was that I expect a big difference in people's stated vs observed preference on this one.
Not having power windows or a radio with Android Auto/Apple Carplay was a mistake. It would have added $1,500 to the price, but those features are big quality-of-life improvements.
Even if was a small % of the Apple lineup, the iPhone mini was one the best selling smartphones all brands considered. I for one switched to iPhone in 2020 specifically because there wasn't a single current-gen small form-factor Android phone anymore. I have a few friend that also made the switch with the 12 / 13 Mini for that reason.
The real reason the iPhone mini failed is not related to screen size, it's because its segment was canibalized by the cheaper alternative, the SE. The 2020 and 2022 sold like hot breads, wherehas their screen was almost an inch smaller than the iPhone mini. This is the proof that there a significant market for people who don't care about size and would gladly take the smallest option at a $100 discount from the regular one.
I think the "mini" name hurt it too. People thought it would be small, when the screen was in fact bigger than the screen on the 6/7/8 iPhones. It was a similar form factor without the forehead and chin.
The mini could have been simply, iPhone. The marketing would have been that they managed to add an extra .7" of screen, while reducing the overall size and weight. That's a great pitch. Who doesn't want a bigger screen in something that more easily fits in their pocket? Instead they called in a "mini", people thought it would be tiny and hard to use, so they didn't buy it.
The iPhone 12 mini screen was only .1" smaller than the screen on the iPhone 8 Plus... the giant option from just a few years earlier.
The mini was a marketing and brand strategy failure, plain and simple. It wasn't a small phone.
> Even if was a small % of the Apple lineup, the iPhone mini was one the best selling smartphones all brands considered
Correct. To back this up a little bit with numbers, the iPhone 13 Mini all by itself sold about the half of the rate of the entire Google Pixel lineup. I bet lots of phone manufacturers would love to have half the sales of Google's premier Android phone. I also switched from Android to iPhone solely because of the 13 Mini form factor (I prefer Android, but I prefer a human-hand-sized phone even more).
This is the case for me precisely - I’ve been dismayed at the “phablet” sizing trend, and leapt at the opportunity to keep my iPhone reasonably-sized - I’m on my second SE now and I’m kind of dreading what will happen when I need to eventually replace it.
I just want something small that will fit comfortably in my pocket, and I can use with one hand.
I owned 2 minis and would just replace screens and batteries whenever one got bad. Keep one in a drawer, take the broken one to the shop, rinse repeat.
I did this for years because I liked the form factor so much.
My new buying criteria for my iPhone is simply “buy the smallest one offered”.
But I’m willing to accept I’m not a big enough market segment to move the market.
The SE is a great phone, and a reasonable size. I will say ever more websites are starting to screwup their layouts on such "small" as indeed is iOS. Tiresome as hell
Similar to the „ARTE effect“: When French TV audiences where polled, frequently around 10% responded, that they were watching Arte (an artsy government funded intelligentsia TV channel) on a daily basis.
Although, it's not exactly what he wished for in 2022 since it doesn't run standard Android and obviously doesn't have industrial design like the iPhone mini.
The Lightphone seems great on paper, but price is far from light unfortunately, which is a bummer as I would have been interested if it were at 300$ selling price.
Unihertz is currently serving both the slim size and the QWERTY niche, with a QWERTY Kickstarter running right now. Their hardware actually seems quite appreciated, but they don't seem to care much for software updates.
Currently, foldable smartphones (the flip phone ones) seem to be the fashionable alternative to small phones, but they're even more expensive than the huge ones.
I bought a mini because a phone broke and was not immediately fixable, and I just needed something to get me going.
And... I love it and use it all the time. Into the pocket it goes, great for going out.
I would buy an iphone mini 16/17/18 no questions asked.
When it comes to the marketing side of things, I think back to a story where one of the soft drink companies tried to find the best soft drink taste. They found out that they couldn't optimize for the one true taste because... different people had different favorites.
I think there could be a market for a small reliable Android phone. The main issue is that it'd take years to build up a model's reputation and it'd have to be reasonably low price.
As it stands the kind of people who want a smaller phone almost by definition need to be a bit savvier than the market in general to know such a thing still exists and along with that will have greater skepticism towards Android phones having any kind of post market support.
It'd basically have to come from Samsung to hit the all the price/quality/trust requirements. Feel like they've already got a lot of the pieces there with their corporate targeted XCover range just shrink them down a bit.
I'm starting to see the same trend with laptops without a keyboard now. There's an entire generation of 8-16 yos who never used a keyboard and type fast on ipad screens. In a decade, it's a real possibility that keyboardless laptops become the standard...
I think when people start using phones less, they will again want them to be small. That is my experience at least. That being said, I expect to have to go back to a full size phone before that happens.
Ha yeah it isn't a big screen by today's standards. But it was basically a full candy-bar slab (with a curved screen) plus a sliding keyboard body, making it particularly thick / chunk.
Kind of funny, I would've thought it was heavier, but that is less than an S25 Ultra in weight... I think that also speaks to how large screens have gotten!
Exactly. Stated and revealed preferences are sometimes very different. Interestingly, preferences can also change slowly over time. For example, the Dell Streak in 2010 had a 5 inch screen size, which was considered ridiculously large at the time (people called it a "phablet"), and it didn't catch on initially. But years later, average phones did actually reach and even exceed that size. Nowadays the Dell seems relatively small.
I think this is true for a lot of different features that get a lot of play on social media as "I wish my device had X feature." And it's not like QWERTY or small screen phones didn't try. They had models that were best of the best, cheapest of the cheap, mid range, offered a range of options and choices. And the audience just isn't there.
Screen manufacturers, based on orders from the big buyers. They set up their machines to build panels and cut them to size, minimizing wasted area. If you want one of the sizes built in volume, great; if not, it's very difficult.
Within one year, the screen size of nearly all mass-market smartphones took a huge bump from 5.x" to 6.5", because of two ODMs (device manufacturers who are contracted by big brands to design and produce smartphones). Those two ODMs won contracts to produce mass-market devices for the brands Lenovo/Motorola, Huawei and Xiaomi based on a 6.5" 720p LCD.
The total volume forecast was so big, that suddenly 6.5" displays were cheaper than any other 720p smartphone panel. Other Smartphone brands adjusted mid-development because the larger panel also made the PCBs and batteries cheaper. In that year, mass-market devices with 1080p displays were often smaller (which was contradictory for a vendor-portfolio until then) because there was no such economics of scale on higher-resolution panels.
So within a single year, displays got a full inch larger, not because the consumer demanded it but because of supply-chain dynamics.
> Show me the tiny Android flagship from the past 5 years that didn't sell well. (You can't, because there wasn't one.)
Yeah, because in the 5 years before that, the much MUCH more diverse Smartphone industry tried to make it work for several YEARS and failed.
Of all companies, Sony had the longest stamina, releasing 5 generations of 'compact' flagship devices.
If there would have been a sufficiently sized market for that, they would have continued and grown. In reality their business decreased every year.
Today the Smartphone is dominantly a media-consumption device, the only viable answer to "tiny Android flagship" is now a foldable like the Galaxy Flip.
Look at the actual measurements. The Zenfone was roughly the same size as the standard Galaxy S series and iPhones at the time. Definitely not tiny, not even compact.
The paying market for larger phones also contains the potential market for smaller phones.
There is no ADDITIONAL market in selling smaller phones, and not enough free market to make users switch brand for a smaller phone. So there is nothing to gain.
Crucially, even if 10% of the iPhone users want a smaller phone, they won't buy a smaller phone unless it's compatible to the iOS ecosystem. So roughly half of the market can only be effectively converted by Apple and for Apple it turned out to be not profitable enough to convert them.
The "mini" versions of phones (even the ones marketed as premium) always seem to be nerfed in other ways, like battery life, camera quality, or performance, which could explain why they inevitably don't sell. Nobody really offers a balls-out premium small form factor phone that is better than or equal to the flagship big-phone.
But that's just physics. With a larger area, you can be thinner while still having more of all those things - dominated by battery volume dictating most of them.
That was the iPhone Mini! Same internal specs as the regular iPhone, smaller package, roughly same battery life. And it's gone because no one wanted it.
> the numbers showed that it didn't attract additional customers, at best it only fragmented the existing customer-base.
So, it did sell, but at the expense of larger phones. Which means we are not offered this because it's a bit more profitable for the smartphone makers to only offer larger phones. Extremely annoying.
It cost more but didn't create more sales. It's like creating a car with an additional wheelbase.
What should be much more annoying is this: There is roughly half of the entire Smartphone ecosystem systematically isolated from free market-forces by a single brand, with the other half isolated by an OS. So even if a company would come along with a compelling compact phone, if it cannot instantly replace everything Apple offers, that company can only address HALF of its potential market, and ONLY if it's based on Android then.
Remember the Palm (palm.com, not to be confused with Palm PDAs of a much earlier era) for Verizon networks? That answered all my requests at the time; about the size of an iPhone 5S but running Android 8, but with the caveat that I had to have a "big" smartphone so the Palm could piggyback off the line, even though I could just leave the "big" smartphone at home.
I have no idea why that was the case and can't even speculate since I don't know enough about how the networks worked, but I would love to hear an explanation. I was pretty annoyed by the fact that I still needed to own what I considered a phablet, which was sitting collecting dust on my bedside table at home just so I could have the type of phone I really wanted. Seemed like a punishment-by-design for trying to step off the typical customer rails.
My tastes have changed slightly these days, and I'm okay with a 5.X" screen or whatever, but now I want it to be eInk or something similar and focus more on text/sms as I've gotten pretty minimalism with my phone use.
> But whenever someone answered the call and built a Smartphone with QWERTY keyboard, the product failed commercially, simply because also to people claiming they want such a phone, at the point of sale they were less attractive than their slimmer, lighter, all-screen counterparts.
I bought Motorola Droid 4 when it came out. I was so desperate to have a new phone with physical QWERTY, that I bought it blindly, even though it wasn't available in Europe, even though I have never seen it, even though I knew it *didn't support mobile networks* in Europe for a few months, to be fixed by an update. I had to use a coworker who was going on vacation to Florida.
When it arrived, the first thing I saw was that the black screen during boot shines bright blueish, horribly bad contrast. Then when image appeared, I've learned that it has two subpixels per image pixel, for efficiency. This made single color areas show the pixels very visibly.
Then I took a photo. The quality reminded me of a Sony Ericsson Walkman phone I had 6 years back, except the colors were much worse. Everything was blueish. It had a physical (touch) "search" button below the screen, but companies like Google didn't seem to understand why it would be useful to search for anything, so most of their apps didn't react to it. Especially Gmail.
But hey, I could touch-type any long message, and I could use SSH client conveniently (it even had a physical CTRL button).
Other than the keyboard (pretty solid too), it was one of the worst phones I ever had. So yeah, based on that model the market decided that "nobody wants keyboard phones", and the Droid 5 never came out.
Because it's easy to blame the most standing out feature.
> Because it's easy to blame the most standing out feature.
This is an odd conclusion considering that the Droid 4 was already the FOURTH iteration of a QWERTY device from that ONE brand on that ONE carrier, each iteration selling less than the one before as each faced more competition.
If you're interested, the actual reason for the end of the Droid QWERTY series was that the entire "Droid" brand was a Verizon-exclusive product-line with a big focus in sales and big budget in Marketing, just to compete with the iPhone (which was not available on Verizon until 2011).
For a vendor to win a slot in that lineup meant that Verizon Sales and Marketing put all weight behind selling that device, no matter what device it is. This made the Droid 1 and 2 a huge success, not because of the product but because of the sales channel.
But in year 3 (2011), the iPhone launched on Verizon, which put a huge dent in both sales-focus and budget of Verizon's "Droid" product-line.
Later that year, Droid 3 launched but was selling significantly less than its predecessors.
In that year, Verizon instead sold 6.5m iPhones (up from ZERO iPhones the year before).
So Motorola had to cut their losses on the already ongoing development of the Droid 4, the device was redesigned for a much lower total sales-expectation and then launched in 2012.
But the sales turned out even lower than expected: By Q4 2012 Verizon sold 14m Smartphones, with 10m (!) of them being iPhones.
The most successful Motorola device of that year was the Droid RAZR MAXX HD, a non-QWERTY flagship.
It was clear: That QWERTY keyboard didn't drive sales.
I really like the size of my iPhone mini, and I'm disappointed Apple has discontinued them. Apparently the 12 mini represented only 6% of iPhone sales, and the 13 mini only 3%.
I haven't upgraded yet.
Why does everyone (most of you too?) like bigger screens? The mini screen is big enough for HN, reddit, banking, photos, etc.
> But whenever someone answered the call and built a Smartphone with QWERTY keyboard, the product failed commercially, simply because also to people claiming they want such a phone, at the point of sale they were less attractive than their slimmer, lighter, all-screen counterparts.
No. They were a) rare and b) much more expensive.
AFAIK only Blackberry had a phone with QWERTY keyboard.
Buttons are much more expensive than a touchscreen (see cars for examples).
The main features of the Fairphone are ethical and sustainable production, repairability and longevity.
Of all the people who prioritize those features when buying a new phone, only ~100k users end up buying a fairphone every YEAR.
A company like Samsung needs to produce roughly 10x this volume BEFORE launch just to fill their sellout channels, so their financial risk for a global ramp-up is much higher.
This here in is one of the major differences between Apple[0] and the rest. I imagine they had similar data at various points, and chose to deliberately ignore it. I can’t say for sure but I imagine they thought through the actual end user and experience and realized the tradeoff is more than worth it
[0]: when Steve Jobs still ran the company at least
6" doesn't register as small to me at all lol. The HTC 8X was 4.3" and that was a "normal" sized phone for me.
I used the Palm Phone (PVG100) (3.3" screen) (basically the size of a credit card) [ https://www.ricklohre.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/dsc_097... ] as long as I could until it became too slow to use as software got slower and increasingly battery-hungry and I had to give it up last year.
The specs are more than strong enough to handle whatever I need on a daily basis. But I miss the slimmer size of the Palm Phone.
Right now I've pre-ordered this phone https://aiphor.com/products/bluefox-nx1-4-0-android-smartpho... with the 8gigram+128gig storage capacity. Has an even stronger cpu than the Soyes, but I am slightly worried about the resolution of 540x1168px because some elements may end up overlapping.
Even though it's 4", it has a tiny bezel so it's only slightly bigger than the Palm Phone, although a bit thicker cuz of a bigger battery. But still relatively slim, especially compared to the Soyes.
For me, screen size is what matters. Because I'm using screen. Small bezel is very bad thing, because it registers accidental touches now. Best phone in the history of mankind was iPhone 4S. Perfectly balanced. It's all went downhill since then.
Plus, the diagonal measurement doesn't reflect the width of the phone. Phones got taller/narrower probably about the same time as we started ditching physical buttons below the screen, so the screen size numbers went up without making phones wider, even if you keep the bezels the same size.
People comparing old smartphone diagonal screen measurements to modern ones as if they're equivalent is a huge pet peeve for me. Diagonals are a horrible way to measure screens.
I, too, used a PVG100 until it died. The "juicepack" battery doubled the thickness, but it still fit in my pocket. Now I've got a Motorola Razr. I figure the only way companies will give me a small phone if it folds.
I tried out the Razr and Z Flip 4 at a store but I thought they were too hard to use while closed and way too big when open.
If you check /r/smallphones I'll post a review of the NX1 in a couple months (or whenever I get it + a week or two). It looks like the closest spiritual successor to the Palm Phone (although the single button on the foot with multiple actions will probably never be beat)
Thanks for all the interesting links, the bluefox-nx1-specifically looks interesting to me. Do you have any information how are handling the new EU law, which requires 5 years of security updates? https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/news/new-eu-rules...
I have no idea, I don't work for them or live in the EU. But given that other users report problems loading the site, maybe they don't support EU customers. The phone exists in China but only started taking pre-orders in the US, so maybe it will change in the future.
Huh, for some reason, this page loads properly and I can see it for 1-2 seconds, but it seems like as soon as it's done loading, it redirects me to google.com. Based in Spain, so guessing it's their way of turning away EU or European customers I guess?
They seem to be doing stuff by countries, probably due to regulations. The phone has existed in China for a bit already and only recently became pre-orderable in the US.
The Soyes S10Max performs fine with 8 gigs of ram and a slightly slower mobile CPU. The most intensive thing I do on it is probably video call with people on FB Messenger or Telegram (or I guess load TicketMaster, but even my gf's expensive iPhone struggles with that one lmao), and it does that fine.
But I'll write a review on reddit once I've used it for a week or two.
No clue on aiphor.com, webdevs (or their managers) love javascript lol
I think performance requirements depend on what it's used for, and what other devices you have access to in your life. If someone only has one phone as their personal computer for everything then I can see an argument that the minimum should be higher, but if the phone is intended to be comfortably pocketable tool for tasks you're likely to need while away from a larger/more powerful device. For example have the phone to handle calls, simple messaging, taking photos (minus editing), transport/store apps, and a full PC or larger phone/tablet for ticketmaster.
The only other option that I've toyed with is buying a small feature/"dumb" phone for going in the pocket and a smartphone in a bag, which seems less ideal.
>If someone only has one phone as their personal computer for everything then I can see an argument that the minimum should be higher
Yeah for those people, they would need a beefier phone. That's certainly not me, I have devices at home. In my case, a pure dumb phone isn't of much use to me either, I make maybe one or two phone calls most months, but I've always used my phone as more of a borderline feature phone.
>a full PC or larger phone/tablet for ticketmaster.
The problem with ticketmaster is that you need to use it at the events themselves. Most events no longer use physical tickets. But a stronger phone or tablet won't help you here. Even on a high-end phone, ticketmaster will somehow forget to store your login information while you have poor network connectivity due to tons of people in the area, even if you try to load your tickets ahead of time to avoid the issue (although somehow they always deliver ads!). Everyone complains about ticketmaster's fees, but the app is the worst part.
They seem to work fine on T-Mobile. I hear the Palm Phone had some issue with Verizon where it only worked as a "companion phone" and I hear AT&T limits what phones are allowed somehow, but I cannot speak to those things.
They only have 4G rather than 5G. This has not bothered me but perhaps it would bother others.
The best phone I ever had was a Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact. I would still be using it if it wasn't too slow to run modern versions of android.
This is one of those things that just makes me feel so out of touch with the rest of the world. Does everyone else have giant pockets and giant hands? Does everyone use their phone with two hands and carry a bag everywhere? Is it just a trend like small phones were a trend before smartphones? Why do people want these giant phones?
I never ever use my laptop anymore outside of work. I never surf the web, read, order stuff etc from my laptop. It’s basically useless now if I don’t code or use pro apps. So a bigger phone is confortable because some websites suck on smaller screens and using an iPad is too big sometimes
They have to because of stupid pinch-to-zoom. You either have to balance the phone in the palm of your non-dominant hand (literally switch the phone from one hand to the other) while pinching with your dominant hand, or do a sort of goatse thing with your thumbs while holding the phone in both hands.
Screw-to-zoom is a million times better: draw a spiral to the right and you get closer, spiral to the left and you get farther away (agreeing with the "righty-tighty, lefty-loosey" standard.) Easily done with any single finger, or even with the thumb of the hand holding the phone (for people with adequate thumb-wrestling skills.)
Been happy with Sony Xperia 10 series, which is similar width, but taller as tallness really do not annoy me. Also massive battery. Sadly they are going to stop selling those here, so I might just need to go to Samsung next year...
As a guy in 36" waist jeans (yeah I need to lose a few kg)... I can fit an iphone 16 pro max in my pocket pretty comfortably.
> Why do people want these giant phones?
Well, one reason is that I'm getting older and don't find it as easy to read tiny text on tiny screens any more. Another reason is that I sometimes watch streaming services on there.
Likewise. The 70-something percent battery health isn't the best (and the phone lags like crazy), but the other day I realized it's still a bit smaller than my 2015 Moto G3 (that I still use, though only for basic tasks).
If you are interested, Unihertz launched the titan 2 and it's pretty nice, but no waterproofing or wireless charging are big issues for me.
I’m still rocking mine! Gonna start looking for second hand ones soon as the home button is starting to die, and that’s the best bit.
I found using the browser is a good enough alternative for many apps, and it also makes them less addictive because they aren’t as slick. Particularly handy for work apps.
I’m still using as a secondary device, but the battery was never the same after I replaced, and the touch id/home button doesn’t work anymore, so I have to use that virtual home button.
I ended up getting a newer SE (2022), but I miss the first one.
I'm writing this on a Unihertz Jelly Star which is tiny, and I consider it my "protest phone" at the lack of decent small phones.
A friend jokingly calls it my "microphone", another a "prison phone" (due to its size allowing for more easily smuggling in body cavities). Occasionally I go to mobile phone shops and ask if they have a case for it just for the fun of seeing the look on their faces when they see it (I don't actually want a case, and in fact it came with one which I threw in the bin).
Personally, I couldn't be happier with it.
Only problems: they don't do software updates; camera is poor; non-OLED screen.
In an ideal world I'd have a slightly bigger phone, but not too much bigger. I've grown very fond of this phone.
The lack of updates/general software sketchiness is what has me turned off from the Jelly. I know a product like that never has a chance in hell of running Graphene, I’d be way more interested if it could run Lineage.
Is OLED burn-in really something people still care about? I have a handful of OLED devices, some of which I've used daily for nearly 10 years, and none of them have any burn-in. I've never even seen burn-in on anything other than a signage TV, and that happens even on some LCDs.
> I've never even seen burn-in on anything other than a signage TV, and that happens even on some LCDs
AFAIK, the hardware still suffers from that problem, but it's been fixed in most devices by software fixes. Instead of displaying the exactly same content 24/7, it has "cleaning programs" or similar to runs once in a while to prevent the burn in from happening. Our OLED TV does the same I think too.
Of course, and many devices also use various pixel shift techniques. My point is that this isn't really a drawback from the user's perspective. Saying "I consider non-OLED to be a selling point because it won't burn in" simply doesn't make sense anymore.
I know someone who spends so much time with YouTube on their phone that the logo is visibly burned in to the screen. The phone is less than 2 years old.
Samsung smartphones are everywhere here and I've never seen a burn-in screen. Is there a difference between OLED and AMOLED? I thought that AMOLED was just a "flavor" of OLED.
The Jelly Star's battery life is surprisingly decent for its size - I get about 8 hours of moderate use, but it requires a mid-day charge if you're using GPS or watching videos.
The Jelly Max is 5" (so bigger than previous Jellies, smaller than mainstream phones). I'd strongly consider one except for their lack of software updates.
I got the iPhone 13 mini as a work phone for the sole reason of it being the smallest iPhone at the time. I too dislike the phone landscape nowadays with their ridiculous and ever increasing sizes.
My personal device is a Motorola Razr 50 Ultra, which I got because while it's huge when flipped, it's portable enough when it's closed. I can have it in my pocket without it falling out.. without it being annoying while i put on shoes etc...
I use its cover screen a fair amount too, to avoid having to flip it open, which is also why I got the ultra rather than the slightly smaller version.
The iPhone 13 Pro -> 16 Pro upsizing is ridiculous. The 13 was just the right size, but now they had to change it so they could sell more cases. It's almost phablet-size now. Look at an iPhone 6S by comparison.
The iPhone 13 pro is 71.5mm x 146.7mm x 7.65mm [1] and the iPhone 16 pro is 71.5mm x 149.3mm x 8.25mm [2].
While it did get a tiny bit bigger I wouldn’t have noticed this u less you would look up the spec, especially as it got lighter from 204g [1] to 199g [2] at the same time.
This is an “unpleasable customer” problem. When the 13 Pro was current, everyone was yelling at Apple that it was too thin and that they wanted a slightly thicker phone with more battery life, which is what Apple did.
Not really. The iPhone 13 Pro non-Max was fine. If people want bigger, they can get a Max phablet. It's the 6 and 6 Plus especially that had a bendgate. They're trying too hard to make them too thin, sometimes. I'd be fine with a 5-7 mm thicker. Apple should do what's it's best at... not listening to frivolous criticism.
For me, it would be the Samsung Galaxy S5 but with modern hardware.
In addition to being small, with SD card and 3.5mm jack, it is water resistant and has a removable battery. It is also one of the most robust non-hardened phones. It has an IR blaster too if it matters to you.
It was a time when Samsung was known for its gimmicks, the one for the Galaxy S5 is "Air View", where it recognizes your finger hovers over the screen. It is actually a good one, because it supports the "hover" targets in web pages!
Most people find it ugly though, and I tend to agree, but if you use a case, like most people do, who cares what the phone inside looks like?
I've held on to my S8 as long as possible, because even if the battery wasn't removable any more, it lasted the lifetime of the device, despite heating up considerably during the summer.
My current Xperia 5 maintains battery temperature around 10°C above ambient during fast charging and since it easily lasts the whole day in the 30-80% charge regime, I believe it will outlast other components.
As someone who often checks that sub, all I can say is that there's no decent small phones and it's just people constantly checking whether one has been released yet
Fully agree. Mine has broken recently and I needed to buy a new phone. The S25 I have now is not much bigger, but even that small difference matters much.
Though 120Hz screen is nice.
I saw a post on this subject in the android subreddit back in 2019 [0] and it was clear that everyone had already accepted by then that the market was too small to sustain this. I too loved Sony's series of compact phones - the XZ1 Compact is still one of the best phones I've ever used.
It is only going to get worse. Most of us who were young adults when the iPhone was announced are in our 40s now, and presbyopia is a real thing. In a few years my daily QOL will be better served by a bigger phone and I suspect many people around my age are feeling the same thing. The "small electronic accessory I bring around" niche will be filled by smartwatches.
Same, I am a 13 mini user and will probably stay this way until there is a realistic alternative. It's obnoxious that there isn't a single phone on the market where you can reach the top corner with one hand.
I would have bought the 13 mini except at the time the 13 Pro's 3x camera, 120hz and better battery was notable.
Now I kind of dread what will be available when it's time to finally upgrade this year. Am sure they could make a new mini that didn't seem as compromised, but now they think the size is non-viable.
Bring back when small was not a synonym for cheaper.
I want a thick clunky device without a screen that can run for 4-7 days without charging. Then i want 1) a normal size device, 2) a tiny one and 3) a tablet. These should be terminals, little more than a screen, a battery and some radio to communicate with the herefore mentioned brick that does all of the heavy lifting. It needs only 20-30 meter range. The brick may also feature a webserver captive portal with public bluetooth and wifi access.
Except that the screen and the radio are 80% of power usage, so this doesn't help anything. For what most people do with their laptop/tablet/phone, the little bursts of CPU are effectively "free" — increasingly cheap with each process shrink! — while the IO is as expensive as ever.
To be clear, I meant that, when running your average (i.e. mostly-idle, not-very-graphically-intense, yet smoothly-animated) interactive-UI application, with the CPU+GPU module needing to stream vaguely-realtime updates wirelessly over to the display module, the display module would end up using nearly as much battery to receive and display the updates as the CPU+GPU module would be taking to generate and send them. It would be a negligible cost for the display module to just do the rendering itself.
Playing games or using the CPU+GPU module as a media server is a 1%-of-the-time use-case. If you want this architecture to not need a lot of battery in the display module, it needs to be low-power for the 99%-of-the-time use-case: scrolling a webpage.
(This is basically the classical thin-client / fat-client paradox: thin clients save on power right until you want them to do anything continuously. Then the IO costs outweigh the hypothetical costs of localizing that continuous CPU/GPU activity by pushing it down into a fat client.)
I read that as to say one should do both. Let the client render simple things, do the hard stuff on the portable server.
No offense but it sounds like you simply refuse to look for anything interesting in the concept. Or you forgot to mention it. HN the tech website where we collectively try to shoot everything down. haha
I don't see anything that appeals to me or anyone I know (and I know some very geeky people!) in the concept.
You can certainly add the CPU/GPU module — it's just a NUC with a battery strapped to it, essentially — but if doing so doesn't make the display module lighter-weight and longer-lasting than a smartphone for what people tend to use a smartphone for, then I don't see what I gain by carrying it.
Remember that the conversation here is in the context of an OP about mini-sized phones; everyone in the thread is presuming your point had something to do with the separating-out of compute from other tasks resulting in the "terminals" you mentioned, becoming more like the "iPhone Mini-sized Android Phone" referenced in the OP. You did seem to imply this rhetorically, phrasing your desire as those terminals being "nothing more than" components X/Y/Z — as if this would imply they could be lighter-weight, etc.
But if you concede that even with your Personal-Area-Network (PAN) compute-offload module, the smartphone-sized display module effectively still needs to be a smartphone in order to be a "fat client when that is advantageous", with all that that implies... then you've lost the interest of everyone here, who were all hoping you were proposing some sort of key perspective shift that would allow for smaller, thinner, lighter, longer-lasting smartphones.
---
And to be clear, I do understand why you would want a PAN compute-offload module; that was a concept tossed around quite a bit in futurology circles ~10 years ago. But the zeitgeist has moved on — 5G came along, designed specifically to address the need to carry around such a brick.
In the modern version of this architecture, your PAN's compute-offload either lives in your house/car/etc., or is just some cloud VPS you're renting — either explicitly, or implicitly through amortization of big hardware payments into an implicit subscription (as with e.g. the Apple Intelligence compute cluster.) The rest of your PAN then uses offloads compute by pushing workloads to it through cellular radio; this is practical because the cells for the cellular radio in question are omnipresent enough [and thereby, the handset side of the connection low-wattage enough], and the protocol non-chatty enough, that having such a radio "up" but idle doesn't burn much battery — so every PAN device can afford to do it.
What you need is a power bank. Then you can charge your phone, or any other device Why do you need multiple days? Charge your devices overnight. Get a fast charger that charges in minutes if you forget or are out. There are power banks with builtin chargers.
Also, if you want really small device, I found smartwatches are nice adjunct to phone. Can check notifications and do basic things on watch instead of pulling out phone. The watch uses phone for data, but there is no point in terminals when smartwatch chip can handle that. There are watches with LTE that work without the phone.
Number one factor for me when buying a phone is how long is it going to last. I mean durability, camera quality, os updates. Will I still want to use/be using it in 5 years?
I cannot justify $700 as much as I _really want a smaller phone_. But _maybe if it was built to last_ I would be the customer and I would tell all my friends.
Currently use a Pixel 7a because it was cheap and OK. I was debating the iPhone 12 mini but it was already a little old, and I prefer Android.
I suspect, if others are like me, that those who want small phones also just want something that works and is a little minimal - not necessarily all the power best camera etc. To be clear, I _don't_ want one of those minimalist dumbphones, I want _a smartphone_ that's small Do y'all feel the same?
Propose a $500 small phone that's OK on specs but LASTS.
Yes. The iphone se was basically the exact thing I wanted (and previously the moto G series). It doesnt seem like apple wants to continue to offer the product line.
Right, and even the 2nd/3rd gen SE got much bigger than the original. I basically want the original SE (which I believe is the same as the iPhone 5s), with no bezels.
Actually, looking at that handy link you provided, it appears the 13 mini is basically that. Discontinued in 2023 : /
Since Google is about to brick my Pixel 6a with the battery botchering update, i find myself in the same struggle again i had when buying the 6a.
Basically you have to make compromises on performance and camera and then this was, what i came up with:
- Zenfone 10 (flagship with prices still above launch price (!), which soon gets no updates anymore)
- Unihertz Jelly Max (small, but thick and bad camera)
- Rakuten Hand 5G and Rakuten Mini (also bad camera and older Android)
- Balmuda Phone (which i really like, but also bad camera and discontinued, so probably not even security updates and no custom rom support)
- Bluefox NX1 (really tempting, but appearantly kind of bad build quality and no NFC)
All other options are even older phones. Samsung S25 line does exist, but i really like vanilla Android.
I think the price chart of the Zenfone DOES somehow indicates the existence of a market and i wonder if it would be big enough for a small niche player!?
Personally I am considering a pixel 8, which is the "smallest" of current phones, but it still really isn't small. And i don't see myself as a Google customer because of the battery topic...
I personally would have been more happy had Eric made a small android phone instead of the new pebble, but hey...
I got a Pixel 8, and it's not small, but it's reasonably sized. About the same as the Moto G7 I replaced, much smaller than my kid's current Moto G Power. The good thing about the Pixel 8 is that you can run LineageOS on it, which was the main thing that determined my choice.
Not only is it not a very small phone, I can't even properly type this message one handed. It's also not a good phone which I regret purchasing.
Zenphones until the 10 had easy to unlock bootloaders, leading to long in official support by the community. However with the 10 ASUS stopped that tool and they've been lying ever since that they're still working on it.
My zenfone is now on its final major android update, the rather minor android 15 version, and I've only got two years of security updates left until I need to look for a new phone. That's one thousand euros for barely four years of software support, it's such a disappointment.
That aside the camera is lackluster, it's auto whitebalance is horrific, turning the same snowy scene into a sunset or illuminated by fluorescent light depending on the phase of the moon and it's sampling questionable making images much more blurry in a surreal way. But the optical stabilisation is seriously impressive. Overall I preferred the pixel 4a's images though. A smaller phone and my zenfone's predecessor.
At least I get to just plug it into my stereo thanks to the 3.5mm jack though.
I don't know why it was reported so frequently as a compact phone, the ZenFones are much larger than the iPhone mini. It's the same size as a standard iPhone or Galaxy S series.
The Zenfone 10 is closer to an iPhone than an iPhone mini.
iPhone 16/Zenfone/13 Mini (in mm)
Height: 147.6/146.5/131.5 - the mini is 15mm shorter than the Zenfone which is only 1.1mm shorter than an iPhone.
Width: 71.6/68.1/64.2 - the mini is 3.9mm thinner than the Zenfone which is 3.5mm thinner than an iPhone
Depth: 7.8/9.4/7.7 - the Zenfone is significantly thicker than the iPhones.
Volume: 82.4/93.8/65.0 cubic cm - the Zenfone is physically larger than an iPhone 16 by a decent margin.
The Zenfone simply isn't close to an iPhone mini size. It's larger than an iPhone by volume and the depth does matter when holding it. If we're talking about front-edge to opposite front-edge, we're talking about 87.2mm for the iPhone vs 86.9mm for the Zenfone and 79.6 for the Mini. The Zenfone saves you 0.3mm in grip-distance over an iPhone, but a Mini saves you 7.6mm in grip-distance.
Heck, let's look at weight. A Zenfone is 172g, iPhone 170g, iPhone mini 141g. The Zenfone is the heaviest of the three.
One of the big limiting factors for Android phone manufacturers is the battery. iOS is a ton more efficient. The Zenfone is thicker to accommodate a 4300mAh battery compared to the iPhone 16's 3561mAh (21% larger battery). And the Zenfone's battery is kinda small by Android standards.
People often don't think about the challenges of making a small phone. The electronics don't shrink. If you need a certain square mm for those electronics, they take up a larger percentage of the interior on your mini. You don't need as large a battery because the screen it is powering is smaller, but not proportional to its size - you're still drawing the same power for all the electronics. So you have a smaller percentage of interior space for the battery and you need a larger battery relative to the interior space - or you need to sacrifice battery life as Apple did with the mini.
For example, the iPhone 13 mini is 84.4 sq cm and has a 2438mAh battery. The iPhone 13 is 104.9 sq cm with a 3240mAh battery. The iPhone 13 is 24% larger, but can accommodate a 33% larger battery - because the electronics take up basically the same space regardless of form factor.
So to make an Android mini, you'd be sacrificing a lot of battery life. The Zenfone is not a mini. Its grip-size is basically identical to an iPhone. In every way, it's much more an iPhone than a mini.
iPhone 6S: 138.3/67.1/7.1 = 65.9 cc the mini is just barely smaller.
iPhone 4S: 115.2/58.6/9.3 = 62.8 cc smaller than the mini.
Treo 650: 113/59/23 = 153 cc which is about the same volume as a Galaxy Z Fold 3... the displacement was so uncomfortable, people often used hip holsters for the former.
That was the "peak smartphone" era for me; lots of companies making slightly different variations on Androids, at relatively low prices, but almost all of them with the same basic set of practical features which are nearly extinct today. Now it seems all we get are faster CPUs and RAM, more (non-removable) storage and battery capacity, no headphone jacks, a very limited choice of screen sizes, and far too many cameras along with the obligatory unremovable spyware and locked-down OS.
Funnily enough, I don't consider the iPhone 12/13 mini miniature at all. Granted, my hands are quite small even for someone of my height (5'7"), but remember those times people made fun of the iPhone 5 and of how gigantic it felt compared to 4S? I don't think human hands have grown that much since then. And I still believe the 1st generation SE is the best smartphone Apple has ever released: a rectangular screen, no camera bumps, a fingerprint sensor (that is still faster than Face ID), a mini jack, light, affordable, etc.
Unfortunately this still hasn't happened yet. There are almost no good options for reasonable size Androids anymore. Zenfone 10 is pretty good, especially with the headphone jack, but it's already out of print and will be obsolete before long. And smaller would be nicer.
People recommending Zenfone just proves that marketing works on a lot of people. It's literally only a few mm smaller than a standard flagship samsung and yet the small phone crowd recommends it as if it's tiny
I went through the same process as a former Pixel 5 user.
Ended up with Galaxy S25 which weighs around 165g.
I pretty much hate Samsung for the One UI interface taking away the stock Android experience. If I could turn it all off I'd do it in a heartbeat.
But I put up with it because there is no other Android phone in 2025 that meets all the checkboxes (less than ~180g, supports all the current LTE and 5G comms, supported by the vendor).
What I find fascinating is that Apple's and [Android manufacturers]'s previous attempts at smaller phones aren't even worth maintaining after they assess sales.
In my mind, these companies are all so massive they can afford a little fragmentation for the obviously small market, with no meaningful impact to their sales numbers or profits.
On the iPhone minis, there's very obviously a market for them, but the market is so small compared to the market for "all iPhones" that it practically vanishes in comparison, which leads Apple to not bother. Is it really that expensive to maintain a more niche line for each generation?
> Is it really that expensive to maintain a more niche line for each generation?
Think of just the work that goes into having an assembly line customized for a specific form factor. To keep price, quality, and profit in line with their other phones I think the answer here is clearly yes.
Especially if having that line means only 1% more customers and 19% customers that just buy the small model instead of the other model. And unless you are launching the Mini Pro Max Ultra X you are losing money on that 9% of customers that would have bought the higher margin phone but instead bought the mini version which is only available at the more base model.
I have it since more than a year. I had the first one two weeks because I lost it as it fall through a hole in my pocket. So fix your pockets and buy this phone. I'm really happy with it :)
And didn't found bugs since I have it.
We've seen this story play out before. Every phone manufacturer has had the bright idea of introducing a small flagship. They spend a ton of money developing and marketing it. Internet people get excited. And when launched - no one buys it. They learn their lesson and move on.
It does not surprise me that the things that "internet" people want are not generally popular. What I don't understand is why that means they can't make money selling them anyways. Companies used to make money when the entire cell phone market was _dramatically_ smaller than today. Sure, maybe only 5% of customers want that phone, but 5% of a huge market is still a lot of people! I just have trouble believing that there isn't room for serving that segment of the consumer base.
Yeah, that is surprising and frustrating to me as well. I don't mind being a smaller market. Hell, I don't mind paying more because of it. But companies these days are largely unwilling to have a steady, sustainable business in a smaller market. The insatiable desire to capture the biggest market at all times leaves society as a whole much worse off, because if your needs aren't the most common - you simply cannot find anyone who will do business with you.
Apple never released a flagship iPhone Mini, i.e. an iPhone Mini Pro. If you wanted good cameras (like the more useful 2x or 3x lens, rather than the mostly-useless 0.5x lens that they added to the base models), you had to get the large or larger phone.
I would've bought the 13 Mini Pro if it had existed, but camera quality wasn't something I was willing to compromise on.
Slight tangent, I thought nowadays everyone is (are?) internet people. Everyone's on their phone all the time. Even if it's tiktok or instagram, why aren't brands spending to reach this audience.
That's sad. I've always felt that by engaging in a community, I'm being weird somehow. Even mainstream social media, I don't see my peers commenting anything. When I comment I feel like I'm being weird.
and they are Samsung Galaxy S's, a couple of Asus ZenFone's, and Google Pixel 5.
If you're willing to add another 5mm, there are also a couple of Sony Xperia's and Sharp Aquous, and Google Pixel 8. And if you want to cap the height at 145 mm - it's just Google Pixel 5.
We are unfortunately a neglected part of the market.
I used to have a Pixel 5. As somebody who uses phones minimally (<10 min average screentime per day), but still wants utilities beyond a feature phone for special use cases (maps, translate, digital tickets, public transport, NFC payments), it was about as small as I needed it to be to tuck it away in my pocket for the whole day. It was also quite a nice form factor with a black stone-like back case, which didn't seem to scuff or attract fingerprints.
I had two of them. The first one lasted 2 years before the battery swelled up and I had to dispose of it. Google replaced it for free with another. Then eventually Google Pay stopped being supported on the second, since it was a few years beyond security updates.
After that I found no alternative within the Android ecosystem. I don't want to get into Apple products (despite minimal use, I did have the phone customised so that it was stripped bare in terms of apps and notifications, and had a launcher which I preferred over Google's native design), and every tech blog talking about small phones led back to Pixel 5, or one of the ones just after which was also out of sale and security coverage.
Even though they are sold at profit, I get the feeling phones are viewed by the industry as vehicles. Get one with a big screen into peoples hands, then keep riding on the payments for games, movies, TV and web browsing that follows that. As somebody who never used my phone for any of these things, I'm clearly not important to the market for the one-off payment of a new phone every 5/6 years.
Just a heads up, when I contacted Google Support about this, they insinuated that this is something slowly being rolled out across Pixel 5 devices, so while it may work now, it could stop at any moment.
The issue I received when tapping to pay was "Your phone doesn't meet software standards". It did mention it can be due to rooting (my phone wasn't rooted) or "uncertified software" (of which I didn't have any).
I'm sure you might already do so, but I'd advise not to rely on the phone to pay going forward. For me, I was caught off guard in a shop without any other payment method. There was no warning or notification about the change until I tapped to pay at the card terminal.
I tried a few more times afterwards with another payment method as backup, and it never worked again, even after rebooting, toggling NFC off and on. I never received an email, notification or warning in the app itself. It was quite disappointing as I reckon I could have run that phone for a few more years as a minimal phone.
Google did offer me about £100 off of a new Pixel. So if this happens to you and the lack of Google Pay is a dealbreaker, I'd give that a try.
Terrifying. I opened this thread to leave the same comment that Google pay is working for me on my pixel 5. I bought it second handed and replaced battery so I didn't spend too much money on it, but it would be a real shame when that rollout reaches me. Especially because I also quite enjoy the size and functionality. It's enough for everything I need to do on a phone..
In hindsight, I really miss using the Pixel 5 and semi-wish that I'd kept using it and just switched Google Pay/Wallet for card. The form factor and size was perfect.
I changed to a Pixel 9 because I had an opportunity around the same time to get it cheaper, and thought I may as well go to the latest model to keep security updates up to 2030. Even after a few months, I can't get used to the weight, size, the back case design (slippery glass and fingerprint magnet), and sticking out camera block. I still use the phone minimally, but now I carry around a brick everyday.
Yeah, I'll hold on to it until I lose the pay as well. I was looking at either pixel 8a or 9a for my next phone. Like you said with pixel 9, I assume it would be a big leap with both of these phones. But at least with 9a I won't have the camera bump problem so that's hopeful.
I have on my desk, the Galaxy S8, iPhone SE (First generation), the iPhone 13 Mini, the iPhone 14 Pro and the Galaxy S22. I intentionally now choose and look for phones that are the smallest possible now (S25, iPhone 15pro or 16pro) etc
My favorite to take with me is the 13 Mini. Would love an iPhone 18 mini.
Just as an FYI to everyone who thinks such products are financially "infeasible" - look at companies like Unihertz (or heck, even Framework). Niche categories can and do attract a small but devoted following.
Btw:
1. Unihertz recently launched a BlackBerry esque phone (titan 2), if anyone reading this is interested. (Not sponsored by them)
2. There are many forums (and I think r/smallphones on reddit) where you can find much more discussion on such topics if you're interested.
Unihertz's phones are unfortunately simply technologically infeasible (to use). Their software is apparently write-once update-never, and any phone you buy of theirs will be riddled with permanent bugs.
If Unihertz kept their phones up to date for a few years after launch, rather than only for the few years prior to launch, they would be an incredibly strong competitor in this space but as they are they are next to useless.
Unihertz makes phones in a ton of interesting form factors. And then never support them with updates. The number of phones where my mouse has hovered over the "Add to Cart" button on their website before deciding updates are too important...
I was hoping that the foldable phone market would fix this, but instead of making normal sized (huge) phones that fold into half the size, they made tablets that fold into normal sized (huge) phones!
Chinese manufactures has been using silicon carbon batteries with larger densities for long time, for example 6.3" vivo X200 FE has a 6500mAh battery which should solve small phone-smaller battery problem
Nothing will make happier than ditching Apple and get a smaller Android phone. In fact the size of iPhone 5s was the only reason that had piqued my interest and I had migrated to the iPhones. Then I stayed for other (and important) reasons.
> Stock Android OS
Ah, no. I take that back. That is not going to be worth 700-800 just for the size! In fact take more and put it to a fight which tries to force Google to "decolonise" every aspect of this mobile OS and push for apps to go for alternative app stores.
But as long as Google has it claws and fingers and feet and palm and teeth (imagine every other organ) into my data (and also existence via sensors and what not) on an Android phone in every way possible (sometimes not even imaginable), such pervasive and entangled, that getting out of this Kafkaesque privacy nightmare means using a custom ROM that no OEM supports (or probably will every support) and half the app I use (including bank/payment/Govt apps) will stop functioning and it makes me feel like puking - even the thought of being tracked like that non-stop!
Until then sadly I will contribute to the trillions of Apple and participate in this cozy duopoly these companies have established and rather be in this Kafkaesque control and closed walled garden. It is sad.
So no, I am done with "Stock Android OS" trope at this point :(
The reality is - and it is a sad truth - such a phone in today's world can only exist as a vanity/niche product and hence even with high cost it will suffer from lack of support, abandoned update/upgrade promises, and a really really bad support experience unless it is released to "just few cities" (not even few countries) because this is going to attract such a small number of people!
"Stock Android" usually means "what runs on Pixels" in Android user circles, not actually AOSP. It's a comparison between Samsung/Huawei/Xiaomi/... and Google/OnePlus/Motorola/...
“Stock Android” means where Google does inside it what I have listed above in less savoury words. The ones you’ve listed are basically compromised devices in your pockets — so a notch higher or lower, depending upon how you look at all this :)
Of course, but that's why the bootloader is unlockable. A production device will ship with either a close-to-stock (== close-to-Pixel) ROM or a heavily customized one. If the ROM is closer to stock, it's easier to develop and maintain custom ROMs, so it makes sense to want that as opposed to the alternative.
That doesn’t really help. If you play around with it, the plat integrity test will not pass and there goes too many apps — so that nullifies even MicroG etc as well. I haven’t played around with microg’s #2611 (had seen it on github when it was getting implemented) but the point is — it will remain cat and mouse in this manner and that is a headache one doesn’t want to have on their primary device.
I'm well aware, but I'm not sure what the point here is.
The OP was complaining that the author of the page wants "stock android". On a production device, you can either have 1) the manufacturer's custom version of Androi, 2) a near-stock Android, or 3) your own custom version but with all the usual issue that brings. There is no secret fourth option. So I don't see what the OP's complaint is trying to achieve.
You don't have to see what OP's complaint is trying to achieve. Besides you never even indicated trying to see OP's point in any of these comments you made.
On those lines I don't get any of the points you are trying to make (assuming you are) either. So maybe it's an hn thing.
It's turned into a generic term that usually means the ability to remove all corporate branding from the UI. A lot of it is in the ability to apply themes. For example the Icon style for Android 6 (Marshmallow) is now considered retro.
I particularly despise the way Samsung wants to use impose a "bulging squircle" icon shape and I always find a way to override that (Nova Launcher still works well for this use case).
My only gripe with the Mudita Kompakt is that one of the reasons I need a smartphone is to run those little apps without which you cannot navigate the modern world - 2FA, corporate proprietary 2FA, parking, bank (my bank lets you deposit checks through the app, but not through the website, else I would only use the website). And a lot of those require the Play Integrity API at some level, unfortunately.
I recently got a Samsung S25 and it's the best phone I've ever had. I went for the base model and the size is just perfect. It's a small enough phone that I barely feel I carry around all day. It's light and slim and has premium tier hardware so I don't miss out. Never paid more than £300 for a phone before, but I am more than happy with this one.
With a battery that can be swapped rapidly without tools. Bonus points for pogo pins like a Samsung XCover phone.
Smaller size means smaller battery, but that's mitigated by the above. I want utilitarian. I don't want a phablet. I want practical and unobtrusive. The smartwatch was meant to replace the phone, but doesn't hit the right notes for me.
In past lives, I've clung to 3.5mm jacks and battery swaps (although I consider myself much reformed, yes I maybe would buy an updated LG v20 if one were released: that was an amazingly built metal slate of a phone with both. Just hot and slow, on that Snapdragon 820).
Today, bluetooth works quite well for me (I love not having cables... but it sucks that performance with a microphone is trashfire). 3.5mm adapters are cheap and easy when needed (rarely. I also have a $10 bluetooth->3.5mm in my travel kit that does get used once a year!). And with usb-c providing fast charging, I rarely feel like I'd benefit from battery swaps. I can give myself 50%+ in 30 minutes, with a portable battery that will power not just my phone, but any other device I run into. With Qi 2.2 releasing with 25W wireless charging, and magnetic coupling being standard now, you don't even need wires anymore. Carrying a bespoke phone-only battery seems like a massive downgrade today. (It also felt like a massive fire hazard!) Time to update your expectations!
Worth mentioning that battery swaps make water-resistance much much trickier to pull off. There' a real cost to battery-swappability.
I do wish we saw something like Ara, some phone modularity & extensibility. Fairphone has some modular parts, but it doesn't feel like an open ecosystem, and the parts dont seem super designed for expansion but more just replacement. I guess maybe Framework is doing the best work, albeit in a bigger form factor space, with their Expansion Cards, which are basically just a card form factor USB-C. Licensed CC-BY-4. https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionCards
For me, the battery swap interest is down to using CGMs and uploading that data to a mesh of local "follower" devices belonging to family members, as well as to my Nightscout server. That's quite intensive with new data every minute. We've had blackouts here before, and it's those moments you really value stuff like battery banks, however, keeping them charged and making sure others don't siphon your juice from time to time can be annoying (lol!). Would be nice to keep an additional battery just for my device in my pouch of diabetes-related paraphernalia.
Once upon a time, I had a Motorola A920 in the early '00s that came with a dock to put a second battery into to charge it (pre-CGM era of course), but something like that would be lovely when combined with a foldable or flip phone.
Would love to recommend the Fairphone, but not available in every country. One of my cousins wanted one (his dad is diabetic too), but unfortunately not available to buy in Canada.
Hopefully Framework humour the idea of a phone at some point, but it'll be difficult to please everybody, and I'm not sure it's economically viable.
The Samsung XCover are mil-spec with swappable batteries (major selling point on their site) and don't struggle with being waterproof, so it can be done. I don't think it's as niche an idea as people would expect.
I excitedly followed the Ara for years! Was gutted it never amounted to anything.
I've come around on swapping batteries, and have decided that external battery packs are the way to go. Works on more devices, and you're not buying batteries that work on exactly one device.
Still want my phone battery to be replaceable, but I'm pretty fine with not being able to do it myself.
I'm definitely open to the idea of foldables or even flip phones (perhaps even enthused!). I'm gutted that the Japanese "Galapagos syndrome" keitei are becoming extinct with fewer and fewer releases each year. The ones that are newly available tend to run Android 10 (yikes). The keitei were always very tasteful, ergonomic, and sensible. Sure, not always flashy in specs, but they didn't need to be when they prioritized the form above everything. Would love for the rest of the world to pick up this dropped ball and run with it.
I've also been interested in this but a little at sea when it comes to navigating the alternate dimension of Japanese flip phones. Do you have any recommendations when it comes to identifying the last best example of the Japanese flip phone?
The first and foremost thing is checking the radio frequencies it operates on. Depending on where you live (or travel!), you might not be able to use it. Each device is different, so don't fall in love with it before you've checked the frequencies on the spec sheet.
Then, realistically, you need to make sure that apps you do want to use do still offer functioning Android builds for what's almost certainly going to be an older version of Android running on a keitei. You might really struggle with banking apps due to this (despite plenty of keitei having NFC!), it depends on your bank's policies. You might also struggle with any official government apps if they force a recent version of Android.
If it's Android, you can almost certainly run it in English, but beware any obscure outliers who heavily customize their ROMs and save space by removing other languages (few and far between, but they apparently do exist and can bite you on the ass if you don't read Japanese!).
You'll probably really struggle to make it work for you overall if you don't live in Japan where this kind of phone is still expected to be supported. There's some beautiful phones, absolutely gorgeous designs in fact, but the above are a total pain in the arse and is what's made it non-viable for me (what forced me over to a Pixel 6a on release). The Pixel 6a getting a firmware update today that affected my battery (https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/16340779?hl=en) is why I'm pining after another keitei, but I don't think there's anything that can tick the necessary boxes for me. I'm gutted!
There are some nice ones that have dual-screens, touchscreens, and touch-sensitive capacitive keypads for scrolling or navigation. Some can be folded to be used like a standard touch-only candybar style phone if you don't want to use the keypad. Some allow the display to be rotated, but those are very uncommon these days.
I hear Gen Z loves retro flip phones as they are less intrusive and more sensible with swappable batteries, built-in screen protection et al, so perhaps there's a potential market fit for something in the West that ticks these very specific boxes.
The funny thing is that I look at the average side-opening book-style wallet-esque case for candybar style touch phones in the West and they're basically recreating the beefits of flip phones with the hinged screen cover cases, but without much of the impact protection.
I'm not a luddite by any means, I'm not even nostalgic for flip phones in any way, I just think that I've realized there's pros and cons to both, and the current offerings available in the West don't really suit me.
Most popular phones in Japan these days in terms of units sold? iPhone and Pixel. That's what's killing the "Galapogos syndrome" keitei in terms of new models! A few friends I have in Japan find the candybar form-factor to be novel and cool, and others want larger screens for media, specific iOS-exclusive apps. or just enjoy the Apple ecosystem as they use a Mac for their work and play. They do tend to agree that there's pros and cons to both though! Pixel trails after the iPhone in numbers BTW.
It's interesting to see someone bring up ThinkPads!
I have been saying for a few years now that I want the "classic ThinkPad of phones" with readily available parts, sensible design choices (drainage holes on ThinkPads were a boon! Same with quickly swappable battery handles!) and some kind of afterlife that goes beyond whatever the manufacturer or OS developer decides it is going to be.
To my knowledge of keitei, there aren't any Richard Sapper-ish ThinkPad-styled ones, but you do occasionally see red flourishes like the ThinkPad nurple/TrackPoint, but they're usually on things like a SIM card tray, but not generally contrasted by black, but similar impact to Sapper's distinctive style.
I love me some utilitarian industrial design—I think that's what I'm searching for in modern phones. Sadly, I think that mentality is leaving us as the likes of Sapper pop their clogs and take the mindset with them. It's definitely somewhat oldskool values buried amidst all this.
Sent from my modded classic ThinkPad next to Richard Sapper's '70s Artemide Tizio lamp with an aftermarket LED upgrade to make it energy efficient. :- )
My first Android phone was an HTC Desire S. It had a rather sturdy metal case with some plastic inserts for the antennas. The bottom insert slid off to reveal the battery and SIM and SD slots. The only downside is that because of this construction it has the USB port on the side. I used it way beyond official support by installing custom ROMs, but eventually apps got so bloated it couldn't run them without frustrating me.
So, uh, can I please have that but with a more modern SoC and a non-potato camera?
Market wants big phones. The solution... look to the east. Phone accessories to manage big phones. Many women with small hands using finger loops (that double as kickstands), wrist straps, full body lanyards.
Convincing main brands to dump 100s of millions to cater to small phone crowd should be proven DOA by now. The minimalist EDC crowd is niche aberration, most people throughout civilization EDC was more cumbersome. Most people are simply happy carrying more shit around. Look at Stanley cups.
TBH 99% of big phone yucky crowd problems would be solved by a lanyard, but that's too goofy in the west. IMO what we need is better pockets. Front of legs or side belly of shirt. Have a little place to attach a chain like pocket watches. Fix for big phones is not a smaller phone, but better accessory/wardrobe.
>Most people are simply happy carrying more shit around. Look at Stanley cups.
This is only true for the American lifestyle of home-car-office-car-home. If you need to walk for more than 30 seconds Stanley cups become extremely inconvenient.
I thought Stanley cups is a weird choice to make "more shit" sound wasteful or a bad thing. Typically I think the American lifestyle is people carrying fewer things usually. I walk or cycle most places but always take a backpack, but I've frequently seen American-centric communities dismiss this as weird (because the car becomes their backpack).
As plans develop during a day it's easy to end up being out of the house 12+ hours, so it's comfortable to have a refillable water bottle, warmer layers, sunglasses, hat, umbrella, any other comfort things etc.
I disagree, it seems the Eastern phones are gigantic for some reason
And yes I do want smaller phones. Samsung S10e was the perfect size tbh.
But no it seems the option dwindle and now I can't find a phone smaller than my thumb. At least some phones have a "shrink screen" option, but that's not the same thing as a smaller phone tbh
Tiny market =/= no market, but not sustainable market. One hand mode + one hand type mode is not the same as small phone, but it makes one hand mode on big devices feasible. I'm personally waiting for eastern foldable phones to get hilariously gigantic so the front cover screen become useful "mini" phones.
You scroll in normal mode. One handed mode let's you reach top UI element with an extra gesture which is more or less all you need for if you want to operate a phone with thumb.
I had filled out the form for this. Wish Eric stuck to this instead of the Pebble revival: it'd have a bigger market.
I don't understand how the market isn't considered big enough for any phone OEM: how can it be smaller than that of foldables? Or even if it is, isn't it still big enough, and shouldn't there generally be more sizes and form factors of phones?
It's as tho the car industry decided to only make 184" long SUVs (6.2-6.7" phones) and 200" long 3-row SUVs (foldables)... no other SUVs, no sedans/hatchbacks, no sports cars (much smaller and much lower volume). And different cars are actually hard to engineer and mass-manufacture the chassis and bodies for... in contrast a phone's HW is inherently more modular and mostly just the screen and battery need to be changed for each size.
I switched from a Pixel 3a to an iPhone 16 and it really bothers me that it's way too huge for everyday usage. Maybe I have extremely short thumbs but here's the maximum reach I have on the screen when I hold my phone "normally" in my hand: https://i.postimg.cc/Cx97jxLZ/iphone16reach.png - I can't reach the upper part of the screen at all, without doing finger-gymnastics or using my other hand. I'd love to switch to a phone that is 50-60%% of the size of the iPhone 16 but there are essentially no (modern) options for this. It's really a bummer :(
It's clunky and stupid, but if you "swipe down" off the bottom of the screen, it will bring the top half down into the reachable area. That's the fix they chose, instead of making phones that fit in a human's hand.
I have both and they're surprisingly essentially the same size. Except the iPhone has less bezel and is thicker. I only have the iPhone for dev purposes and I actually prefer the Pixel 3a, but I'm afraid it might die soon...
Anyways, are you sure you're talking about the iPhone 16?
I also wanted one, then Samsung released the foldable phones. The Z Flip was exactly what I wanted. Now that the Fold is so thin, I want it as a small iPad. I feel that Samsung has solved the small Android phone problem in a different way with foldables
I've wanted a small android phone for a while now too, but partly because I just don't care much for smartphones and want a small and cheap option. Ideally it'd be a pixel so that it should support GrapheneOS.
The foldables are such an interesting concept. I actually had a Surface Duo for a while (though a different style of foldable) and really liked it, but I only had one after they were a year old and I could try it out with a used phone for ~$200.
I guess people want different things out of small phones. I had a Z flip 3 for a few years because I thought the small pocket size would be nice, but it still doesn't solve the main issue that I can't reach the whole screen with my thumb. (and besides that I have a million other complaints about it, never going to buy a foldable again)
I signed up for this perhaps two years ago. I don't remember the update banner being present at the top which says it's officially moving forward. I didn't find anything more on that, what's the actual status now?
Wow, that exploded over night :D
It's nice to see, I am not alone.
With Android working on including a "desktop mode" where you can add a screen and HID devices, I sure hope that the phone screens will get smaller again.
Man this hits home. I'm a reasonably sized human, but there are almost no devices on the market outside of iPhones where I can reach from bottom right to upper left with 1 hand without shifting the phone around in my hand. I hate it.
I'd be willing to take less battery life to get something like this, but nearly everything that's anywhere close either has no NFC (which means mobile payments are out the door) or doesn't have 5G or just has such an awful camera/processor as to be basically unusable for many every-day tasks.
It was quite strange to read this title this morning as my 15 year old daughter just received her iPhone 13 mini yesterday from Swappie. She too was complaining that the android phones are too big for her little hands.
I tried all my reasoning skills to persuade her to stick with android, but ultimately she nagged me into getting a second hand one that is still way too expensive in my opinion.
Well it looks like she is right and this is popular opinion. Perhaps small Android phones not selling well is a marketing problem. I've never seen one advertised with size being a selling point.
Thing about iphones is yea, they’re expensive, but if well-cared for can last you longer. I’m on a 6-year upgrade cycle and could stretch that more if I wanted to. Will go from my 12 pro to the 18 or 19 pro.
I had a Samsung A3 (2016) which was almost the exact form factor of the iPhone Mini.
I loved it for being so small and light. The last few years it became too slow for regular use (and many apps refused to install) so I put it in airplane mode and used it as an mp3 player.
I'd still be using it today, but I lost it! I was very sad.
I also loved the LG K8 (2017), wonderful device. That one was a touch bigger, but had a really nice curved screen.
I used an iPhone SE (2016) until last year actually, which was even smaller.
It worked fine, until software updates made it useless. That's a recurring theme with my phones!
> I used an iPhone SE (2016) until last year actually, which was even smaller. It worked fine, until software updates made it useless. That's a recurring theme with my phones!
Very similar story with me. The iPhone SE 1st gen was peak iPhone. Small, had a headphone jack (and could charge while using headphones), nice display, decent battery life. I absolutely loved that phone. I miss having it every day (when I have to use two hands to use this clunker of a phone I have now, when I sit down and feel this gigantic phone in my pocket, etc).
I used my iPhone 4 until the cellular radio wasn't supported anymore. Then I moved into an iPhone SE 1st gen. When the battery bulged I killed it trying to replace the battery (I am not suited to small electronics repair). I gave up, at that point, and moved to a janky Android phone because I couldn't get any phone I wanted from Apple (small and with a headphone jack).
I wish I could have enthusiasm for phones again. Everything isn't what I want.
I certainly won't make the mistake of making a phone integral to my personal workflows and habits again. I certainly won't come to rely on any native apps anymore, either.
I recognize I'm a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of the market. Very few people regard their technology like I do. I feel like the computers (and, at one time, the phones) I use are extensions of myself. I think it's a little like how a musician might regard a beloved instrument, or a craftsman might regard a well-used tool. Very few people get bent out of shape about subtle changes in UI, appearance, latency, or functionality the way I do.
I'm still on my first gen iPhone SE. Thankfully the apps I use are mostly compatible, and I just use web versions for everything else. Have replaced the battery and screen a few times each.
There is Unihertz, but their 5G model is crap. They also don't update their OS.
I believe the big manufacturers don't want to make a small phone (as other users have indicated) because of the big screen's addictiveness. Also, they can't fit a large battery in them so battery life would be a few hours with 1000mp 16k cameras.
I'd rather carry a 1" thick, 4" tall phone than a 0.3" thick 8" tall phone. No pants pockets look normal anymore, and it is even more awkward to walk with tight pants.
Got two weeks ago a update for my jelly star. Don't know what they changed, whas not many, maybe some bugfixes. But I would be really angry when they just change the android version and the way I have to use the phone just with a over the air update that is installed without warning with one button press.
Android 16 is out, and Jelly Star is still Android 13. Unihertz doesn't even have that many phones to worry about updates. I don't understand why they aren't updating it to the latest. Look at the iPhone 11. Got iOS 18 after 6 years.
You can believe whatever you want, but it doesn’t make it true. We know exactly why they make larger devices and it’s not a secret, it’s what consumers by and large want. It’s not a conspiracy.
Every time a vendor falls for the “we want small phones” thing, they sell poorly thus proving the point again and again that it’s a minority at best that are interested.
You'll probably have to compromise here a little too. Having "good" smartphone cameras is more about the software than the hardware (there's only so much you can do with small apertures and small sensors), and the flagships have huge R&D investments behind them.
I too want a small phone, and I'd be willing to settle for "passable" camera quality.
I want an Android phone that doesn't break. My iPhone is a beast, but I hate using it, I'm too used to the Android interface (especially the keyboard, I can't believe how bad the keyboard is on iOS). But every Android phone I've ever had gets dinged up very easily and eventually falls apart.
I bought an iPhone 15 and a Pixel 7 at the same time when I started a new job 2 years ago. I keep my work stuff on the iPhone. For the first year, I kept them in the same pocket and had them both everywhere with me. The Pixel within a few weeks was starting to look beat up. The iPhone still looks practically brand new.
Just last night, I got home, pulled my Pixel out of my pocket, and found a crack near the corner of the screen. Now the screen is glitching out on the bottom 15% of the screen. I didn't drop it, I didn't bump into anything. Regular pocket pressure while sitting in my car must have bent it and it buckled.
My wife has had similar experiences with Samsung phones.
If it weren't for the lack of good browsers on iOS, I'd put up with the shitty keyboard.
I considered the SE2 but went with the regular iphone after seeing the battery life was much worse on the SE2. Think that's probably what killed the iPhone mini too.
My god... are we really at the point where even in the "nice to have specifications" people don't put a headphone jack anymore? Did the phone companies actually succeed at spreading apathy towards the headphone jack?
Imo the real problem here is being able to use a phone with one hand, UI standardization led both android and iphone unusable with one hand, so I'd argue we actually stopped research mobile touch interfaces. A smaller phone would still need you to stretch the thumb to the other side of the screen
I have a 13 mini and a case with a built-in 6800mAh battery. Without the case, this phone is low battery half way through the day. When watching videos, I do feel like 5.4" screen is a little bit small. Overall happy though. I wanted a smaller phone.
I literally have dwarf hands, after experimenting with various form factors I've settled on using iPhone SE (4.7") as the main phone and a android (6.7") running FOSS stack as the secondary phone.
I get the "just works" with decent privacy aspect of the smaller iPhone, health benefits from Apple Watch and for anything requiring longer screen time, termux, shelter cloned apps etc. I use the bigger android (Infact I'm typing this on the excellent HN client Hacki from android).
Earlier I used to use Apple Watch with android using a tool I built[1] which now serves notifications from android to my iPhone.
I'm glad Eric is going ahead with the small phone.
iPhone 12 mini lover and user checking in here. The haters will berate us for our choice stating that "no one wants a small phone", but that's a lie. Normal sized phones were never going to be instant day-one hits. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy to launch them during Covid, offer them 2 years, and say no one wants them.
Give them a permanent place in the lineup, treating phones like every other very personal device meant for humans. Small, medium, and large.
If you do that, and give people time to see exactly why 5.42 screens are superior to 6.1"+ sizes, then I think the numbers will start to change from what we saw with the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini, which were both launched when people were less on the go than in 100 years.
I want a Linux phone based on open source hardware. I gave up an iPhone for Android then switched to Pixels. My current Pixel 7 will be my last Google phone. I want out of the surveillance economy. I want AI assistance as badly I want a hole in the head.
I carry an 8 inch tablet (fits in a jacket pocket) and do most of my mobile web, email, podcast listening etc. on that, using my phone as a hotspot. Can't buy a new 8 inch tablet with a fingerprint reader. Got a couple of 2nd hand ones on eBay and will soon look at putting LineageOS on them (they have out of date versions of Android).
Most things which require a phone number block any kind of virtual number service since the only reason they are asking for a phone number is anti spam and KYC.
I tried to make the softphone approach work but I was unreachable far too often when Android decided to kill whichever softphone app I tried.
And if it did keep running, I'm pretty sure it consumed decently more energy than a dedicated telephony module. And yeah as mentioned, even with a "real" local phone number ported to voipms, I wasn't able to get sms codes from some services.
As a fellow small phone enjoyer, this speaks to my soul. The big phone trend feels like it’s being driven by media consumption and spec sheet flexing rather than actual usability. One-handed operation? Pocketability? Those used to matter!
Tha sad truth is that small screens don't work anymore, because apps are all tailored for bigger screens. I noticed this when I had an iPhone mini. It just did not work right. The UIs that are supposed to be surrounding the main part just cover too much. The range is from mildly annoying to completely blocked.
Really sad, because the device was physically very practical, and I don't really need such a big screen, just smart UIs like we used to have, that don't cram the screen full of every feature of every PM that ever worked at the company.
I gave up on finding a <6" with my requirements (audio jack, microSD, USB-C display) and can use my 6.1" Xperia 5 III reasonably well with one hand using a MomoStick. Other smartphone ring attachments exist but this one acts as a stand as well.
I'm still using a 2013 LG G2 (SD800) and can't find a single device that I can switch to. The compact size is just perfect. iPhone 5/s/e was also pretty good but apple killed them with updates :/
I remember when people complained that the iphone 6 was ridiculously big ... I'll keep my 12mini until it dies. Then I might buy another 12mini on ebay. I don't edit videos on my phone That's what desktops are for.
Theory: I prefer the iPhone mini because my hands are bigger. I think some people with smaller hands care less because they aren’t losing as much control as I am when the phone is bigger, not as much of a ratio difference.
I busted out my old 4S, and the fit//finish,, materials, and just how nice it is to hold in your hand and operate are still really nice. Would love to fill it with modern guts.
We see those posts regularly about people wanting a flagship small phone, but I see two options:
- either the market is dysfunctional, and the niche of people wanting those devices does not meet the smartphone offer.
- or the market is even smaller than what they think, making it unsustainable.
Both can be solved with time and patience (waiting for this to happen as conditions change) — or by voting with your wallet and making this requirement have priority over others (security, updates, quality, performance, compatibility, etc.).
This resonates strongly. The Pixel 7 is my current holdout due to its 'acceptable' size, even though it's not exactly "mini".
It's a shame to see manufacturers like Asus move away from compact form factors, as I'd have been an immediate buyer for a smaller ZenFone.
The market's push towards larger devices is making e-ink 'dumb' phones increasingly appealing for me.
All this is available on China market. Go buy there. Everyone always makes this post when they can just buy Chinese phone. Go get a Soyes or something.
I want a reliable e-ink phone. Minimal phone is good but flaky to the point that it is annoying.
Odd UX that can't be configured (and no idea why). For example, if you touch the power button, it'll unlock and wake up the phone. There's no way to turn that off and require a click. Other android phones can but not minimal. like what the hell was going through their decision making process?
There are many such phone sellers in China—you can find them in the second-hand market. But I feel like all the internal parts have been replaced. It may look like an iPhone on the outside, but the components inside are probably no longer original.
My iPhone 12 Mini's camera just broke (the zoom is failing..) I have been poking around for any solution that is around the same size. The best answer is generally never-heard-of companies that pop new phone models out and no certainty as to how long they'll last or be supported. That's on top of having to switch platforms (again).
I'm resigned to getting a new iPhone in Sept - reluctantly.
I'm very happy with my Unihertz Jelly Max aside from the camera being not great. I think it's the smallest it can reasonably be (62.7mm wide) while still having its touchscreen keyboard be usable and because it's fairly thick it actually feels good to hold in my hands and I don't need to stick one of those silly pop sockets on the back.
Samsung's S-series (without plus or ultra or edge or whatever) is basically this. Not quite as small as an iPhone mini, but just about small enough to be ok for me. Shouldn't be any bigger though (especially not wider!). For me the width is the big issue with big phones. It just feels uncomfortable in the hand then.
I was using Xperia XZ1 compact (4.6") and then moved to Vivo X70 pro+ (6.9") and it's so much easier for the eyes and typing. Yes, it's not the most convenient thing to carry around but I'd rather have less eye strain and typos.
Also I think China makes 3-4" android phones but they're mostly a joke spec wise
I'm a convert on this topic. I went from wanting a small phone to being unable to wait to ditch mine.
Like the OP, I switched from Android (Pixel 3a) to an iPhone SE 3 specifically for the smaller form factor. After using it for over a year, I've found the trade-offs in battery life and camera quality are too significant for my daily use.
These limitations aren't an issue when I'm at home or my desk with easy access to a charger. However, they become acute the moment I'm out for the day. For example, using GPS for navigation or connecting Bluetooth accessories becomes a liability. I can't rely on the phone to last. Also, photos are noticeably more pixelated, and the quality drop-off is clear compared to larger, contemporary phones.
This thread is evidence that the niche for small phones exists. But it's for people willing to accept these compromises by carrying a dedicated camera, a power bank, and using wired peripherals. For me and as the market suggests for most consumers, small phones just doesn't work out as reliable all-in-one devices. I'll probably wait till early next year to pick up one of the new iPhones after they iron out the initial kinks.
> carrying a dedicated camera, a power bank, and using wired peripherals
I'm a small-phone person, and I don't think these _should_ be necessary. I'm fine with wired peripherals (and prefer them), but in 2025, with efficient chips, I don't see why we can't power a device much longer than 24 hours. What if it had decade-old hardware, and -- this is the bit I think is the problem -- the operating system and apps were efficient?
Same with a camera. It seems more about thickness than width; I don't believe it should be impossible to put a large-phone-format camera in a smaller phone. It may take battery space, but see above, we should be ok there these days.
"the trade-offs in battery life and camera quality are too significant" - a small but thicker phone would have no trouble with battery life and could for sure have the same good cameras as larger phones – and could possibly even ditch the camera bump if it just made the entire phone as thick as the camera bump to fit a larger battery.
(After all, easiest way to increase battery size is to increase the smallest dimension. Add 1mm to a 4-4.5mm thick battery and you'll increase the battery size by 22-25%. Make the iPhone 13 Mini as thick as its camera bump and you would probably add ≈2.4mm, which would make the battery 60% larger)
If one were to make a iPhone 17 Pro Mini as thick as the iPhone 4 then it would:
- Likely still weigh less than a Pro Max
- Have a battery with a capacity larger than the Pro Max
- Have the pro cameras stick out about as much as they did on the iPhone 6
And it would feel as robust and solid as an iPhone 4 – my favorite iPhone so far
The iPhone SE 3 might have a poor camera, but the one on the iPhone mini 13 is excellent!
My conclusion is the same as the author’s: it’s a matter of you get what you pay for. The demand here is for a small premium phone. This would come with a good set of cameras.
Since Pixel 3a and iPhone SE 3, the battery technology has improved and especially the charging times have gone down dramatically so the battery life experience you had then would not occur today with the same form factor.
I want an iPhone Mini-sized iPhone! You can’t buy them anymore and now I have a big phone!
A weird correlation I’ve observed is that many tech savvy designer folks have iPhone mini’s. I think partly because they do their main work on a computer and don’t lean on their phones as much.
Switched from my iPhone 13 mini to a Qin F21 Pro.
I will buy phones like this as long as I can ! It was a pain to setup but it works well for what I want (having a smartphone in Canada)
I have an xperia compact phone I bought for $50 in Japan. It's a bit slow, but I don't do much on it other than jot down notes, maps, photos (the lens is a bit broken so it creates a cool lens flare effect), and messaging. Fits nicely in my pocket and hand. A giant phone just seems so silly to me.
"My goal here is to rally other fans of small phones together and put pressure on Google/Samsung/anyone to consider making a small phone." 41k people is impressive, but that doesn't move the needle for any of these companies by a long long shot
I think a squat format like 4:5 would be much more practical than 9:16 or whatever most phones are. It's unfortunate that's the format that's come to dominate, especially when you consider the rise of vertical video.
HTC magic was just about that size ! (and it ran whooping Android up to 1.6 I believe).
It was a 2nd publicly available android phone, right after the HTC with Dream.
Silly question: how hard would it be to find some manufacturer in China, that could manufacture several hundreds or thousands of low-mid range devices, of iPhone SE size or similar? Would be great to have ability to run PostmarketOS.
It is simply more difficult to cram the specs into a smaller form factor and they sell for less. A loose-loose situation. The same is happening in the tv market. 32” is disappearing because it’s more expensive to build smaller 4k displays.
Forget Apple sizes, I want a 3-4 inch sqaure (4:3) phone. Preferrably with a keyboard that folds or slides out. Something I can use with one hand or two and not have to switch to two hands to tap an upper corner.
By the way, Apple is horribly behind in this area. It is time for them to realize that not everybody wants the same form factor. And people are getting bored by Apple's run-of-the-mill designs.
i get it. i want one of those. the problem is that most cellphones are not actual cellphones, they are entertainment machines. they are a pocket tv / social media feed place. most usage for my normal friends is for that.
Dream phone: Underclocked Samsung25 internals, iPhone SE design/dimensions, at least 90hz OLED panel, 1 back decent camera, 1 front too. 3A battery. Preferably an extenal SD card slot.
> "But whenever someone answered the call and built a Smartphone with QWERTY keyboard, the product failed commercially, simply because also to people claiming they want such a phone, at the point of sale they were less attractive than their slimmer, lighter, all-screen counterparts."
The slab form factor is excellent industry design; modern efforts to integrate a hardware-keyboard, i. e. in a non-detachable way, are quite frankly daft. It buys the worst of both worlds: added complexity and error-proneness, more (dead) weight, awkward handling, harder maintainability/repairability, etc.
The form factor that was represented by Psion-machines such as the 3- or 5-series was great at the time, but is now obsolete, as evidenced by Planet Computers' recreations. Integrated sliders (e. g. F(x)tec) are only marginally better.
Technically, the solution of course is very elegant and simple:
1. Slab-form factor UMPC/smartphone
2. Corresponding detachable (as "attachable folder"), roughly Psion 5-sized keyboard a similar
3. Small "click-in" keyboard dock à la Pinephone keyboard or a
4. Detachable slider
But that is indeed just one variable in the whole equation; there's a whole set of features I consider essential for a smartphone- or UMPC-like device that one doesn't find anymore.
The idea that nobody wants a small phone seems odd to me when Asus Zen Fone 10 is extremely rare and the iPhone 13 mini only exists in retail as refurbs.
Mobiles are made by Asian companies to Asian tastes. They like big screens so that's what we get. The two exceptions are apple iPhones and Google pixel. The two American companies making phones for American tastes. Shame as the old 4.5" mobiles had such large bezels they could have accommodated 6" modern screens...
I love mini phones too but how naive do you have to be to trust a random page over an actual phone manufacturer? I can get a new pixel at 500$, install GrapheneOS on it, and call it secure enough. I wish google would make mini-pixel versions, same as apple does with SE
I wish there was a phone, preferably with buttons (bb q10 like), that can run WhatsApp, banking app and Apple Pay (or whatever android version is). Also it should be running these stupid government apps. And music please... preferably with 3.5mm jack so I can connect my nice headphones.
This phone can have mediocre camera.
My cynical take is that small phones don't exist because they are not the product. Similar to vape pens the product is the addictive substance the device loads. In this case its apps and ads. A smaller screen probably negatively impacts KPIs on many levels, at Google/Apple/Meta/X and on down through the ecosystem.
I understand that Apple did not make enough money to make it worth their while to continue the iphone mini line. However, it does seem like there is a profitable business for someone there given how beloved it was/is.
I only traded out my iphone 12 mini just recently for an iphone 16 pro (likely the last apple product I will ever buy but thats another story) and aside from the camera it is basically the same. Just heavier, awkward to hold and slightly worse designed.
No major player wants a smaller screen because it has downstream impacts on the pipeline of addictive material and ad pixels they can stuff into ocular nerves.
What was so odd was how Apple fumbled the iPhone mini launch by launching the iPhone SE first. At that point there hadn't been a small phone for a few years, There was pent up demand. The SE came out and it was a big success, lots of people wanted ti because it was a small phone.
Then few months later they launched the mini expecting it to sell even more or something. Somehow they missed that everyone that wanted a small phone had just bought the SE, and it just wasn't long enough for them to be worth upgrading to the much better mini.
Had they waited for a year to pass the mini might have done much better because those who wanted a more powerful phone could find an excuse for an upgrade after a year, less then 6 months, not so much.
This is my take as well. I bought the SE 2nd gen because of its size, a longer support cycle, and granular app permissions on iOS. It was my first iPhone and has probably been my last when its time is due.
My phone isn't some entertainment device, it's a utility tool. I don't need it to be "smart", it should be useful on the go. The persona sketched by GP just isn't me: Messaging, maps, weather, 2FA, and calculator come first, email (read only) and news feed second, the camera is a third for documenting purposes (if even, I'd rather take my full frame). The easier it is to carry this thing around and the longer lasting its build quality, the better. Why would I pay almost double (USD 699 VS 399 on launch) for a less robust mini with sharper edges?!
If Apple were to continue the offer of rehashed designs from previous generations (preferably with rounder edges) for a SE line, limit its dimensions to never go beyond 140x67.5x8mm, and make it last for solid 5-year release cycles, then count me in as your most loyal customer. As it currently stands I'm looking out for a small sized phone from any manufacturer. I would even lower my expectations on support cycle and build quality quite a bit (if reasonable priced) before I'd give in on the size.
I've been an iPhone user since late 2007. I current use an SE 2022 and love it.
I've gone iPhone -> 3GS -> 4 -> 5s -> 6s -> 7 -> SE 2020 -> SE 2022.
The Mini never interested me. I love the SE. I love the home button and TouchID. I love the traditional size. If I want more I have an iPad Pro (12.9" original 2015 model bought in 2015 -- the battery still lasts 2 weeks with my usage pattern) or M1 Mac Mini with a 32" 4k screen.
If they don't make a new SE model I don't know what I'll do. I guess, firstly, get a new battery for it before it's out of the support window. Maybe sometime next year. And then see how long app updates support whatever the last OS version it will run is.
The ONLY thing I'd change in my SE, if it was possible, is more than 4 GB of RAM. The latest models have 8 GB and the others at the time the SE was sold already had 6 GB.
With recent system updates I'm getting a lot more of applications restarting when I switch back to them. This is mostly not a huge problem, except that the X app loses your place in the "Following" stream if you're more than a few hours behind and the app reloads.
I'm still using a 13 mini, it's fractionally too large, I think the original SE is perfection.
Regardless, battery life is horrendous now, and it's starting to lag and fail so when the new ultra watch is released I'm going to replace my phone with it.
Getting the battery replaced fixed mine (and seemed to mildly improve system performance, although maybe that’s placebo), might be worth a shot if you like the form factor.
Depending on how degraded the original battery was it isn't necessarily placebo. If iOS detects a severely degraded battery it will clock down the CPU slightly to cope with it, sacrificing a little performance to keep the device stable.
With 3rd party batteries it can't do this, so it doesn't (I think, will admit I'm not entirely sure exactly how iOS deals with 3rd party batteries it can't determine the status of), and if you replaced it with an official part then it would have been in good condition, so regardless which road you took, it's possible that you went from a state where the OS was clocking down, to one where it wasn't anymore.
Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/101575
> If iOS detects a severely degraded battery it will clock down the CPU slightly
I currently have this problem (iPhone 11). It's not slight at all. Keyboard inputs sometimes has up to a full 1000ms latency and that's with autocorrect, suggestions, and spellcheck turned off. Scrolling in most apps are jumpy rather than smooth. When this phone dies, I don't know what I'll get. Hopefully a good linux phone exists by then.
The problem is not the battery, it's the battery, processor and price.
The iPhone 13 Mini made up around 3% of total iPhone sales, so there's clearly a market for compact, mid-range phones ($600-$700). You can manufacture them in China or India for somewhere between $250 and $400, depending on the battery, camera, and overall performance.
The real challenge is that the retail price of a mid-range Android phone can't go over the $500 mark. People in developing countries are always stuck trying to balance quality with price. And for $500 bucks they expect a prime phone nowadays.
it has a few dings on the frame and I'm not especially attached to the form factor more significantly I am addicted to it and need a viable alternative.
Same here. Stuck with SE2 till it stopped catching pokemon properly. Currently pleased with the iPhone 13 mini. I think part of why I like small phones is I carry a laptop and hate web browsing / typing on the phone. It's mostly a modem and camera for me.
Also having a laptop means the battery doesn't matter that much as you can just charge it off that.
I still use my first gen SE and have had the battery replaced once.
That makes sense.
I love my iPhone 13 Mini. Its only issues are battery life (now), and non-competitive camera. I'm personally happy with the photos it takes, but then I look at my girlfriend's shots and get FOMO.
While I doubt it's economical, I'd love a small, simple phone with juiced up camera. I'd be fine with worse battery life as external batteries can remedy that in a pinch.
I have a 12 mini, it's about as large a phone as I'd want. I wish the back and/or bezel were a little "grippier" as the phone as it's made is so slippery it almost demands a case, but that adds bulk.
Unlike many it seems, I don't care much about the camera. I'd probably want some sort of camera for scanning QR codes, or snapping a quick photo of something I want to look up later, but otherwise I don't take photos or videos on my phone. I don't use any social media on my phone other than text messaging. This makes the smaller battery size/capacity a non-issue.
Since Apple no longer makes a reasonably-sized phone I'll probably go back to Android after this one dies or becomes unsupported.
I also think it's silly to carry a $1,000 device around with you everywhere, so a "premium" small phone is probably a non-starter for me. My favorite phones were the ~$200 Moto-G phones I had before I got the iPhone (it was a gift).
I wish they made it thicker. It could easily fit better cameras and a bigger battery.
I don't know. I think the SE was there there to generate services income (Apps, Apple Music, etc.) from people who wouldn't buy an iPhone otherwise. The design was intentionally very stale to avoid cannibalization of their flagships. I don't think a lot of people who bought flagship iPhones before would go to an SE. Imagine going from an iPhone X or XS to an SE, it's a big downgrade. People were not buying the SE because of the size, but because it was cheap (the iPhone 16e that is the cheaper model now, has the same size as the 16).
My wife, I, and several people I know had iPhone 12 or 13 Mini. Their battery life was pretty terrible and word soon got out it was. I think this was in the end what killed it for people who are normally buying Apple flagships and were considering a Mini. It was very hard to get through the day with a Mini.
Besides the abysmal battery life, I think the market for small phones is maybe simply not there. Samsung keeps around one smaller model (base S-series) and arguably the Z Flip is a smaller model (but persistent hardware issues). If there was a large demand for flagship-class small phones, I am sure some Android manufacturers would make them.
They could have made the SE large but slow (instead of small and slow) and avoided all cannibalization future and present.
My hypothesis about the supposed non-existence of the small phone buyer is that they very much do exist (personally, haven't bought anything other than whatever was the smallest Xperia at the time in more than a decade), but that this group has little overlap with the group willing to buy for list price on release day. But the perception of success of a given phone is very much dominated by the latter, the long tail of buyers isn't really seen. Even if the release day premium over mid-lifecycle street price (in countries where price fixing is not allowed) goes to the retailer and is of very little interest to the manufacturer.
Manufacturers should just move compacts to a three year cycle and forget everything about hyper-optimizing desirability for the kind of buyer who spends too much time reading questionable review sites.
I’ve never had battery issues with my mini. But then again, I just want an unobtrusive tool. You can make a lot more money selling phones that are targeted to compulsive/addictive “whales” than you make selling normal phones for normal people.
Your theory makes sense until it falls apart if you consider SE and Mini as the same category of small iPhones. If the only reason why Mini failed was bad launch time, then why haven't Apple launched anything small (SE or Mini) after 2022? Isn't 2024 or even 2025 the perfect time to launch an upgrade for SE or Mini? They now have enough data since the last launch of a small phone.
iPhone SE 1st gen 2016 (Discontinued 2018)
iPhone 12 Mini 2020 (Discontinued 2022)
iPhone SE 2nd gen 2020 (Discontinued 2022)
iPhone 13 Mini 2021 (Discontinued 2023)
iPhone SE 3rd gen 2022 (Discontinued 2025)
The problem is that people who want a small phone prioritize the size.
Most of them don't care about the premium features of larger phones. So the Mini was a weird niche within a niche. Small phone with premium price and features.
The Mini and SE2 were virtually identical in physical size. For the 16e they should have used the iPhone 12/13 Mini body and the 13 Mini screen. Use the 15 Pro SoC with 8GB memory, and the 15 camera. Sell it for an SE price. Now you have fused the small phone and budget iPhone markets.
Exactly. When my 13 Mini dies I'll buy the smallest iPhone at any price, whether low or high.
I can confirm, that Apple my misunderstood the market: I was eager to buy a new iPhone because I just finished my masters degree and started a new job, had a bit of money and than the SE2 launched. My 5s or SE1 started to age and as an beginner app developer a current phone was important. I was so happy because I could not see my self using one of those bigger phones even though the SE2 was still bigger than my 5s/SE1. A few months later the mini was released and my initial reaction was "OMG this is THE perfect phone, but I just got a new one... i can not afford to buy another one".
The iPhone 13 mini had even worse performance than the iPhone 12 mini even though it wasn't released alongside an SE.
This is so true. I switch from iPhone 5s to iPhone SE to iPhone 13 mini. After my current phone dies I don't know what phone would I get next.
You’re way too cynical and have let your cynicism cloud history.
The first phablets were probably the Galaxy Note line starting in 2011 which was met with some skepticism due to the size of them. These were well before the edge to edge screen days. So you had 5.7 inch screens with a bezel.
They were huge but I would routinely see small women pull these things out of their hand bags and press a device that obscured almost their whole face and start chatting.
Things steadily got bigger from there. The general population WANTED this.
Parent's take is not whether bigger phones shouldn't exist, it's why smaller phones stopped being produced, which is a fairly different angle.
> women
To note, the initial smartphones were already too big for he taste of many: a clamshell feature phone was almost a third of the size of the original iPhone. From that POV, going to a phone that is twice as big is less of a barrier, as they had to keep it in a bag/purse in the first place.
The return of foldables is also pretty well received in that regard.
Just tonight, I saw a friend of mine, pull a new foldable Razr from her purse.
They are cool phones, but I do iOS. I still use a 13 Mini, and will continue to do so, for quite some time.
As to the point of this article, I seem to recall a couple of very small Android phones, some years ago (about credit-card sized). I guess they didn’t sell well.
> very small Android phones
IMHO this is just not viable in the current world.
I agree with line the article sets (5"4 for 1080p, almost the size of the Pixel 4a), as mainstream apps will properly work at that size. I still have a working 4a, and some banking apps are getting pretty cramped for instance. And many websites already need furious panning and zooming.
A credit card size phone would only work for people who basically hate their phones I think.
I agree. I think the article about them was on Ars Technica, but I don’t really feel like looking for it.
They seemed underwhelmed at the phones.
[EDITED TO ADD]
Found ‘em: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/10/palm-rises-from-the-...
Also, these: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/11/meet-this-unique-com...
And this was their review of it: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/palm-phone-review-fu...
>A credit card size phone would only work for people who basically hate their phones I think.
Probably. It's people who know they have to own a smartphone for so many things like park their car but don't really want one.
This was a number of years back but I know a then tech executive who got a phone (I think it may have been a feature phone at the time) only because their nanny absolutely insisted.
> banking apps are getting pretty cramped
Completely agree. Although not even on "small phones", my S23 isn't small but the design of these apps has regressed so much that I barely see any useful information.
On my old WAP phone I could see bank balance and maybe the last transaction or two. Now half the screens taken up with upselling account levels, invest in shares, buy crypto, you've been pre-approved!
It's the padding! And the UX teams that add them into the designs!
My cynical take is that an unholy pact was formed between FE devs and UX designers:
By adding in "design" and "user experience" you essentially reduce features, complexity and general "dev time" of every single user-screen or page or component. They're no longer cram-packed with oodles of features, toggles, buttons, menus, etc. Most pages are glorified lists of things, with maybe a menu on each item if you are lucky. Devs dev less, have less bugs, just use FE-library of the day and go home happy because they made a CRUD screen essentially.
Meanwhile, UX designers get to play around and constantly fiddle with design because let's all be honest, nothing will ever be truly good and in a perfect "user experience" space because complexity and functionality are never what the user is happy about having, until they need it.
I do wish Apple would make one. The Samsung Z Flip almost follows the Apple design language, if only it ran iOS.
Are the screens reliable now?
I don't think so. Yesterday I was browsing phones and there was a Google Pixel 9 Fold on dislpay, closed and showing something. That has a display on the outside and a foldable display on the inside.
I opened it, and most of the screen looked like a big, roundish black blob of ink, centred on the fold, on top of the Android animations working perfectly underneath, but only visible at the edges. I was impressed that the rest of the screen around worked perfectly, but it was unusuable due to the size of the black blob.
Something had broken at or near the fold while it was on display.
All other devices were in great condition; it was a well-maintained store.
I wouldn’t know.
I assume they must be reliable by know, they’ve been making foldable screens for years.
The general population wants larger phones because they are addicted to their screens.
Apple did a horrible job marketing the mini. I ran into a lot of people who saw my 12 mini and said they would prefer that size, but didn’t know it existed.
When I went to buy it, and the case, the employees at the Apple Store questioned me and tried to push me toward the normal iPhone. This is the first and only time I’ve ever felt Apple Store employees steering purchasing decisions. I had to go in there knowing what I wanted, and had to assert that it was what I wanted repeatedly.
Are people buying big phones because they are addicted to their screens, or are people addicted to their screens because of big phones?
When I went to buy it, and the case, the employees at the Apple Store questioned me and tried to push me toward the normal iPhone.
Probably because they knew that customers would come back to complain about the abysmal battery life of the Mini? I had a 12 Mini, I loved that phone, but man was it hard to get through the day on a single charge.
I generally only charge my 13 mini every other day or so.
The only time I recently struggled getting through the day was when on vacation and constantly using google maps & translate. But that is with a 3 year old phone.
Worth noting that (so I've heard) the most impactful hardware change between the 12 mini and the 13 mini was improvements to the battery life. I've never struggled with the battery life on my 13 mini, either, but the handful of people I know with a 12 mini have always bemoaned it.
May I ask what your approximate screen on time is each day? You must be less addicted than the general population where its 4-6 hours a day
13 mini here, also not charging every day. My screen time is around 2 hours a day, which IMO is still to much. I try to keep battery between 20 and 80 percent.
Hm, looks like ios won't show screen time unless reporting is enabled which I haven't done.
My 12 mini is nearly 5 years old and still lasts the day unless I’m watching a movie etc on a train for a few hours or something.
I don’t think any iPhone mini buyer would have been upset if the phone was a little thicker to accommodate a larger battery.
The problem is the weight it would add, more than the thickness.
Yes, and people are using their phones for what they previously used TVs, laptops, music players and other dedicated devices for. It's a bit of a cycle.
There's also the accessibility factor. Many people become farsighted later in life. It's much easier to see things on a big phone, especially with increased zoom. (I see this all of the time when I fly.)
> There's also the accessibility factor. Many people become farsighted later in life. It's much easier to see things on a big phone, especially with increased zoom. (I see this all of the time when I fly.)
Or for those of us with higher end myopia whose lenses effectively “shrink” everything they see. I’m -6.75 in each eye and my glasses make my everything seem significantly smaller than it is.
Sometimes I look at my phone or monitor without my glasses and am momentarily shocked at how large they seem and then saddened when I put them back on.
The other problem is that more and more content now is designed for (or only tolerable on) larger phone screens. Go to any website these days on a smaller phone like an iPhone mini and more than 50% (being charitable here) of the screen will be taken up by garbage like ads, cookie banners, popups, etc.
It's a vicious cycle. Phone manufactures make the screen bigger, app and website developers realize they can cram more junk on the page, consumers demand larger screens as a result, return to step 1.
Ya'll see adds? I use Brave Browser on all my devices and haven't seen traditional ads in years. Even Youtube ads are blocked on Brave by default
Most people just use whatever the default browser is on their phone.
This is HN. OP is 100% right to be flabbergasted that people on this site are not using the best and brightest of the ad blockers available. I know I am.
Apple is putting ads as pop ups inside the wallet app now… every social media app is crammed with them too. Browser is the easy fix.
Ironically, I have the opposite problem with website design. So many sites are clearly designed for mobile screen sizes, with a teensy-tiny strip of text on my large monitor. It's very unpleasant to read lines of text that short, so on a lot of sites I have to go into dev tools and set the text width to 1200px to make it an actual comfortable reading experience. I should not have to mess with CSS to make websites readable, but here we are.
I want larger phones because I am at that particular stage of middle age where I should probably start using reading glasses, but I'm also damned if I'm going to start carrying reading glasses everywhere with me.
Larger screen = easier life.
I’m even older, walking around with reading glasses on my head all day. Had an iPhone 13 mini, miss the form factor, would prefer a mini as my next phone. But for most mobile use, on the couch, watching videos, etc, I use an iPad, not my phone. For me a large phone is mostly a tablet that’s too small.
Yeah fair enough. At the moment the pro max is a sweet spot for me, but we'll see over time.
> The general population wants larger phones because they are addicted to their screens.
I would rephrase that to: The general population wants a larger phones because phones are defacto PCs these days. They can watch movies, browser the news, listen to music, FaceTime, Maps, ..
Outside of business applications likes Word / Excel, phones basically handles 90% of people's requirements for "computers".
I want larger monitors, laptops, tablets and phones because I can't f**ing see well. Book reading is a real strain on small screens.
For most people the phone is their only computer. Who bring laptop to a friend group hangout anymore ? Only the techies.
Who ever brought a laptop to a friend group hangout? I never have seen that happen myself.
Depends on you and your friends. My group does this regularly.
I’m not sure if your comment is sarcastic, but in case it isn’t: my friend group had a get-together two days ago, three out of six had a laptop with them, and it even came in handy when I started talking about the problem I’m working on, somebody got interested and I was able to show the plots and calculations. Also we have PowerPoint Parties somewhat regularly, where most of us bring their computers to make last minute changes or simply have a known environment.
Not sarcastic at all. I have never seen people (not even my nerdy friends, least of all normies) bring laptops to a friend hangout. People might bring laptops if they were getting together to work on stuff, but then that isn't just hanging out any more, there's a purpose to the gathering. I would be astonished if someone could show that non-techy people ever brought laptops when they would hang out. Techy people (like your friend group), maybe. But not your average person.
When I was still working full-time, a co-worker told me their kid had told them they didn't need or want a computer. Probably changes at some point with long writing assignments, etc. but still.
I do increasingly think about whether I need to bring a laptop on various trips. It can be handy but I try to pack light and another few pounds is a lot for me. I've experimented with a newish tablet but it's a bit too in-between for my taste.
I remember people would always be surprised about how home computer ownership was not that high but smartphones (well, Japanese "garakei") were were ubiquitous.
I guess Japan was ahead of the curve once again.
Mini-computer sizes were pretty popular in Japan for a period even though they never really took off in the US--and pretty much died off entirely.
Well, do you think this is a good state of affairs? On one hand, phones are pretty accessible devices, on the other hand there are many aspects of phones that are objectively pretty terrible for consumers (talking about cost and difficulty of repair, walled garden ecosystems, and generally being geared towards consuming things and a lot less effective at producing them than laptops and desktops.)
(Tangential: of course I don't blame anyone for bringing their phone with them everywhere but if you're going to go to a friend group hangout, consider how annoying it is when you're trying to talk to someone and they're clearly checked out browsing some slop on Twitter or talking to someone else entirely. Take a damn break from the phone!)
Advertisers supports bigger screen for bigger space for their ads.
I just want a decently large screen because I have old eyes. A 6.1” phone works fine for me.
Yeah and I also remember how Apple fans said "this is ridiculous, nobody needs a screen that big that doesn't fit in your pocket easily", and here we are 15 years later mourning the iPhone Mini/SE.
10 years ago, if your phone was bigger than 5 inches, it looked ridiculous. You'd pull it out and people would look at you like you'd just escaped from a nut house
The Pro (non-Max) feels like my sweet spot. Fits in most pockets pretty easily but Max is just too big for me.
I am 6ft tall and feel like my hands are above average in size. I have a regular iPhone 16 pro. I still don’t understand how people use bigger devices.
Do they like using two hands? I can’t single hand a phone any larger without having to shift it in my hand.
I don’t want to use two hands on my phone outside of typing.
People type a lot though. It's also better for video, games, reading, general browsing. If you value one handed operation above all that though, then obviously smaller is better.
I just refuse to accept that the first phablet I ever saw, the Galaxy Note, which covered the person's face and looked absolutely comical in their hands, was smaller than my current, very regular-sized phone.
That's because it's not smaller, it has a larger front face area and volume.
It doesn't, my phone is a full cm longer.
How big is your phone? If it want for edge to edge screens, I’d have stuck with my iPhone SE longer.
It's a Nothing 2, fairly typical in size. I think the Pro Max is larger.
>Things steadily got bigger from there. The general population WANTED this.
Easy to say if the only devices are big phones. There is no choice.
The Samsung Galaxy Note (the first one) had a screen size of 5.3 inches.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 had a screen size of 5.5 inches. I had one and regularly had strangers ask me if that was really a phone. I had friends say, "Give me a call on your tablet" as a joke.
I loved it. Now my 6.1 inch iPhone feels on the small side.
This. I'm also had several Note's. I even would like now also to have a bigger phone again. But it seems nobody does 8" or 9" phones.
> But it seems nobody does 8" or 9" phones.
They are called tablets, some come with a sim slot so they are essentially the same.
The Dell Streak (shoutout to the other 3 people who bought one) had a 5 inch screen in 2010, a notable jump from contemporary phones like the iPhone 4 which was still 3.5", and other Android devices like the HTC Droid series which were around 3.7" and slowly starting to creep upwards to differentiate themselves from the iPhone. I think the largest Android devices you could get at the time were still smaller than 4".
I remember Dell showing this off at the All Thing D conference and Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal asked the Dell spokesperson to put it up to his head, and told him it looked like a waffle. To this days it’s all I think of when I see someone holding a massive phone up to the side of their head.
That thing could really stand out in a crowd. I was at a baseball stadium for a concert that year, and spotted someone with a Dell Streak as I was heading down to the field. In a sea of people that was the one phone I spotted. I stopped to ask the guy about it briefly.
I remember Steve Jobs berating phablets as "the Hummer of phones" and dissing 7-inch Android tablets as too small, and disparagingly saying users would need to "file down their fingers" to use them - without considering how much smaller Apple users' fingers would need to be to use 3.5-inch iPhones.
I also remember the viral, doctored image showing the reachability of phone screens which "proved" that 3.5 inches was the "ideal" phone size.
It's amusing how people try an memory hole their negative reaction and pieces written about the Note. People's mocking web pages have disappeared. Arguments based on the size of the human hand completely forgotten. The very notion that a 5.7 inch screen is big an unwieldly is now met with disdain.
When I first saw the ad on tv, my reaction was "Holy moley, wow, who's going to buy that monstrosity?"
And then a few weeks later I bought one. All the guys in my office laughed and said "Wow, look at that huge thing, it's ridiculous". I chuckled and agreed, though I was quietly enjoying the larger screen.
And now everyone's using them.
Smaller phones has always been limited in performance, batter life, the app support and the camera quality. Camera is the most important factor and battery is the second.
General population doesn't buy phones every year and they don't want a nerfed phone when they have to pay 500-1000 $/€s. So they gravitate towards higher end ones.
Companies including Apple has always treated the small size as an entry to mid segment phone. The only exception I know is Sony z3 and z5 compact which suffered heat and battery swelling issues due to Qualcomm messing 810 series SoCs up.
Companies also want you to buy the most expensive phone. So they market the premium models and train their store personnel to sell more of the premium line. If they stop intentionally nerfing the smaller phones, I think there is a market there. However, it will still be smaller.
I used to lug a dedicated camera around all the time. Except for special purposes I just bring a phone these days. And I'm not the only one. I do know people who do a lot of nature photography but I also know people who always had a camera with them who now reserve them for "serious" portraiture and things like that.
At least the smaller battery is offset by the smaller screen
It helps, but less than you'd think. The main board's power doesn't dramatically change, and because the full space under the screen isn't battery, reducing the screen size by 40% might cause the battery size to be reduced by 60%
This is the part that frustrates me. Apple keeps introducing software “solutions” for hardware problems. Reachability, Screen Time, Focus Modes, etc. A smaller phone naturally solves most of these problems. Small phones act as more of a utility device for when you’re away from a proper computer. This is all I want my phone to be. I really think they got it right the first time in 2007.
I ended up switching from a 13 mini (I had the 12 mini as well) to a 16 Pro. I was having a lot of battery life issues, and kept running into apps that clearly didn’t fully test with the smaller screen. I also really missed having a telephoto lens.
My phone usage went up; my laptop/desktop usage went down. I don’t like that. Compared to a normal computer, a phone is still worse in almost every way, other than mobility. It’s just now tolerable enough to put up with more of the time. I’m writing this on the phone, it would have been easier on a keyboard and mouse.
"Small phones act as more of a utility device for when you’re away from a proper computer. This is all I want my phone to be."
You, like me, are not representatives of a market phone manufacturers are interested in. Utilitarian and minimal use only sells one phone every few years.
They are catering for the overwhelming market that spends upwards of 5 hours screen time per day, watches movies and TVs, plays games, and generally spends as much time as possible on them, with as much payment and ad revenue as that comes with on top of the original device sale.
I always personally liked the idea of computers being fixed, or semi-fixed (like a laptop), as a place to work or study, and then leave once that is done. The replacement of computers and laptops by tablets and phones is a wider cultural shift from computers being tools and productive technology to entertainment and consumerist technology, in my opinion.
Maybe you can use vinyl tape to mask out the borders of your phone? At least you will be using it less for tasks that work better on a big screen.
You could take the 13 mini to Apple and swap out the battery for a new one? That might solve some of the battery issues
This was the internal debate I was having with myself. I bought the 13 mini the day the 14 was released and saw they were killing the mini line. The goal was to keep it until it was literally dead, replacing the battery as needed. The battery of the 13 mini was supposed to be better than the 12 mini, but that was not my experience.
The battery also wasn’t the main issue, just a contributing factor. I was ok using the battery as a signal for when I was using the phone too much and taking it as a signal to reevaluate my usage. Seeing software bugs related to the screen size, as figuring that would only get worse now that new phones didn’t come in the smaller size… that’s what made me think I might as well get the transition over with.
I’ve had battery issues with the 16 Pro, but those are software bugs. Some days my phone will give me a low battery warning by noon. I end up killing all the apps, charging it up again, and then it’s fine. It’s happened about 4 or 5 times, but I haven’t been able to tell what’s doing it.
The 13 mini didn't solve any of these issues for me plus the worse battery life. I upgraded to 16 pro max. My laptop usage also went down from there. Total screen time probably stayed, but now i carry most of the time just a phone instead of phone and laptop. If you want something less addictive there is probably the apple watch but you still need the phone to configure and now you're strapped to a device 24/7 just for the sake to be used less.
>No major player wants a smaller screen because it has downstream impacts on the pipeline of addictive material and ad pixels they can stuff into ocular nerves.
There are lots of phone manufacturers who have no ads business. They just make phones so why would they care?
Size is dictated by trouser pocket size/handbag size and usage. Editing photos and movies to upload onto social media is probably better on a big screen.
Also screen size is dictated by common panel sizes, as low volume will mean a higher price.
Folding screens and iPad Mini's existence suggests people want larger screen real estate.
I think photos are a big deal, but IMO it's more about the photo quality. And if you put a nice fancy camera on the phone, suddenly the device gets pretty expensive.
And so while there are people who want "small screen + nice camera". There are people who want "small screen + small price". There are many people who _don't want the small screen_. So you have this phone that can cost a lot of money (in a pretty messy market where most phone models seem to not make money anyways), and you're going to cut off chunks of the market?
So we end up with small screen + shitty camera and specs etc. And people here who want a small phone (but really want a small phone that isn't miserable to use) still are unsatisfied.
I have an iPhone mini, and my understanding is that I lose quite a bit of battery life also by not having the full sized version. The market definitely prefers long runtimes, free from frequent charging, while I need to carry a charge pack sometimes, although just when I expect it to be needed.
> There are lots of phone manufacturers who have no ads business. They just make phones so why would they care?
There are still bound to the screen resolution dictated by the platforms/environment. A maker selling an android phone with a 480x640px screen would face a huge uphill battle to see any sales.
Going for a smaller physical screen means higher DPI, so higher production costs and quality control issues. It can make more sense to buy cheaper, low DPI screen and make the whole device bigger to match the needed pixel count.
> There are lots of phone manufacturers who have no ads business.
I mean... none of the big ones.
For the others, they DO make small phones, and even non-addictive phones. We have e-ink phones in pure black and white.
Agreed. I'd prefer a modern iPhone the size of an iPhone 4, it was perfegt. I made the same "upgrade" from 12 mini to 16 Pro, and the 16 Pro is so large and heavy. Feels like we're moving backwards in time.
2026 iPhone Fold is rumored iPhone Mini size unfolding to iPad Mini size.
https://9to5mac.com/2025/04/28/iphone-18-fold-details-launch...
Folding phones don't solve the problem of oversized phones, which is that they are awkward and cumbersome to use.
Some customers want a phone the size of iPhone Mini, rumored to be sold for $2K+ by Apple in 2026.
Hmmm, so there will be decent small screens produced in 2026, and it would be feasible to make small phones around them?
> they are awkward and cumbersome to use.
For you. As someone with large hands, I appreciate that phones grew in size and I swapped to larger devices as soon as I could.
For... well, most people. Half of people are women, so I don't know how they do it. I'm a man, with man hands, and modern phones are not one hand operable. You need two hands. Even if you can do a particular operation with one hand, the phone is unsteady and it's awkward.
I think people with large hands are definitely the minority. So, we're not optimizing for hand size. We're optimizing for engagement, I think.
It was observed a long time ago on HN that women, with their tiny hands, loved huge phones - since they were using small phones two-handed anyway - and it was the men who complained that small, one-handed phones stopped being sold.
Depends on how you define small. I we're talking back in the era of 3 inch screens, I doubt this.
You can't operate a regular iPhone 16 (147.6 mm x 71.6 mm x 7.8 mm) in one hand? I think you're the exception.
> For... well, most people.
You don’t speak for most people. You can only speak for yourself. The feelings of “Most people” are clear as demonstrated by the market; they not only find large phones fine, they find them preferable.
> modern phones are not one hand operable
So? I mean for me they are so it’s irrelevant, but what should it matter if they are not? The market obviously does not share your interest in devices to be operated in such a manner as a priority or something of particular importance.
That being said, it’s of course unfortunate that if that is your preference, that nothing in the market caters for it. Your preferences and wants are obviously entirely valid and it’s a shame there is no interest even from a boutique vendor in meeting them.
I have plenty of preferences for products that are not catered too, as I am sure is true for us all and of course I don’t love it, but I must live in the reality that the larger market doesn’t always want what I do.
> We’re optimizing for engagement
The market is optimizing for what consumers asked for, which was larger devices. You say I am in a minority, I claim equally that you are in a minority as well.
We are in agreement - you appear to be replying to my comment piece by piece without reading all of it.
I'm speaking about the one-hand operability, which I then conclude must not be very important and obviously the market prefers something else.
I will only address this part:
> The market is optimizing for what consumers asked for
This is hopelessly naive. This is true in the same sense that butane rings in cigarettes is optimizing for "what consumers asked for" - more pleasant to smoke cigarettes. Consumers don't know what they want, they're fed whatever is going to make the most money by advertisers. And they will like it, because there is no other choice.
The market is not some perfectly rational machine. It is, often, a self-eating beast, concerned with it's own self-preservation to such a degree that it destroys itself. Had the Tobacco industry chilled, they wouldn't have been eviscerated by legislation. But no - they had to target children, they had to make the death sticks as addictive as possible. As if to put a bright flashing sign on themselves that says "look at me! Regulate me!"
> Consumers don't know what they want, they're fed whatever is going to make the most money by advertisers. And they will like it, because there is no other choice.
Except we know this is not the reality in this case as the worlds most successful mobile device marketer has made multiple attempts to create and market smaller devices which time and time again the majority of consumers have rejected.
The majority having a preference not matching your own doesn't need to be a conspiracy of consumer stupidity. Apple held out for a long time on making larger devices and ultimately caved to consumer sentiment, they didn’t grow that sentiment, they reacted to it.
Yes, again, similar to how a Tobacco consumer would reject older styles of Cigarettes. They were objectively worse - less nicotine, less impact on the brain, slower burning, and uneven burning. I used to smoke, ask me how I know.
> conspiracy of consumer stupidity
You misunderstand. Consumers aren't stupid, they're human. Human are remarkably easy to exploit. Exploiting the human mind is orders of magnitude easier than exploiting a computer.
I mean, you put a shiny machine in front of a human and tell them there's little to no chance they'll win money and they'll destroy themselves in front of it. Drain their bank accounts, ruin their marriage. You don't even have to lie - you can tell them gambling is bad, you can tell them they won't win, but that doesn't actually affect the exploit. Monkey brain see bright light, dopamine hits.
It's really quiet simple, and you're a market-minded man so you should be able to deduce this: it's all about incentives. You can continue to believe that the devices best for advertisers also happen to be what consumers want most. I think it's painfully naive, almost child-like.
I mean, look at smart TVs. Why do we have those? Do consumers prefer them? Sure. Is it to everyone's benefit that consumers prefer it? Certainly. So then we must ask - how did consumers come to prefer them? Was it, maybe, forced? Were they, maybe, exploited?
Just consider this. If I want to enter the Tobacco market, anywhere in the world, should I enter with a nicotine-free cigarette, or even a low-nicotine cigarette? Would those be successful? No, I think, the company would sink remarkably fast. We'd have no sales, consumers wouldn't buy it.
At 193 cm in height, I have large hands too. I currently use a Zenfone 10 and a Galaxy S10e before that, and I can grip them both just fine in one hand, but I can't also control them with that same hand without awkward contortions and a reliance on gravity.
The only phones I've had that I could comfortably use one-handed were my old BlackBerry Q10 (2013) and BlackBerry Classic (2014). The Q10 because it's short enough to hold between my thumb and ring finger such that I could use my index and middle fingers on the touch screen (slightly unorthodox but it worked really well), and the larger Classic because it has an optical thumbpad and excellent software support for it (it was so good I rarely used the touch screen at all). And both had physical keyboards.
I don't have especially small hands and I can't stand my Nokia XR20 (which isn't even close to the biggest phone out there). If I can't reach every corner of the screen with my thumb while holding the phone, it's uncomfortable and unpleasant to use. Sadly that is most phones these days.
It's not iPhone mini sized, the outer screen is wider than even a Pro Max, and it will likely be heavier than a Pro.
See here for dimensions and mockups: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/rumoured-iphone-fold-si...
That is actually what I have in mind and a much better design. Current Foldable are too tall.
I hope they instead (or also) make a flip version opening up to at most the size of a regular iPhone.
.
The margins are also worse, which is way, way closer to a manufacturer’s bottom line than the software ecosystem.
There is demand for larger phones, yes, but manufacturers also charge more for bigger devices and most of that is margin. Following their own logic, they also charge less for smaller phones.
If your customers are sticky, then many of the people who buy the smaller phone would have otherwise bought a bigger phone for more money. Introducing a smaller phone brings down profits.
>manufacturers also charge more for bigger devices and most of that is margin.
Why do they do that though? Usually more compact, high end devices would be more expensive than bulkier one. When has this trend reversed?
Bigger equals better consumer perception, I imagine driven in part by the top-tier phones being larger to fit additional battery capacity in for the higher performance processors making all larger devices carry some premium cachet.
> I only traded out my iphone 12 mini just recently for an iphone 16 pro (likely the last apple product I will ever buy but thats another story) and aside from the camera it is basically the same. Just heavier, awkward to hold and slightly worse designed.
Just did the exact same thing 5 months ago.. I still miss my 12 mini. Would strongly consider buying a 13 mini instead of its even being sold anymore.
i have a 13 mini. Its beat up, battery life is getting worse (even though I rarely use it) and both cameras are smashed (in my pocket during a motorcycle accident), but I look at all the options now and figure I'll just keep using this one. I'd rather be using an iPhone 4, but I need some stuff that that one didn't have to work with a glucose monitor.
I ended up replacing my 12 mini with a 6z flip from samsung. The only real annoyance is that Apple hasn't enabled RCS for Danish telecom companies yet. Well that and sand... We'll see how long it lives though. The reason I originally went to apple was because my first smartphone (a galaxy 2) sort of did the planned obsolescence thing exactly the same way my two buddies galaxy 2's did at the time. If the flip lives for 5ish years then I'll likely never go back to apple. Unless they make a phone that will actually fit comfortable in my pockets again.
The little half screen on the flip is useless though. Basically nothing works on it.
I wish they had made a pro mini. The only reason I got rid of mine was for the zoom of the pro.
The main reason I traded was that work pays for a new phone and the battery was so bad I had to charge my 4 year old 12 mini twice a day.
Funny you should mention this because disposable smartphone vapes are now being sold:
https://www.vapezilla.com/collections/smart-vape-phone
Amazing. If someone had pitched this concept to the producers of "Idiocracy" they would have rejected it as too far fetched and ludicrous.
I'd say the same goes for the removal of FM Radios from mainstream phones.
FM radio uses the headphone cable as an antenna, so with the move to bluetooth I assume it got squashed for similar reasons. The other aspect is it assumes if you want live radio that you're happy needing an active data connection and allowance, any any local stations have a stream available. One of the things I love about streaming (via RadioDroid, etc) is that you can get a station from anywhere on the planet but sometimes you want something a bit more basic.
> FM radio uses the headphone cable as an antenna, so with the move to bluetooth I assume it got squashed for similar reasons.
Some may prefer Bluetooth headphones, and there are countless apologists who now retroactively parrot the manufacturers' excuses for why headphone jacks were eliminated, but it wasn't something the _users_ asked for or wanted.
"Oh, but phones are waterproof now," they claim! Well, so was the Samsung Galaxy S5 I bought in 2014. And by the way, it also had a user-removable battery, removable storage, an FM radio, and an IR blaster. All these years later, you can't find a new phone with all of those features and it's very difficult to find a flagship phone with even _one_ of them.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-hidde...
Yes, the iPhone is basically a vending machine in your pocket. Owned and run by Apple. But you paid for it. Quite smart, actually.
Just like 16e, Mini and SE were meant to push up the sales of their "other" phones. Otherwise they would not have had both Mini and SE. I mean it was a joke.
But Hanlon's razor and the way Apple has been on a screwing up spree of late I doubt it was anything intentional. They f'ed up knowing not what to do at all. They don't anymore.
Sometimes assuming just a tiny bit of malice can explain what otherwise had to be explained by a lot of stupidity.
Occam's razor beats Hanlon's razor.
How can KPIs from Google/Apple/Meta/X have any impact on the products third-party Android phone manufacturers decide to sell?
I think most major players have the same incentives and minor players don't have the economies of scale to make it work economically.
Also the longer I used my iphone mini and the rest of the world moved to comically large phones the more it became apparent that nobody is thinking about small screen form factors in design and when they do its only around ad placement.
But, for example, what is the money flow from google/advertising in general to Motorola, that makes them not want to release a small screen model in their lineup of cheap phones?
Instagram, Tiktok, and Google have gotten users addicted to consuming content, and larger screens help with that.
We are helplessly addicted to digital cocaine, and so we demand large phones, and so motorola will not make money selling a small phone.
It's like the parent said: our addiction is the product, and so just like a chain-smoker will say "I want to quit" as they buy 5 packs a day, a modern smartphone user will say "I want a smaller screen and to look at ads less" as they hopelessly buy a 10 inch phablet and can't go 5 minutes without pulling it from their pocket to check tiktok.
It is not that the money from advertising flows, it is that the addicted users have already been ruined, and will not buy the devices they say they want.
Sure, but that's something totally different. Basically just "customers don't want it and won't buy it". I understood the root comment to imply some kind of more direct incentive: "A smaller screen probably negatively impacts KPIs on many levels" - if advertising KPIs are supposed to be given precedence over demand from consumers there has to be at least some kind of mechanism for it.
"No major player wants a smaller screen because it has downstream impacts on the pipeline of addictive material and ad pixels they can stuff into ocular nerves." -- what is the direct (or indirect) pressure that the major players can exert over some more or less independent hw manufacturer like Motorola? I'm not saying it's impossible, it reminds me of e.g. the situation where (pre iphone) carriers blocked phones from having wifi because they wanted them to be dependent on their network, but if something like this is happening it should be possible to roughly point out how.
I see it differently. Modern web → the browser → powerful CPU/GPU → big battery → big device → why not cover it with a big screen.
Couldn’t we make it thicker though? The rumored iPhone air is the exact opposite of what I want. Give me a thicker phone with a smaller screen and I’d pay Pro prices for it.
Thicker things don't fit in pockets as well, they're unwieldy.
I've gotten my EDC down to 1 leather ID sleeve with my credit card and drivers license in it, and my phone. This is probably still thicker then it should be, but it's soft so I don't feel the bulk or edges.
Air is intermediate to Fold (2X Air thickness) with 5.5" screen and $2K+ price, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44587911
Yea I might have to get a fold. I really don’t want a damn crease in my screen though. I’d almost prefer a Nintendo DS style.
Think of the nds emulation though!
This is it, for a while battery life got worse for a while with more powerful chips. But then Samsung goes full in on the big size 6"+ phone and it got better again.
Now even at 80% original capacity, a Samsung can still last me throughout the day given that I am not watching videos constantly. The Iphone 6 back in the day would go to 40% in 3 hours, then suddenly to 5% in minutes.
Plus most people replace their laptop with a phone now. So the big screen size is a must.
That’s how I see it. Screen size is area (x^2) and battery size is volume (x^3). As battery life is a critical feature, a bigger screen fits better battery life.
The issue is "bigger numbers" marketing. The story for much of smartphone history was the flagship had a bigger screen.
But then it hit the practicable limits of what people can pocket/hold-comfortably.
If you make a phone with a smaller screen but want to call it "flagship" then you'd better have some good marketing to reverse the perception.
Please note that Samsung flagship S24 is smaller than non-flagship A55 (the same release year)
I think the other thing is pretty much everyone has a smartphone android/ios, and so the rev model has changed for android its youtube/movies, and for ios its apple tv.
No, the bigger devices just sold more. Larger screen size is a major factor in deciding which phone to buy globally.
I posted a bit too late and didn't see your post first, which more or less is exactly along my thinking.
Modern phones are sold (even at profit) with the intent that there is more payments/ad revenue coming down the line, for movies, TV, games and web browsing/social media. A big screen makes that experience better for people and advertisers. It's a cynical take, but the entire business model is based on building and promoting addiction.
They have no interest in selling phones for utility purposes only, even though that's largely how they advertise the phones, because advertising a 5 hour plus daily screen time isn't sexy at all.
Out of curiosity, why's it your last Apple product?
Watching lots of Louis Rossmann has put me almost ideologically against Apple (even though they design great hardware and smooth UX within their ecosystem), but I'm not good at forming coherent points to present to Apple loving friends.
For me so far, I think it's about control over what I buy - but the rebuttal is always "you're buying a product from them, if you don't like it then tough".
The opinion I got from Louis's content is that in a sense he is right, but also almost every brand is even worse. Apple does pretty much nothing to help 3rd party repair and sometimes actively impeeds it, but most other tech products do that while also not even having 1st party repair options.
I remember when Samsung had removable batteries, I went in to a Samsung store to buy a replacement for my S5 battery and they told me they didn't sell them, only new phones. Meanwhile I can take my iPhone in to any Apple store and they will replace the battery for me.
So yeah Apple does need to be forced to massively improve their practices but so does pretty much the entire tech industry aside from a few small projects that focus on being repairable.
I just don't see the value add anymore and the company appears to have lost its product vision and the design sensibilities are slipping. Apple is controlled by a geriatric board and a logistics expert and it shows.
I feel I am more frequently encountering software bugs, vaporware,(dESiGnEd fOr ApPle InTelLiGeNce), and ridiculous "innovation" (genmoji). I feel the hardware advances are not very relevant to me, I don't need VR or augmented reality. I want a computer to get out of my way and solve problems for me so I can spend time in plain old reality. The hardware upgrades I DO care about are ridiculously overpriced (Ram upgrades are abusively expensive).
While I prefer my computer to be a tool to get a job done and don't want the computer itself to be a hobby. I also do not want to be forced to use AI. I also dislike the rent seeking and toolbooth behavior of iMessage and the App store. Now that linux has more paved paths, things increasingly "just work" and hardware has basically caught up I don't see a good reason to support Apple's non-vision with my money.
What Linux computer can you buy with the battery life, quietness, lack of heat and speed of a modern ARM based Mac?
As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard.
And you still end up getting most apps from the Google Play Store.
By the way, iMessage supports SMS/MMS/RCS for interoperability. What else do you want?
What Linux computer can you buy with the battery life, quietness, lack of heat and speed of a modern ARM based Mac?
Battery life, probably none. For the rest it's pretty ok now - I recently got a ThinkPad T14. Performance-wise it's in M1/M2 territory and yes the fans can spin up, but they are not very loud.
I have used MacBooks since 2007, but I have started using the ThinkPad more and more. Why?
I put in 64GiB RAM and a 2TB SSD and it cost me almost nothing. The laptop plus these expansions was 1400 or 1500 Euro, a MacBook with 64GiB RAM and 2TB SSD would cost me 5000 Euro. When the battery has had its time, I can replace it by removing a few screws. I added a PCI cellular modem. The expandability and maintanability is just great.
Even though the GPU in my MacBook Pro (M3 Pro) blows away the ThinkPad's GPU on paper, the ThinkPad with Wayland actually renders everything super-smoothly on my 120Hz 4K screen, while on the MacBook the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz is barely noticeable. On the ThinkPad I can run NixOS, which is generally much nicer than macOS.
The primary thing that my MacBook has over my ThinkPad are battery life and a bunch of really good Mac applications like the Affinity Suite. But since more and more applications are switching to Electron, it has become less of a problem. Heck, I even have 1Password with fingerprint unlock, etc. like if it was a MacBook.
As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard.
Or I don't know, you buy a Pixel, install GrapheneOS, and you have better privacy than on an iPhone? And no F1 movie ads too.
And no mainstream apps…
Well... 1Password, Da Vinci Resolve, Cursor, Zoom, Dropbox, Bitwig, Master PDF, Mathematica, Spotify, Steam, etc. The times are changing.
I think there are a lot of offerings out there now. Maybe not to the minute with respect to battery life but Apples chip advantage is steadily evaporating. I typically don't need more than 8 hours of battery personally.
Have heard good things about framework computers. As a more efficient chip or battery comes out you just upgrade that component if your use case requires it.
It’s never been “just the chip” for major architectural changes even within x86. It’s replacing the entire motherboard and surrounding components.
What offerings are out there for speed/no fan (quiet)/and lack of heat with battery life?
By the way, it's not a lack of heat in the Air. The M4 will hit 105°C and start throttling pretty soon in sustained workloads. At any rate, modern Ryzen laptop CPUs have narrowed the gap with Apple Silicon performance-wise. It's mostly battery life that's still lagging behind. It not only requires a mainboard optimized for power use (which is pretty good nowadays on modern laptops), but also very strong OS integration. I am not sure if non-Apple laptops will get that far, because Linux and Windows simply have to target much more hardware.
At any rate, non-Apple laptops have other benefits, like being able to get 64GiB/128GiB memory and large SSDs without breaking the bank.
In the end it's all a trade-off. If you are a sales representative that needs all-day battery life, MacBook is probably the only option. If you are a developer that needs something portable to hop between desks or on the train, but usually have access to a power socket (yay, Dutch/German trains), a few hours of battery is enough and you might prefer to get an insane amount of memory/storage, a built-in cellular modem, and an ethernet port instead.
Most people don't really need more than 2 hours of battery life anyway[1] as their laptops barely ever leave the house. >8H of battery is nice to have but it is really an important parameter for a specific population while for others it is just convenience. I wouldn't trade an OS/desktop I don't like over my linux setup just because it last longer when I never need more than a couple of hours on battery[3].
[1] which means you need a 4 to 6h range when new if you don't plan to replace the battery too often
[2] students, construction companies, people who are always on the road...
Is that where we are going? Most people don’t need a laptop that has more than 2 hours battery life?
When I was in the office full time in the bad old days, you would be in a conference room and every one would plug their laptops in.
After I started working remotely and still doing business trips, one charge could last a full day either going back and forth between conference rooms, in “war rooms” etc and no one with M series MacBooks even worried about charging.
Heck my MacBook Pro (work laptop) can last a full day on power with my portable USB C powered external monitor where the power and video come from one cord.
Not to mention on flights with layovers.
You are exactly one of those few that I mentionned as exceptions. Fine.
I spent almost 10 hours at a coworking space and didn't even worry about charging my M4 MacBook Pro. Apple Silicon is a game changer: incredible performance and long battery life, generally totally silent, no thermal throttling. 10 hours may be extreme, but it's nice to be able to go to a coffee shop and not worry about not having charged your laptop since last week.
I used to run Linux on a laptop (10+ years ago) and you couldn't even close the laptop lid without risking it not going to sleep and overheating in your bag.
It is exactly what I am saying, it is nice, a convenience. But that's it.
I don't worry about closing my thinkpad lid. Well I do because I disable sleep on lid close and prefer using the dedicated button for that. But my thinkpad goes to sleep when I ask it to.
I have an Asus Vivobook S14 laptop with an Intel Core Ultra 258v processor. In Linux, it gets 12-15 hours of real usage (i.e. not manufacturer "playing videos off local storage with wifi off and the screen all the way down" battery life numbers). If I'm doing something like web browsing or streaming videos, the laptop doesn't get hot and the fan doesn't turn on. I've only had the fan turn on when I'm doing something intensive like compiling GCC or video encoding. It feels just as fast as my ARM Macbook Air.
> What Linux computer can you buy with the battery life, quietness, lack of heat and speed of a modern ARM based Mac?
M1 Air or M2 Air, running Asahi Linux. I am posting this using my M1 Air, running Fedora Asahi.
> As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard.
I use Fairphone 4 with Ubuntu Touch.
And you lose the battery life advantages by putting Linux on the Mac. Why even buy a Mac?
As far as the Fairphone - poor battery life, bulky, poor camera, and the IP rating of 55 for water? Well at least it runs Linux.
I'd sacrifice some battery life to have a Thinkpad (example: T14 gen 5), with the superior keyboard, Touch point and smaller touchpad (the Mac one is annoyingly too large).
I have stopped caring so I caved in to work policy and got an iPhone, and I really do not see the point. It is just a thing no better or worse than an Android...
So you’re making voip calls on your thinkpad?
That’s cool, but you represent a tiny slice of the market that as devices get more powerful, isn’t addressable in the low volumes needed to make you happy.
When the chips needed to make a phone are priced like toys, maybe you’ll find the product for you.
I feel that the problem with small phones roots in software. Obviously you would need to run smaller resolution. My sweet spot was iPhone 4S. It has 3.5" display with 640x960 resolution. If you would try to run modern Android with this resolution, you would hit multiple obstacles, from popular apps to popular websites scaling badly.
Many people in Asia seem to prefer gigantic screens and since it is the largest market, most phones get produced that way.
Bigger screens mean more time spent, more ad real estate, more "content," more dopamine loops
> However, it does seem like there is a profitable business for someone there given how beloved it was/is.
Normal people didn’t love small phones. They loved their small iPhones.
When it comes down to it they will not love the Pine Phone Mini.
For the vast majority of people, the key feature is that it’s an iPhone not that it’s small.
I don’t know.If I have a “big” phone (anything bigger than the iphone mini, at least for me), I’ll leave it at home most of the time. But if it’s small, I’ll take it with me everywhere. So I can be bombarded with crap more time if I use a small phone.
Phones are big now because people want better cameras and longer battery life. Also, people are spending 4-5 hours more per day on screens than they did 15 years ago, so they want bigger screen for reading, playing games and watching videos.
I know I can’t claim to be “the norm”, but all I want is a smaller phone with 1–2 day battery life. I don’t need a better screen, a better camera, or ever more compute. (It’s a freaking smartphone, not a game console!) All I need my phone to do is run a web browser, messaging apps, maps, my banking app, and random little apps some organisations force you to use – like my university’s app, my city’s public transport app, or half the restaurants here. Things that could easily be done with 10–15 year old hardware. Sadly, the industry chose to keep the power consumption constant increasing while computational power, instead of focusing on smaller devices and longer battery life with the same power.
Again, I’m not angry that current phones exist; I’m just sad there aren’t (good) alternatives – at least that I know of.
Did I read it right, are you installing "resstaurants apps"?
Yep, in my area a couple of dining places only list their menu in an app [1], a bunch of places have some kind of membership program accessible through the app, and one standup club requires (!) an app to order drinks and food.
[1]: There’s a paper one in the restaurant, of course, but I like to choose beforehand.
I thought the theory behind the 12 and 13 minis was that Apple had a huge surplus of parts that they needed to offload, and making the minis was a profitable way of doing that.
But they launched alongside the flagship devices?
I think that’s the SEs.
It’s an interesting take but I believe most people just prefer bigger phone. I know it’s weird to those of us who like the opposite and funnily enough it’s often women who have gigantic phone, which they can’t put in their tiny jean pocket.
I don’t explain it and every time I get explained they like it better because it’s got bigger battery and bigger screen, I just don’t understand how you could live your life with a brick constantly on you but it’s what people want.
The market just adapted to the demand and it’s not a 40k « petition » that will change much.
> I know it’s weird to those of us who like the opposite and funnily enough it’s often women who have gigantic phone, which they can’t put in their tiny jean pocket.
Most women carry their phone in a hand bag anyway as the pockets on most pants for women are way to small either way [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/06/style/pockets-womens-clot...
Most women pants have no or fake pockets anyway, So the smartphone to pants pocket size relationship is usually only a parameter for men.
The pants thing is another baffling mystery. I know exactly zero women who want their pants to not have pockets. Yet manufacturers absolutely refuse to add pockets. It seems like a complete market failure.
But it's also true that manufacturers don't always serve niches well
Do you have any fact at all to back your opinion?
Curious, what happened to the Palm phone (https://palm.com/)?
I don't think that's cynical- it's obvious that larger screens allow more phone usage and more ads on the larger screen.
It's still a cynical point of view nonetheless
I used to buy ZenFones, but they're huge now. It feels like there's some combination of poor sales and parts commonality that causes the problem, not a shadowy conspiracy, since I don't think ASUS and other manufacturers have a significant way to benefit from phone addiction.
I have the last non-huge ZenFone.
The new ZenFones are just rebadged ROGs which explains the massive size jump. I'm not looking forward to replacing this phone when it ages out.
Phones had smaller screens when you needed the keypad to interact with the largest number of features.
Phone screen sizes grew as the applications that could use screen space grew in demand.
People are watching 1080p films on the train now. The people who want smaller screens are usually willing to deal with a larger one. People who want larger screens usually cant operate their use cases on a smaller screen. Larger screens also tend to mask larger case meaning less miniaturisation required for the components.
None of this explains why it's just impossible to get small phones.
You have people who want them unusably large and people who want them to fit in your hand. The solution in every other market is that products are manufactured to fit both sets of needs. You don't see pants coming in one size with the advice "wear a belt".
What's going on?
I agree with the sentiment, but pants is a very funny example.
Every manufacturer seems to think people are either tall and fat or short and slim. I'm tall and my only alternative is literally to wear a belt.
>You don't see pants coming in one size with the advice "wear a belt".
Great example. Because people who are shorter than average tend to have to get pants taken up, and people who are vastly taller than average tend to go to specialty stores.
The average height of pants is largely dictated by what the market will permit, requiring people to make adjustments or leave the market. Having a 2d matrix of height and width defined pant sizes is too complex for the market to bother with.
Technology is worse, anything that requires tooling is done the least number of times possible. While small phone enjoyers are disadvantaged, they arent disadvantaged enough to force them out of the market. Larger tooling is easier to make and caters to all other preferences.
> Technology is worse, anything that requires tooling is done the least number of times possible. While small phone enjoyers are disadvantaged, they arent disadvantaged enough to force them out of the market. Larger tooling is easier to make and caters to all other preferences.
No, you're making up a claim that you know perfectly well is false. Just blank most of your day out of your mind, and then... what? Why?
You don't like pants? Televisions come in dozens of different sizes. Laptops come in dozens of different sizes. Are phones different in some way?
>No, you're making up a claim that you know perfectly well is false. Just blank most of your day out of your mind, and then... what? Why?
I cant even parse this? What am I blanking?
>You don't like pants? Televisions come in dozens of different sizes. Laptops come in dozens of different sizes. Are phones different in some way?
Where did I claim not to like pants?
Laptops come in tons of different sizes. So do phones.
They tried sub 10 inch laptops, in the form of netbooks, the form factor barely exists anymore outside of hobbyists. Netbook enthusiasts either have to exit the market, or go for something 10 inch or higher. Because its not worth the tooling to deal with a niche market.
Phones come in dozens of different sizes too, what are you on about? TVs come in a greater range of sizes because they're designed for different viewing distances and room configurations. Phones don't have this variable, you hold them in your hand.
> What's going on?
You're in a minority, it's not profitable to cater to you, and most people don't care.
That's the cold hard truth of it.
You seem to have ignored the part of my comment pointing out that the dynamic you describe doesn't occur in any other market.
Perhaps... just perhaps... the explanation lies elsewhere?
I should have included some kind of question as to what it might be.
I don't think it's meaningful. There are not enough people who would buy such a device to make it profitable to design and manufacture. Your priors -
"You have ... people who want them to fit in your hand"
Are incorrect. The number of people who will actually buy small devices is ... small. The number of people who are so interested in small devices they'll overlook things like a lower battery life and whatever other compromises are needed to achieve the smaller size, likely even fewer.
It's not like it hasn't been tried in the past, people in this thread talk about iPhone minis disappearing - Apple couldn't make them a success. Sony couldn't make them a success either and stopped making them AFAICT. As a market segment you're too small to warrant the investment in designing a small flagship. And if nobody's investing in a small flagship, small midmarket isn't going to happen either.
There do appear to be niche manufacturers in this segment (take a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/smallphones/). If the untapped demand is so huge, I would expect to see them become much more mainstream over time.
Unless you're asserting the number of people who will actually buy small devices is zero (which I would hope you aren't given the evidence to the contrary in this thread), his priors are in fact correct. If there exists any number of people willing to buy small phones, then the statement "you have people who want them to fit in your hand" is true.
> If there exists any number of people willing to buy small phones, then the statement "you have people who want them to fit in your hand" is true.
But the subtext is that this is enough of a population to make a viable market, that in fact any number of people, however small, make a viable market. It's just not a reasonable prior.
So I'm asserting that it may as well be zero as far as the big manufacturers are concerned, that with such a small audience it's not profitable. Further, that this dynamic does indeed play out in other markets.
OP is looking for a conspiracy as to why phone manufacturers are leaving money on the table. The truth is they aren't. This situation is exactly what you'd expect when there's no real market - a few niche providers making a few niche products for die-hards (without the scale, support or quality of the majors) and not making a lot of money at it, while the rest of the market ignores them.
There are also no desktop 17” displays sold anymore, nor are there many 32” TVs around. Nobody makes 7” Eee PCs.
Perhaps… just perhaps… people just like bigger screens and it’s not some kind of weird conspiracy theory?
I think that's the cart before the horse. People buy the big phones and so businesses cater for that.
That makes no sense. The only phone companies that make money from how often you use your phone and buy apps on it are Apple and Google. If there were a market for it other companies would make them.
As far as the mini phones - because physics - the battery life is atrocious. That was one of the main drivers for me to get a larger phone. Well that and because I can pull down the Control Center and use the widget to make everything on my phone larger and still be able to use it without wearing my glasses. With my glasses, I keep everything the smallest size
But Apple and Google (Pixel) are a huge portion of the market..
The other manufacturers are forced to go along with the market leaders, but sometimes also side-load apps for post-device-sale revenue.
The pixel is not a “huge portion of the market”. It’s 4% of the market in the US (https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insight/post-insight-us...) and a nothingburger outside of it.
Globally, Apple has what 20% market share? And besides Qualcomm chips, Apple has a complete separate parts supply chain than Android.
Besides, Samsung could definitely create its own small phone and would if there were a market.
Sorry, in my national market. Apple has 51%, Samsung has around 28% and Google 5%. These 3 hold almost 85% of the UK market.
Samsung, from what I remember used to side-load tons of apps (some alongside identical stock Android apps), so it's in their best interest to maximise screen time through media apps, which generally work best on a bigger screen.
It's against all of these companies interests to sell you a phone which you quickly use and put away. They all have every incentive to keep you staring, because they're all getting extra money from every ad you see in a game, TV show, movie, web browsing, or wherever else they can slot it.
The UK is less than 1% of the world market. Not exactly representative of the rest of the world…
Pointless rant. Apple does not earn more or less depending on how many ads it can show.
The market has spoken, it's not worthwhile for Apple to produce small phones.
There are a million companies that are not Google that could also produce mini phones and don't for the same exact reason: most people want large screens to enjoy videos and photos.
Nobody cares about small screens and pockets, everyone holds their phones in their hands or purses at all times.
Conspiracy minded bullshit.
Like it or not, Apple keeps cancelling smaller phone lines because they don't sell well. That's it. If they sold really well then they'd keep selling them, but they don't.
I would also love more capable small phones personally, but I can't deny that people overall don't seem to want them.
I thought that was the case but I tried going small.
I owned an iPhone 13 mini. Basically the perfect small phone if there ever was one.
The downsides are extensive and the upsides are few.
- Battery life sucked. Since a phone is a 3D object making it bigger substantially increases battery capacity. It also makes packaging difficult especially if the goal is a flagship-quality phone. Good luck fitting in good hardware with a lot of features.
- Eyestrain. It’s small.
- Typing. It sucks. The phone is small.
And it turns out the upside of one-handed operation is limited. A simple PopSocket or OhSnap! will make large phones easy to use in one hand.
Plus, if pocketability is your issue, you can buy a folding phone like a Motorola Razr and still get a nice big screen when you pull it out.
I disagree. I'm reading and typing this from an iPhone 13 mini. I use a big one for work so it's not like I don't know what I'm missing. I very strongly prefer the small form factor
I mean, are the phones themselves really making money off ads or are those totally separate companies? I don't disagree that this brings in business, but I don't agree that this is a significant motivator in terms of phone sizes
What an angry way to say "they're bigger because people use the screen for apps and media."
The hard reality is that there is no PAYING market for such a device, because when it comes to the point-of-sale, most people still choose the normal-size device with better screen/battery/camera.
This is equivalent to something I called the "QWERTY paradox" more than a decade ago:
Back when the Smartphone market exploded, people disliked typing on a touchscreen and repeatedly stated that they want a device with a physical keyboard.
There was plenty of evidence, surveys, market studies, trend predictions, devices for these "Messaging-centric" use-cases were always part of this market-demand roster.
But whenever someone answered the call and built a Smartphone with QWERTY keyboard, the product failed commercially, simply because also to people claiming they want such a phone, at the point of sale they were less attractive than their slimmer, lighter, all-screen counterparts.
Every major vendor went through this cycle of learning that lesson, usually with an iteration like "it needs to be a premium high-spec device" --> (didn't sell) --> "ah, it should be mass-market" --> (also didn't sell).
You can find this journey for every vendor. Samsung, LG, HTC, Motorola, Sony.
The same lessons were already learnt for small-screen devices: There was a "Mini" series of Samsung Galaxy, LG G-series, HTC One, Sony Xperia. It didn't sell, the numbers showed that it didn't attract additional customers, at best it only fragmented the existing customer-base.
Source: I work in that industry for a long time now
> when it comes to the point-of-sale, most people still choose the normal-size device with better screen/battery/camera.
My theory is that much of this effect is an error, or at least a far-less-than-ideal effort, on the part of the designers. Of course it’s hard to sell a low-end “mini” device with a worse camera, worse battery life, etc. But that’s not actually what I, or many people I discuss this with, want. I would happily buy a premium device that is short and narrow, and possibly even thicker as a tradeoff. There’s plenty of unexplored room in the design space here. For example: start with an iPhone Pro or whatever the Android equivalent du jour is. Keep the camera unchanged. Shrink the display but keep the same quality (at least equal pixel density). Now puff out the back so that the camera lenses are flat or even slightly recessed. Use the resulting added volume to compensate for the decrease in volume due to decreasing the other dimensions. Market the think as a Whatever Phone Pro Compact, and advertise clearly that the battery life is every bit as good as the non-Compact model version. Show off cool pictures models sticking this thing in their cool jeans pockets without them sticking out. Charge the same price as the ordinary Pro model.
As far as I know, no one has tried anything like this in recent memory. The iPhone 12 and 13 Mini were always marketed as the cheaper versions, and the cute little old SE model was very much a low-end version. Last I checked, there was no 5G Android device with similar dimensions from any manufacturer.
> much of this effect is an error, or at least a far-less-than-ideal effort
No, the vast majority of people use their phones as video viewers, increasingly so after the rise of TikTok. I have family members in their 30s who don't have laptops or TVs, all media is consumed through their phone, and for most kids/teens across the world it is their primary video consumption device.
The average person is trying to maximize screen size relative to portability. And the market is everyone on earth. That's it.
There’s a bias here: video consumption is continuous, somewhat long and eye catching (both the movement on the screen and the focussed-starring position à la "look at the sky!"). Therefore we’re more encline to notice video consumption than other usages like music, navigation or notifications check.
Don’t take me wrong: I do agree that "the vast majority of people use their phones as video viewers", but the duration/day is not uniform and many don’t want/need to carry a half-tablet all day long in case someone shared a tiktok on the messaging group.
> Therefore we’re more encline to notice video consumption than other usages [..]
That's not relevant, as this is then forming our decision at the point-of-sale towards a media consumption device.
> many don’t want/need to carry a half-tablet all day long in case someone shared a tiktok on the messaging group.
Only while no media is consumed. Many people take less than one photo a day on average, but still the camera quality is a dominant decision-factor.
I'd even argue that the majority of price-premium paid by a customer today is for camera and display. Those will be the factors at the point of sale to decide whether to pay 50-100 USD more or not...
ur point is invalid. the market doesnt have this small device because of not enough demand. simple as that
>No, the vast majority of people use their phones as video viewers, increasingly so after the rise of TikTok. I have family members in their 30s who don't have laptops or TVs, all media is consumed through their phone, and for most kids/teens across the world it is their primary video consumption device.
That is one thing that is more disgusting about using a smart phone now days. When iPhone first came out it is about a music player and phone with extra features to facilitate real life things.
I don't want a freaking small computer in my pocket, and looking at small screens for long period of time is just NOT good for our eyes or postural.
We need to start treat these small devices as something we interact with very occasionally to facilitate real life interaction, not get our face stuck to it.
Not that working on laptop or workstation is much better, but it is better than writing on and viewing a video on small screen.
> The iPhone 12 and 13 Mini were always marketed as the cheaper versions [...]
No, they were not. They were literally a scaled down version of their respective regular sized counterparts, the 13 Mini had the same cameras, SOC, memory, screen quality and storage options as the regular 13 [0], yet its sales success (or lack thereof [1]) was enough to instantly cure me of any previously held notions that there is a sufficiently large group of buyers for these devices out there.
It isn't because the specs are inferior, the cameras are changed, the display has a lower pixel density (the Mini actually had slightly higher ppi) or anything else. There simply is no sufficient market, the 13 Mini was the worst selling phone in that generation by a frankly impressive margin. 38% for iPhone 13 vs 3% for iPhone 13 mini, despite them being as close to just being scaled down and otherwise identical as one can make a phone speaks a very clear language that any manufacturer wanting to succeed has hear loud and clear. Most certainly why Asus has seized with their more compact smartphones. The amount of people I know that praised Asus for making a more compact flagship with a very large battery [2] was not in any way proportional to their sales. In this case, the battery life was actually superior to many larger competitors. Same for my Xperia 5 V, the compact phone I bought and used at the time, cause I walk my talk and have been following phone releases to a sufficient degree that I can assure everyone, there have been and are flagship speced, compact phones with good battery life, that no one ever buys. I'd love more options in the market, heck, I use both the Xperia 5 and an iPhone 15 Pro Max in a Clicks case, either for different situations, so am on both sides as a consumer. Simply, the lack of any actual market demand beyond online comments makes that impossible, we need to be honest here.
[0] https://www.apple.com/by/iphone-13/specs/
[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/21/iphone-13-mini-unpopula...
[2] https://www.asus.com/mobile-handhelds/phones/zenfone/zenfone...
The Asus Zenfones were not compact phones. They were almost exactly the same size as the regular iPhones and Galaxy S phones at the time (slightly narrower but thicker). And expecting them to sell well against those two is unreasonable.
https://www.gsmarena.com/asus_zenfone_9-11656.php
https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s22_5g-11253.php
https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_14-11861.php
The 12 mini and 13 mini had very substandard batteries compared to the mainline version or the SE.
There are a lot of people who probably would've bought the mini but instead of opted for the SE because battery life degraded so quickly.
It wasn't that the batteries were "substandard". I'm sure they were the same technology and quality as the standard iPhone 12 and 13 batteries. It's just that they were compressing the same hardware into a smaller form factor and, therefore, a smaller battery.
The only thing that used less power on the mini was the smaller screen, but that doesn't save enough power to make up for a physically smaller battery.
As a 12 mini user daily since it came out in 2020, I've only just now started to hit any noticeable battery dip (~85% after almost 5 years usage). It's still pretty solid on a daily basis. On very rare occasions, the smaller battery has required charging before evening due to excessive photos taken and/or nav without a plug. FWIW, I will probably replace the battery by end of year, or next, and keep it going as long as I can... I refuse the massive "normal" phone size.
Imma big Mini fan but the battery is sorely disappointing after a year on both my 12 and 13. It's especially true in daylight when the display goes max; walking the dog for 15 minutes sees a 10+ % battery drop. It's nuts.
That said I wish they'd release a thicker version to compensate
For a while, I was optimistic that Apple would at least continue to release the SE every 3-ish years. I'm guessing they wanted to finally kill the fingerprint reader and other SE-specific features[1]. And maybe even the SE with its reduced price didn't sell that well.
---
1. Yes, I understand that these features were present in other phones, but the SE was the last phone actively sold by Apple that had them
The SE has always seemed, to me, a way to repurpose older iPhone components into a more modern shell, which is why the SE line has been replace by the 16e. 16e uses iPhone 13 dimensions.
Expanding on this, it's specifically to reuse older tooling in a factory that's not in China like their mainline products.
You’re right but you’re kind of missing my point. The iPhone 13 Mini started at $699. The normal iPhone 13 started at $799. The Pro started at $999. People were largely not looking at detailed specs — the Mini was obviously the smaller, cheaper version for if you couldn’t afford the standard model, and if you wanted the dramatically better camera, you would pay $999.
Per my suggestion, Apple should have scrapped the 13 Mini completely and instead offered a 13 Pro Compact for $999. Or maybe even $1049 if it had a bigger battery than the standard Pro model. The profit would have been much higher per unit than the 13 Mini, and I imagine they might have sold more units as well.
I’m typing this on a 13 Mini, and I would have paid an extra $400 for a better camera and more battery life. Before I had this phone, I bought a 15 Pro, used it for a week, and returned it because it was uncomfortably large.
As per my source, the iPhone 13 outsold both the Pro and Pro Max together, so no the cameras could not have been the reason:
> Combined, all four iPhone 13 models made up 71 percent of iPhone sales, with the standard 6.1-inch iPhone 13 responsible for 38 percent of sales. The iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max weren't quite as popular as the iPhone 13, but sold much better than the iPhone 13 mini.
In fact, the iPhone 13 alone sold more (38%) than the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max combined (30%). The plain old 13 was the most popular SKU, because no, most people do in fact not spend more for an added telephoto camera only a specific few have a true need for. The regular non Pro iPhone has across most years been the best seller, because it is a solid middle ground for the vast majority of people, making it the best basis for a small SKU to have any hope of succeeding. A 13 Pro Compact would have absolutely sold as poorly, maybe even worse than the 13 mini, considering both Pros did not outsell the regular 13 by itself. But even if a 13 Pro Compact had sold twice as well as the 13 mini (a very generous assumption considering it would have been 300usd more expensive), that would still be only 6% of total sales, a drop in the bucket.
Lastly, there are the Xperia 5s and there have been the Zenfones, both having better battery life than their large competitors, both being as (un)popular as Apples efforts.
Again, I like small smartphones, I'd love there to be a significant market for them. There simply is no way to look at the data and claim there is one beyond a tiny niche that a company such as Apple cannot realistically serve.
Apple tried converting their most successful SKU into a small smartphone. That failed to sell even a tenth of its large brother, despite being 100usd cheaper.
Sony literally scales their flagship down and gives it better battery life. Not really a success either.
ASUS made their own, fully dedicated line of compact smartphones which again, had better battery life than most large competitors and even included a 3.5mm jack, getting a second niche of customers to bolster sales. They too saw so few sales that they were forced to pivot to gigantic phones.
No matter what conditions, no matter how favorable, the same result.
My wife would have paid more as well. She still has her 13 because it's the smallest available smartphone. Unfortunately the new flip phones are a bit too thick for now.
>No, they were not. They were literally a scaled down version of their respective regular sized counterparts, the 13 Mini had the same cameras, SOC, memory, screen quality and storage options as the regular 13 [0], yet its sales success (or lack thereof [1]) was enough to instantly cure me of any previously held notions that there is a sufficiently large group of buyers for these devices out there.
You're being willfully obtuse here. It is the smaller version of the cheaper version of the iPhone. It's not a small pro, and that's what the original person was talking about.
Unihertz sells some decent Android phones that have 3 and 5 inch displays, respectively: https://www.unihertz.com
AFAIK, these are similar to the iPhone SE? The SE form factor was great in terms of size and thickness. Easy to use with one hand. I miss that.
Unihertz devices fill a gap but are subpar phones in terms of hardware. They also don't get any software updates the minute after they are launched.
>They also don't get any software updates the minute after they are launched.
If you install Lineage or something, isn't that essentially a non-issue?
Otherwise those seem great! Never heard of them.
No official LineageOS support according to https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/. And no, missing vendor support is still an issue even with Lineage support, as soon as firmware (and sometimes driver) updates are needed.
I would be all over the Unihertz stuff if that wasn’t the case. I see people talking about Lineage working, but I haven’t looked into it.
My ideal phone is something small and rugged with physical keys that supports Android Auto for navigation and a few other basic apps I need (Bitwarden basically).
Your phone basically exists from Unihertz. You just refuse to buy it. Which, well…
I’m not completely against it yet, especially if it looks like I can use something like Lineage.
Software aside, I’ve heard mixed things about the keyboard on the Titan. Keeping an open mind though, I would like to support companies filling this niche.
The Jelly Max looks really tempting, but I'm a little apprehensive after running the Jelly Star for a while and dealing with constant dropped calls and bad call quality all around.
I'm in a similar boat. I really (really!) wanted to love the jelly star (when I used it for almost a month), but on Verizon I didn't have an LTE signal most of the time in the Seattle area, including downtown, which I find unreasonable. Also the battery life was horrible, 20% per hour of active use and 4% per hour of standby.
Using the jelly star proved that using a small screen is not a problem for me and I would gladly pay money for an experience like that.
But it also proved that it is not an acceptable option in terms of quality. Hopefully the Jelly Max is better in these regards.
I think Jelly Max the ideal size for me too (jelly star was a little too small for doing driving navigation). I'll keep an ear out
It looks quite good, but I missed 3.5mm audio jack.
Maybe you haven't heard, but Samsung has been making folding phones that fold up to be very small. The Galazy Flip 7 is pretty much what you describe as far as easily being able to fit in a pants pocket, has plenty of battery life, high-res screen, and it even flips out to have a large screen. No, folding phones are not a gimmick, been using a fold 4 for a few years and it's been amazing.
https://www.samsung.com/us/smartphones/galaxy-z-flip7/buy/ga...
When asking people if they'd buy a yellow Sony Walkman people said yes. Shortly after given the choice to take one home the same people picked black. https://medium.com/@diogomarta/the-yellow-walkman-paradox-th...
It seems that Medium article is ripping off this one https://www.alexandercowan.com/yellow-walkman-data-art-of-cu...
Well, that's a lesson on asking the right question. You like the new yellow one, but you like the black one even more. Nobody asked about black.
It's simpler than that. People often don't know what they want until they're actually presented with the buying decision. Economists call this stated vs revealed preferences and it's a well documented and understood phenomena.
No, I don't really accept that in the discussion about phones re: size and keyboard.
People do ask the wrong questions.
Yes, I would buy the phone with the keyboard, but the keyboard is not the single most important feature. After the Desire Z there simply was nothing comparable. If it was 400 instead of 300 I would have said no, if it was from a brand I hate because they mess up the default Android install I might have said no. If it was 1:1 like some other phone except the battery being atrocious I might have said no.
The problem is that they are changing 10 variables at a time, including size, cost, software, camera, battery, whatever.
They don't like the black one more. The yellow one caught their attention, but when it comes to the actual buying-decision, they find that drawing attention is not a feature they want.
But the existence of the yellow one helped sell the black one.
That's a typical issue for car sales by the way.
A bunny walks into a bakery. There he asks the baker if he has any carrot cake.
The bakers says: ‘No, I don’t sell carrot cake.’
So the bunny leaves, but returns the next day. He once again asks if the baker has any carrot cake.
Once more the baker answers: ‘No, I don’t sell carrot cake.’
Once the bunny left, the baker started making a carrot cake thinking the bunny would return the next day for the cake. And so the bunny did, and he asks: ‘Do you have carrot cake?’
To which the bakers answers: ‘Yes, today I DO sell carrot cake.’
So the Bunny says: ‘YUCK, isn't it disgusting, why do people sell these things?!’
Should be "A bunny hops into a bakery." ;-)
I love carrot cake but I don't understand this joke at all.
Hilarious and true.
Well there's certainly not no paying market. But the market is apparently too small to be viable.
Apple apparently sold a couple million iPhone 13 minis. Ford reliably sold more than 100,000 Focus cars in the US annually before deciding to discontinue it. But Apple and Ford decided they were better served redirecting that engineering effort towards more profitable projects.
It just frustrating when these gaps occur and there's no smaller player to fill them. A couple million small smartphones or a couple hundred thousand compact cars sounds like enough to sustain a business, but it isn't enough for the big players to care, and small players can't affordably create a competitive offering.
> The hard reality is that there is no PAYING market for such a device, because when it comes to the point-of-sale, most people still choose the normal-size device with better screen/battery/camera.
This kind of over-generalization is always annoying me deeply.
Of course there IS a market for such a product, because at the very least I exist (as well as a good fraction of the 320 other people from HN who upvoted this submission so far).
The problem is that this market is tiny, and even a smaller share of this market is willing to make massive concessions on other aspects of the phone to have a smaller phone, so you end up with a much harder design space (because size is a big engineering constraint) for a minority market, and the endeavor is often not profitable enough for that reason.
It doesn't mean there's no market, it just means addressing this particular market is a tough business, these two statements aren't equivalent.
The problem is that the bar for "commercial failure" is too low. I not only would pay more for a qwerty device but I have multiple times and I've delayed purchases of a device when no qwerty option was available. And I know there are thousands of people like me.
But there aren't hundreds of millions of people like me. And the bar for "success" is selling that many units so it gets considered a "failure"
Well if company can't profit selling such device in small quantity it is commercial failure. There is not much qualification to it beyond that.
The bar appears too low to prospective customer because they lose nothing if they try this product but ultimately decide to not buy but for business it is clear loss.
This is like those mythical users who'd buy Macs once its fully hackable and officially support linux. Apple thinks it is just better to not serve those buyers.
Sure "can't profit" would be a sensible bar. But in practise the bar used is much, much higher that's my point
> Smartphone with QWERTY keyboard, the product failed commercially
Well, there was BlackBerry. Multiple phone vendors assuming they could refresh a previously world-dominating form factor with contemporary smartphone guts only seems unreasonable in hindsight.
Every time I see messages and posts like this, I hope that big companies were being dissatisfied with the product factory scaling issue and device sell effectiveness.
I hope that small companies would launch device like this with 500-1000 devices being created and sold in a year just fulfill the niche and doesn't go bankrupt
I don’t think you could manufacture a small run like that without the price being extremely high.
Say you charge $1,000 per device. That means you need to build an entire company, pay staff, and prototype then manufacture a custom hardware device with customized software with less than a million dollars. Costs add up real fast.
Why does the cost need to be so high? Chinese markets have many small phone options like Soyes and Servo that cost less than $100. Unfortunately, these devices are potentially loaded with malware.
Can a similar device without malware not be made in small batches? At a selling price of $500 or less?
I actually had a brief email conversation with the folks running the project in the OP. Basically they said they can't get a reasonable-quality screen in that size. No one makes it. They would have to spin up a whole new manufacturing line for a quality, small screen and the cost on that is insane. The screens on the small phones you're talking about are very low quality.
I’m pretty sure a manufacturer can cobble something together from existing parts or even white label a phone for you.
The end result will be a $100 quality phone.
I've seen this pattern before, with laptops ("I want a laptop with" specific spec+feature combo not in the market) and cars ("I just want an electric car with physical controls and no subscription services or extra electronics") immediately coming to mind.
Which is a shame, because I can sympathize with most of these requests.
I want something like Kick-starter which operates the same way but isn't meant for funding the creator to get the upfront capital investment - just avoiding existing companies getting burned out of the "let's listen to a niche slice of our customers instead of appealing to the masses" mindset. Companies put up a weird product proposal and see if enough people will commit to buying it to at least break even.
Then, if there's enough of a commitment, those people get something they actually want. If there's not enough, then there's a specific reason that you can point to to explain why.
This is almost equivalent to the normal market model (people buy things they want, and niche products don't get made much), except with a more explicit feedback step, to help people realize that if they don't actually put their money where their mouth is, then things won't get made.
There's probably a better way to do this, but I'm not sure how. Ultimately I just want my non-electronic electric car.
Depending on how stringently you define "no extra electronics" you can get there with a 1st generation Hyundai Ioniq. The only things I need to use the touch screen for in daily life is navigation and choosing media.
Be aware that you'd need to live in a place with very good public charging infrastructure due to the ~220 km range. The infrastructure is there here in Denmark where I live and daily-drive a 2017 Ioniq.
All-in-all the Ioniq sold well enough that Hyundai release a facelift in 2020. And the most recent facelifts of the successor-Ioniqs (5 and 6) have moved back to a more button-based interface (AFAIK).
Soon to be added to that list, the army of Redditors that insist the Slate truck is the ideal vehicle for them.
People report struggling to buy a Ford Maverick. Shadowy organizations can't stand it that Americans demand Kei Trucks and get legislation so they can't get them. Increasingly I see rural people driving compact cars... Maybe they'd like a big-ass truck but they can't afford one at $90k.
The Ford Maverick starts at like $2k more than the Slate truck.
... and that's very little compared to most alternatives on the market.
Yeah, mainly I mean I don't get the hype over it. At $28k with no EV tax credit it makes no sense to me. Just get a Maverick, it's actually got features.
My original point was that I expect a big difference in people's stated vs observed preference on this one.
Maybe if it was priced like a Nissan Versa.
Not having power windows or a radio with Android Auto/Apple Carplay was a mistake. It would have added $1,500 to the price, but those features are big quality-of-life improvements.
I don't see how this would be different from Kickstarter. This is what Kickstarter is for.
Even if was a small % of the Apple lineup, the iPhone mini was one the best selling smartphones all brands considered. I for one switched to iPhone in 2020 specifically because there wasn't a single current-gen small form-factor Android phone anymore. I have a few friend that also made the switch with the 12 / 13 Mini for that reason.
The real reason the iPhone mini failed is not related to screen size, it's because its segment was canibalized by the cheaper alternative, the SE. The 2020 and 2022 sold like hot breads, wherehas their screen was almost an inch smaller than the iPhone mini. This is the proof that there a significant market for people who don't care about size and would gladly take the smallest option at a $100 discount from the regular one.
I think the "mini" name hurt it too. People thought it would be small, when the screen was in fact bigger than the screen on the 6/7/8 iPhones. It was a similar form factor without the forehead and chin.
The mini could have been simply, iPhone. The marketing would have been that they managed to add an extra .7" of screen, while reducing the overall size and weight. That's a great pitch. Who doesn't want a bigger screen in something that more easily fits in their pocket? Instead they called in a "mini", people thought it would be tiny and hard to use, so they didn't buy it.
The iPhone 12 mini screen was only .1" smaller than the screen on the iPhone 8 Plus... the giant option from just a few years earlier.
The mini was a marketing and brand strategy failure, plain and simple. It wasn't a small phone.
> Even if was a small % of the Apple lineup, the iPhone mini was one the best selling smartphones all brands considered
Correct. To back this up a little bit with numbers, the iPhone 13 Mini all by itself sold about the half of the rate of the entire Google Pixel lineup. I bet lots of phone manufacturers would love to have half the sales of Google's premier Android phone. I also switched from Android to iPhone solely because of the 13 Mini form factor (I prefer Android, but I prefer a human-hand-sized phone even more).
Source:
Google shipped about 10 million Pixel phones in a year https://9to5google.com/2024/02/22/pixel-2023/
iPhone Mini accounted for about 3% of iPhone sales https://9to5mac.com/2022/04/21/cirp-iphone-13-best-selling-l...
iPhones sell about 200 million units per year https://www.demandsage.com/iphone-user-statistics/
200 million * 0.03 = 6 million iPhone Minis per year
This is the case for me precisely - I’ve been dismayed at the “phablet” sizing trend, and leapt at the opportunity to keep my iPhone reasonably-sized - I’m on my second SE now and I’m kind of dreading what will happen when I need to eventually replace it.
I just want something small that will fit comfortably in my pocket, and I can use with one hand.
I owned 2 minis and would just replace screens and batteries whenever one got bad. Keep one in a drawer, take the broken one to the shop, rinse repeat.
I did this for years because I liked the form factor so much.
My new buying criteria for my iPhone is simply “buy the smallest one offered”.
But I’m willing to accept I’m not a big enough market segment to move the market.
The SE is a great phone, and a reasonable size. I will say ever more websites are starting to screwup their layouts on such "small" as indeed is iOS. Tiresome as hell
Exactly. I had already bought the SE by the time the mini came out. I still bought a Mini anyway, it's that good. But I imagine most people didn't.
> QWERTY paradox
Similar to the „ARTE effect“: When French TV audiences where polled, frequently around 10% responded, that they were watching Arte (an artsy government funded intelligentsia TV channel) on a daily basis.
yet the ratings rarely surpass 2%
Eric is now using the Lightphone 3, and apparently he loves it: https://www.thelightphone.com/lightiii
Although, it's not exactly what he wished for in 2022 since it doesn't run standard Android and obviously doesn't have industrial design like the iPhone mini.
The Lightphone seems great on paper, but price is far from light unfortunately, which is a bummer as I would have been interested if it were at 300$ selling price.
Unihertz is currently serving both the slim size and the QWERTY niche, with a QWERTY Kickstarter running right now. Their hardware actually seems quite appreciated, but they don't seem to care much for software updates.
Currently, foldable smartphones (the flip phone ones) seem to be the fashionable alternative to small phones, but they're even more expensive than the huge ones.
I bought a mini because a phone broke and was not immediately fixable, and I just needed something to get me going.
And... I love it and use it all the time. Into the pocket it goes, great for going out.
I would buy an iphone mini 16/17/18 no questions asked.
When it comes to the marketing side of things, I think back to a story where one of the soft drink companies tried to find the best soft drink taste. They found out that they couldn't optimize for the one true taste because... different people had different favorites.
It’s ironic that the author is comparing to iPhone mini which was killed just because of low demand.
They still sold millions of them.
I think there could be a market for a small reliable Android phone. The main issue is that it'd take years to build up a model's reputation and it'd have to be reasonably low price.
As it stands the kind of people who want a smaller phone almost by definition need to be a bit savvier than the market in general to know such a thing still exists and along with that will have greater skepticism towards Android phones having any kind of post market support.
It'd basically have to come from Samsung to hit the all the price/quality/trust requirements. Feel like they've already got a lot of the pieces there with their corporate targeted XCover range just shrink them down a bit.
spot on.
I'm starting to see the same trend with laptops without a keyboard now. There's an entire generation of 8-16 yos who never used a keyboard and type fast on ipad screens. In a decade, it's a real possibility that keyboardless laptops become the standard...
Wow that's awful, borderline dystopia :D
Isn't called a tablet? ;)
The hot new laptop trend is a tablet with another tablet as a keyboard :^|
I think when people start using phones less, they will again want them to be small. That is my experience at least. That being said, I expect to have to go back to a full size phone before that happens.
People will never use phones less.
It was ginormous, but I loved my Dell Venue Pro!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dell_Venue_Pro
> 4.1-inch (diagonal) widescreen
Ha yeah it isn't a big screen by today's standards. But it was basically a full candy-bar slab (with a curved screen) plus a sliding keyboard body, making it particularly thick / chunk.
https://www.theverge.com/2012/3/28/2909815/dell-retires-venu...
> 192.78 g
Kind of funny, I would've thought it was heavier, but that is less than an S25 Ultra in weight... I think that also speaks to how large screens have gotten!
Exactly. Stated and revealed preferences are sometimes very different. Interestingly, preferences can also change slowly over time. For example, the Dell Streak in 2010 had a 5 inch screen size, which was considered ridiculously large at the time (people called it a "phablet"), and it didn't catch on initially. But years later, average phones did actually reach and even exceed that size. Nowadays the Dell seems relatively small.
I think this is true for a lot of different features that get a lot of play on social media as "I wish my device had X feature." And it's not like QWERTY or small screen phones didn't try. They had models that were best of the best, cheapest of the cheap, mid range, offered a range of options and choices. And the audience just isn't there.
Who decides what a normal-sized device is?
Screen manufacturers, based on orders from the big buyers. They set up their machines to build panels and cut them to size, minimizing wasted area. If you want one of the sizes built in volume, great; if not, it's very difficult.
There's a nice anecdote from ~2019:
Within one year, the screen size of nearly all mass-market smartphones took a huge bump from 5.x" to 6.5", because of two ODMs (device manufacturers who are contracted by big brands to design and produce smartphones). Those two ODMs won contracts to produce mass-market devices for the brands Lenovo/Motorola, Huawei and Xiaomi based on a 6.5" 720p LCD.
The total volume forecast was so big, that suddenly 6.5" displays were cheaper than any other 720p smartphone panel. Other Smartphone brands adjusted mid-development because the larger panel also made the PCBs and batteries cheaper. In that year, mass-market devices with 1080p displays were often smaller (which was contradictory for a vendor-portfolio until then) because there was no such economics of scale on higher-resolution panels.
So within a single year, displays got a full inch larger, not because the consumer demanded it but because of supply-chain dynamics.
> The hard reality is that there is no PAYING market for such a device
Show me the tiny Android flagship from the past 5 years that didn't sell well. (You can't, because there wasn't one.)
> Show me the tiny Android flagship from the past 5 years that didn't sell well. (You can't, because there wasn't one.)
Yeah, because in the 5 years before that, the much MUCH more diverse Smartphone industry tried to make it work for several YEARS and failed.
Of all companies, Sony had the longest stamina, releasing 5 generations of 'compact' flagship devices.
If there would have been a sufficiently sized market for that, they would have continued and grown. In reality their business decreased every year.
Today the Smartphone is dominantly a media-consumption device, the only viable answer to "tiny Android flagship" is now a foldable like the Galaxy Flip.
https://www.androidauthority.com/asus-zenfone-10-review-3334...
According to this article
> The ASUS Zenfone 10 is a compact flagship Android phone from ASUS. Sporting a little 5.9-inch display
Though you have to argue it's not tiny. (Don't think it sold all that well, though, at least not mainstream.)
Look at the actual measurements. The Zenfone was roughly the same size as the standard Galaxy S series and iPhones at the time. Definitely not tiny, not even compact.
https://www.gsmarena.com/asus_zenfone_10-12380.php
https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s23-12082.php
https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_15-12559.php
It's not tiny, and it's also ASUS. They are relatively niche to begin with.
If we're counting 5.9" we might as well count the Galaxy S series at 6.1". (My choice of phone, incidentally.)
i was waiting to buy one until they fulfilled their promise of allowing unlocking the bootloader, which they never did...
Great phone though. Headphone jack. Great battery life. Fingerprint sensor. Minimal bloatware
> But whenever someone answered the call and built a Smartphone with QWERTY keyboard, the product failed commercially
Blackberries? Granted, they failed but for a completely different reason.
There is a paying market, it's just overwhelmingly erased by the market for the larger phones, so companies stop bothering.
That's not correct.
The paying market for larger phones also contains the potential market for smaller phones.
There is no ADDITIONAL market in selling smaller phones, and not enough free market to make users switch brand for a smaller phone. So there is nothing to gain.
Crucially, even if 10% of the iPhone users want a smaller phone, they won't buy a smaller phone unless it's compatible to the iOS ecosystem. So roughly half of the market can only be effectively converted by Apple and for Apple it turned out to be not profitable enough to convert them.
The "mini" versions of phones (even the ones marketed as premium) always seem to be nerfed in other ways, like battery life, camera quality, or performance, which could explain why they inevitably don't sell. Nobody really offers a balls-out premium small form factor phone that is better than or equal to the flagship big-phone.
But that's just physics. With a larger area, you can be thinner while still having more of all those things - dominated by battery volume dictating most of them.
That was the iPhone Mini! Same internal specs as the regular iPhone, smaller package, roughly same battery life. And it's gone because no one wanted it.
It was selling at about 6 million a year.
I had one and loved it.
> the numbers showed that it didn't attract additional customers, at best it only fragmented the existing customer-base.
So, it did sell, but at the expense of larger phones. Which means we are not offered this because it's a bit more profitable for the smartphone makers to only offer larger phones. Extremely annoying.
It cost more but didn't create more sales. It's like creating a car with an additional wheelbase.
What should be much more annoying is this: There is roughly half of the entire Smartphone ecosystem systematically isolated from free market-forces by a single brand, with the other half isolated by an OS. So even if a company would come along with a compelling compact phone, if it cannot instantly replace everything Apple offers, that company can only address HALF of its potential market, and ONLY if it's based on Android then.
Remember the Palm (palm.com, not to be confused with Palm PDAs of a much earlier era) for Verizon networks? That answered all my requests at the time; about the size of an iPhone 5S but running Android 8, but with the caveat that I had to have a "big" smartphone so the Palm could piggyback off the line, even though I could just leave the "big" smartphone at home.
I have no idea why that was the case and can't even speculate since I don't know enough about how the networks worked, but I would love to hear an explanation. I was pretty annoyed by the fact that I still needed to own what I considered a phablet, which was sitting collecting dust on my bedside table at home just so I could have the type of phone I really wanted. Seemed like a punishment-by-design for trying to step off the typical customer rails.
My tastes have changed slightly these days, and I'm okay with a 5.X" screen or whatever, but now I want it to be eInk or something similar and focus more on text/sms as I've gotten pretty minimalism with my phone use.
> But whenever someone answered the call and built a Smartphone with QWERTY keyboard, the product failed commercially, simply because also to people claiming they want such a phone, at the point of sale they were less attractive than their slimmer, lighter, all-screen counterparts.
I bought Motorola Droid 4 when it came out. I was so desperate to have a new phone with physical QWERTY, that I bought it blindly, even though it wasn't available in Europe, even though I have never seen it, even though I knew it *didn't support mobile networks* in Europe for a few months, to be fixed by an update. I had to use a coworker who was going on vacation to Florida.
When it arrived, the first thing I saw was that the black screen during boot shines bright blueish, horribly bad contrast. Then when image appeared, I've learned that it has two subpixels per image pixel, for efficiency. This made single color areas show the pixels very visibly.
Then I took a photo. The quality reminded me of a Sony Ericsson Walkman phone I had 6 years back, except the colors were much worse. Everything was blueish. It had a physical (touch) "search" button below the screen, but companies like Google didn't seem to understand why it would be useful to search for anything, so most of their apps didn't react to it. Especially Gmail.
But hey, I could touch-type any long message, and I could use SSH client conveniently (it even had a physical CTRL button).
Other than the keyboard (pretty solid too), it was one of the worst phones I ever had. So yeah, based on that model the market decided that "nobody wants keyboard phones", and the Droid 5 never came out.
Because it's easy to blame the most standing out feature.
> Because it's easy to blame the most standing out feature.
This is an odd conclusion considering that the Droid 4 was already the FOURTH iteration of a QWERTY device from that ONE brand on that ONE carrier, each iteration selling less than the one before as each faced more competition.
If you're interested, the actual reason for the end of the Droid QWERTY series was that the entire "Droid" brand was a Verizon-exclusive product-line with a big focus in sales and big budget in Marketing, just to compete with the iPhone (which was not available on Verizon until 2011).
For a vendor to win a slot in that lineup meant that Verizon Sales and Marketing put all weight behind selling that device, no matter what device it is. This made the Droid 1 and 2 a huge success, not because of the product but because of the sales channel.
But in year 3 (2011), the iPhone launched on Verizon, which put a huge dent in both sales-focus and budget of Verizon's "Droid" product-line.
Later that year, Droid 3 launched but was selling significantly less than its predecessors.
In that year, Verizon instead sold 6.5m iPhones (up from ZERO iPhones the year before).
So Motorola had to cut their losses on the already ongoing development of the Droid 4, the device was redesigned for a much lower total sales-expectation and then launched in 2012.
But the sales turned out even lower than expected: By Q4 2012 Verizon sold 14m Smartphones, with 10m (!) of them being iPhones.
The most successful Motorola device of that year was the Droid RAZR MAXX HD, a non-QWERTY flagship.
It was clear: That QWERTY keyboard didn't drive sales.
I really like the size of my iPhone mini, and I'm disappointed Apple has discontinued them. Apparently the 12 mini represented only 6% of iPhone sales, and the 13 mini only 3%.
I haven't upgraded yet.
Why does everyone (most of you too?) like bigger screens? The mini screen is big enough for HN, reddit, banking, photos, etc.
> But whenever someone answered the call and built a Smartphone with QWERTY keyboard, the product failed commercially, simply because also to people claiming they want such a phone, at the point of sale they were less attractive than their slimmer, lighter, all-screen counterparts.
No. They were a) rare and b) much more expensive. AFAIK only Blackberry had a phone with QWERTY keyboard.
Buttons are much more expensive than a touchscreen (see cars for examples).
how does Fairphone exist?
The main features of the Fairphone are ethical and sustainable production, repairability and longevity.
Of all the people who prioritize those features when buying a new phone, only ~100k users end up buying a fairphone every YEAR.
A company like Samsung needs to produce roughly 10x this volume BEFORE launch just to fill their sellout channels, so their financial risk for a global ramp-up is much higher.
exactly. the market for Fairphone is likely smaller than the market for SmallPhone.
This here in is one of the major differences between Apple[0] and the rest. I imagine they had similar data at various points, and chose to deliberately ignore it. I can’t say for sure but I imagine they thought through the actual end user and experience and realized the tradeoff is more than worth it
[0]: when Steve Jobs still ran the company at least
6" doesn't register as small to me at all lol. The HTC 8X was 4.3" and that was a "normal" sized phone for me.
I used the Palm Phone (PVG100) (3.3" screen) (basically the size of a credit card) [ https://www.ricklohre.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/dsc_097... ] as long as I could until it became too slow to use as software got slower and increasingly battery-hungry and I had to give it up last year.
Right now I have a Soyes S10Max, which has a 3.5" screen (same screen size as the original iPhone), but it's kinda chunky. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRZ47T53?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_...
The specs are more than strong enough to handle whatever I need on a daily basis. But I miss the slimmer size of the Palm Phone.
Right now I've pre-ordered this phone https://aiphor.com/products/bluefox-nx1-4-0-android-smartpho... with the 8gigram+128gig storage capacity. Has an even stronger cpu than the Soyes, but I am slightly worried about the resolution of 540x1168px because some elements may end up overlapping.
Even though it's 4", it has a tiny bezel so it's only slightly bigger than the Palm Phone, although a bit thicker cuz of a bigger battery. But still relatively slim, especially compared to the Soyes.
Front comparison: https://preview.redd.it/dtwnubx05scf1.png?width=3840&format=...
https://preview.redd.it/s2391amd7hbf1.png?width=320&crop=sma...
Will see!
you have to compare the actual phone sizes, not the screen sizes. bezels have gotten smaller.
the article's "small phone" benchmark with a 5.4" screen is almost the same size in every dimension as your benchmark of the HTC 8x
https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/HTC-8XT,Apple-iPhone-...
For me, screen size is what matters. Because I'm using screen. Small bezel is very bad thing, because it registers accidental touches now. Best phone in the history of mankind was iPhone 4S. Perfectly balanced. It's all went downhill since then.
Plus, the diagonal measurement doesn't reflect the width of the phone. Phones got taller/narrower probably about the same time as we started ditching physical buttons below the screen, so the screen size numbers went up without making phones wider, even if you keep the bezels the same size.
People comparing old smartphone diagonal screen measurements to modern ones as if they're equivalent is a huge pet peeve for me. Diagonals are a horrible way to measure screens.
>you have to compare the actual phone sizes, not the screen sizes. bezels have gotten smaller.
This is true, and it's hard to fully assess without a tool like you linked, which is pretty neat.
>the article's "small phone" benchmark with a 5.4" screen is almost the same size in every dimension as your benchmark of the HTC 8x
But as mentioned, I don't consider the 8X to be small. It's a standard-sized phone in my eyes.
I, too, used a PVG100 until it died. The "juicepack" battery doubled the thickness, but it still fit in my pocket. Now I've got a Motorola Razr. I figure the only way companies will give me a small phone if it folds.
I tried out the Razr and Z Flip 4 at a store but I thought they were too hard to use while closed and way too big when open.
If you check /r/smallphones I'll post a review of the NX1 in a couple months (or whenever I get it + a week or two). It looks like the closest spiritual successor to the Palm Phone (although the single button on the foot with multiple actions will probably never be beat)
Thanks for all the interesting links, the bluefox-nx1-specifically looks interesting to me. Do you have any information how are handling the new EU law, which requires 5 years of security updates? https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/news/new-eu-rules...
I have no idea, I don't work for them or live in the EU. But given that other users report problems loading the site, maybe they don't support EU customers. The phone exists in China but only started taking pre-orders in the US, so maybe it will change in the future.
> https://aiphor.com/products/bluefox-nx1-4-0-android-smartpho...
Huh, for some reason, this page loads properly and I can see it for 1-2 seconds, but it seems like as soon as it's done loading, it redirects me to google.com. Based in Spain, so guessing it's their way of turning away EU or European customers I guess?
They seem to be doing stuff by countries, probably due to regulations. The phone has existed in China for a bit already and only recently became pre-orderable in the US.
Strange approach to do a silent redirect instead of saying why it isn't available, makes it look broken rather than intentional.
At $138 I can't imagine that the Bluefox NX1 will perform very well.
(By the way from some reason aiphor.com automatically redirects me to google.com unless I disable Javascript.)
Doesn't sound stellar, but 2x A75 and 6x A55 is probably not the worst experience? Helios G81. 12nm process. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Mediatek-Helio-G81-Ultra-Proce...
An even slightly more mid-range spin on this would be very very viable.
The Soyes S10Max performs fine with 8 gigs of ram and a slightly slower mobile CPU. The most intensive thing I do on it is probably video call with people on FB Messenger or Telegram (or I guess load TicketMaster, but even my gf's expensive iPhone struggles with that one lmao), and it does that fine.
But I'll write a review on reddit once I've used it for a week or two.
No clue on aiphor.com, webdevs (or their managers) love javascript lol
I think performance requirements depend on what it's used for, and what other devices you have access to in your life. If someone only has one phone as their personal computer for everything then I can see an argument that the minimum should be higher, but if the phone is intended to be comfortably pocketable tool for tasks you're likely to need while away from a larger/more powerful device. For example have the phone to handle calls, simple messaging, taking photos (minus editing), transport/store apps, and a full PC or larger phone/tablet for ticketmaster.
The only other option that I've toyed with is buying a small feature/"dumb" phone for going in the pocket and a smartphone in a bag, which seems less ideal.
>If someone only has one phone as their personal computer for everything then I can see an argument that the minimum should be higher
Yeah for those people, they would need a beefier phone. That's certainly not me, I have devices at home. In my case, a pure dumb phone isn't of much use to me either, I make maybe one or two phone calls most months, but I've always used my phone as more of a borderline feature phone.
>a full PC or larger phone/tablet for ticketmaster.
The problem with ticketmaster is that you need to use it at the events themselves. Most events no longer use physical tickets. But a stronger phone or tablet won't help you here. Even on a high-end phone, ticketmaster will somehow forget to store your login information while you have poor network connectivity due to tons of people in the area, even if you try to load your tickets ahead of time to avoid the issue (although somehow they always deliver ads!). Everyone complains about ticketmaster's fees, but the app is the worst part.
No 5G, no eSIM, no NFC, and a bit thick, though.
Do these little phones work well in the US?
They seem to work fine on T-Mobile. I hear the Palm Phone had some issue with Verizon where it only worked as a "companion phone" and I hear AT&T limits what phones are allowed somehow, but I cannot speak to those things.
They only have 4G rather than 5G. This has not bothered me but perhaps it would bother others.
PVG 100 worked great with my carrier.
The best phone I ever had was a Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact. I would still be using it if it wasn't too slow to run modern versions of android. This is one of those things that just makes me feel so out of touch with the rest of the world. Does everyone else have giant pockets and giant hands? Does everyone use their phone with two hands and carry a bag everywhere? Is it just a trend like small phones were a trend before smartphones? Why do people want these giant phones?
> Why do people want these giant phones?
Most people only use computers at work, solely relying on smartphones for communication, media, shopping, etc.
It makes sense to have a big screen at inconvenience of having to carry it around.
What surprises me is how small the demand for small phones is. I have absolutely no need for a big screen - I have a monitor.
I never ever use my laptop anymore outside of work. I never surf the web, read, order stuff etc from my laptop. It’s basically useless now if I don’t code or use pro apps. So a bigger phone is confortable because some websites suck on smaller screens and using an iPad is too big sometimes
> Does everyone use their phone with two hands
They have to because of stupid pinch-to-zoom. You either have to balance the phone in the palm of your non-dominant hand (literally switch the phone from one hand to the other) while pinching with your dominant hand, or do a sort of goatse thing with your thumbs while holding the phone in both hands.
Screw-to-zoom is a million times better: draw a spiral to the right and you get closer, spiral to the left and you get farther away (agreeing with the "righty-tighty, lefty-loosey" standard.) Easily done with any single finger, or even with the thumb of the hand holding the phone (for people with adequate thumb-wrestling skills.)
Been happy with Sony Xperia 10 series, which is similar width, but taller as tallness really do not annoy me. Also massive battery. Sadly they are going to stop selling those here, so I might just need to go to Samsung next year...
> Does everyone use their phone with two hands
A lot of us do, yes.
> and carry a bag everywhere?
As a guy in 36" waist jeans (yeah I need to lose a few kg)... I can fit an iphone 16 pro max in my pocket pretty comfortably.
> Why do people want these giant phones?
Well, one reason is that I'm getting older and don't find it as easy to read tiny text on tiny screens any more. Another reason is that I sometimes watch streaming services on there.
Also it's shiny and the battery lasts forever.
For more and more people, their phone is their primary (or only) device. On a day to day, I have more face time with my phone than my personal laptop.
I used the iPhone SE 1 until January of this year, it was such a great phone and a great form factor. I wrote an article about it to send it off:
https://blog.bschwind.com/2025/01/11/the-original-iphone-se-...
Pour one out. I’m still on my SE 2020 and have no idea what to go to once it dies.
An iPhone SE 2023 - it still gets current iOS version updates. My iPhone 8 is also still running (using iOS 16) but still gets security updates.
Likewise. The 70-something percent battery health isn't the best (and the phone lags like crazy), but the other day I realized it's still a bit smaller than my 2015 Moto G3 (that I still use, though only for basic tasks).
If you are interested, Unihertz launched the titan 2 and it's pretty nice, but no waterproofing or wireless charging are big issues for me.
I still have mine as the bedside Hacker News browsing device. It is so much nicer to use than iPhone 13 mini which I use as my main phone :(
I’m still rocking mine! Gonna start looking for second hand ones soon as the home button is starting to die, and that’s the best bit.
I found using the browser is a good enough alternative for many apps, and it also makes them less addictive because they aren’t as slick. Particularly handy for work apps.
I’m still using as a secondary device, but the battery was never the same after I replaced, and the touch id/home button doesn’t work anymore, so I have to use that virtual home button.
I ended up getting a newer SE (2022), but I miss the first one.
The home button's not too hard to replace, at least compared to the screen and battery.
Mine actually broke ages ago but I've just gotten used to using TouchAssist.
the ip12/13 mini have similar footprint, but with modern feature.
Yep the 13 mini is what I ended up on. I hope that form factor gets a refresh in a few years!
I'm writing this on a Unihertz Jelly Star which is tiny, and I consider it my "protest phone" at the lack of decent small phones.
A friend jokingly calls it my "microphone", another a "prison phone" (due to its size allowing for more easily smuggling in body cavities). Occasionally I go to mobile phone shops and ask if they have a case for it just for the fun of seeing the look on their faces when they see it (I don't actually want a case, and in fact it came with one which I threw in the bin).
Personally, I couldn't be happier with it.
Only problems: they don't do software updates; camera is poor; non-OLED screen.
In an ideal world I'd have a slightly bigger phone, but not too much bigger. I've grown very fond of this phone.
The lack of updates/general software sketchiness is what has me turned off from the Jelly. I know a product like that never has a chance in hell of running Graphene, I’d be way more interested if it could run Lineage.
I run lineage on mine. It's much better than the OS it came with.
There's an unofficial Lineage build, I believe.
non-OLED screen
I'd consider that an advantage: No burn-in.
Is OLED burn-in really something people still care about? I have a handful of OLED devices, some of which I've used daily for nearly 10 years, and none of them have any burn-in. I've never even seen burn-in on anything other than a signage TV, and that happens even on some LCDs.
> I've never even seen burn-in on anything other than a signage TV, and that happens even on some LCDs
AFAIK, the hardware still suffers from that problem, but it's been fixed in most devices by software fixes. Instead of displaying the exactly same content 24/7, it has "cleaning programs" or similar to runs once in a while to prevent the burn in from happening. Our OLED TV does the same I think too.
Of course, and many devices also use various pixel shift techniques. My point is that this isn't really a drawback from the user's perspective. Saying "I consider non-OLED to be a selling point because it won't burn in" simply doesn't make sense anymore.
I know someone who spends so much time with YouTube on their phone that the logo is visibly burned in to the screen. The phone is less than 2 years old.
Samsung smartphones are everywhere here and I've never seen a burn-in screen. Is there a difference between OLED and AMOLED? I thought that AMOLED was just a "flavor" of OLED.
The Jelly Star's battery life is surprisingly decent for its size - I get about 8 hours of moderate use, but it requires a mid-day charge if you're using GPS or watching videos.
So, same as iPhone mini :)
The Jelly Max is 5" (so bigger than previous Jellies, smaller than mainstream phones). I'd strongly consider one except for their lack of software updates.
The jelly star has got junk in the trunk though
The thickness of the phone honestly isn't an issue at all. The phone is so small that it remains easily pocketable.
What sort of junk?
it's about twice as thick as any other typical phone
I got the iPhone 13 mini as a work phone for the sole reason of it being the smallest iPhone at the time. I too dislike the phone landscape nowadays with their ridiculous and ever increasing sizes.
My personal device is a Motorola Razr 50 Ultra, which I got because while it's huge when flipped, it's portable enough when it's closed. I can have it in my pocket without it falling out.. without it being annoying while i put on shoes etc...
I use its cover screen a fair amount too, to avoid having to flip it open, which is also why I got the ultra rather than the slightly smaller version.
The fact that you're using the cover screen regularly kind of proves the point: most of the time we don't need a tablet-sized display
The iPhone 13 Pro -> 16 Pro upsizing is ridiculous. The 13 was just the right size, but now they had to change it so they could sell more cases. It's almost phablet-size now. Look at an iPhone 6S by comparison.
The iPhone 13 pro is 71.5mm x 146.7mm x 7.65mm [1] and the iPhone 16 pro is 71.5mm x 149.3mm x 8.25mm [2].
While it did get a tiny bit bigger I wouldn’t have noticed this u less you would look up the spec, especially as it got lighter from 204g [1] to 199g [2] at the same time.
[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/111871 [2] https://www.apple.com/iphone-16-pro/specs/
This is an “unpleasable customer” problem. When the 13 Pro was current, everyone was yelling at Apple that it was too thin and that they wanted a slightly thicker phone with more battery life, which is what Apple did.
Not really. The iPhone 13 Pro non-Max was fine. If people want bigger, they can get a Max phablet. It's the 6 and 6 Plus especially that had a bendgate. They're trying too hard to make them too thin, sometimes. I'd be fine with a 5-7 mm thicker. Apple should do what's it's best at... not listening to frivolous criticism.
The Samsung S10e was probably peak Android. Small, high-end, SD card and 3.5mm jack.
There are some decent small Android phones, if you're willing to buy non-mainstream brands. Take a look at:
https://www.reddit.com/r/smallphones/
For me, it would be the Samsung Galaxy S5 but with modern hardware.
In addition to being small, with SD card and 3.5mm jack, it is water resistant and has a removable battery. It is also one of the most robust non-hardened phones. It has an IR blaster too if it matters to you.
It was a time when Samsung was known for its gimmicks, the one for the Galaxy S5 is "Air View", where it recognizes your finger hovers over the screen. It is actually a good one, because it supports the "hover" targets in web pages!
Most people find it ugly though, and I tend to agree, but if you use a case, like most people do, who cares what the phone inside looks like?
I've held on to my S8 as long as possible, because even if the battery wasn't removable any more, it lasted the lifetime of the device, despite heating up considerably during the summer.
My current Xperia 5 maintains battery temperature around 10°C above ambient during fast charging and since it easily lasts the whole day in the 30-80% charge regime, I believe it will outlast other components.
S8 was the first flagship released after imploding Note 7s, so it's possible they may've overshot in cell quality.
Asus ZF10 is a more recent specimen. And it's more "peak" IMO. No bloatware, DC dimming, rugged design which doesn't require a case for everyday use.
As someone who often checks that sub, all I can say is that there's no decent small phones and it's just people constantly checking whether one has been released yet
There's nothing close to the iPhone Mini anymore though
The 13 Mini should still get iOS updates for another couple of years, I think?
Certainly iOS 26 appears to be supported.
Through 2028 most likely, possibly longer, based on their OS support history (about 7 years).
The 6s, released 2015, still gets security updates once in a blue moon
I've just bought a used s10e in pristine condition for $200. It's glorious.
Re: TFA, I'm all for filling the small phone niche, but there's no way I'm paying a cent over $500 for a phone with no resale value.
Fully agree. Mine has broken recently and I needed to buy a new phone. The S25 I have now is not much bigger, but even that small difference matters much. Though 120Hz screen is nice.
I saw a post on this subject in the android subreddit back in 2019 [0] and it was clear that everyone had already accepted by then that the market was too small to sustain this. I too loved Sony's series of compact phones - the XZ1 Compact is still one of the best phones I've ever used.
It is only going to get worse. Most of us who were young adults when the iPhone was announced are in our 40s now, and presbyopia is a real thing. In a few years my daily QOL will be better served by a bigger phone and I suspect many people around my age are feeling the same thing. The "small electronic accessory I bring around" niche will be filled by smartwatches.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/dijok5/is_there_a_... (how quaint the prices look, a mere 6 years on)
I just want an iPhone Mini-sized iPhone.
It's OK if they just make one every couple of years. But please: at least every couple of years.
Same, I am a 13 mini user and will probably stay this way until there is a realistic alternative. It's obnoxious that there isn't a single phone on the market where you can reach the top corner with one hand.
We happy few will probably stay with them until their last breath
It's wild that something as basic as "a small phone that isn't garbage" has become a niche wish instead of a standard option
I don't care how often they make it as long as they release a new one before discontinuing the previous one. %(
I would have bought the 13 mini except at the time the 13 Pro's 3x camera, 120hz and better battery was notable.
Now I kind of dread what will be available when it's time to finally upgrade this year. Am sure they could make a new mini that didn't seem as compromised, but now they think the size is non-viable.
Bring back when small was not a synonym for cheaper.
I want a thick clunky device without a screen that can run for 4-7 days without charging. Then i want 1) a normal size device, 2) a tiny one and 3) a tablet. These should be terminals, little more than a screen, a battery and some radio to communicate with the herefore mentioned brick that does all of the heavy lifting. It needs only 20-30 meter range. The brick may also feature a webserver captive portal with public bluetooth and wifi access.
I initially thought this was a satire of the absurd devices HN users would ask for.
Then it would be monochrome cli ssh only.
Except that the screen and the radio are 80% of power usage, so this doesn't help anything. For what most people do with their laptop/tablet/phone, the little bursts of CPU are effectively "free" — increasingly cheap with each process shrink! — while the IO is as expensive as ever.
What fun comment. You are mistaken in so many ways :)
When idle GSM uses a lot of power. Listening for a wakeup signal doesnt seem expensive at all. It even seems one could pull off the trick for free.
Free < bluetooth < wifi < gsm
There shall be e-paper ofc
The brick can have a battery like that of a quality powerbank. For emergency charging the display snaps on top with some magnets.
There will be heavy cpu loads with lots of reads and writes.
Think a room full of people hammering the media server.
Host websites on it. Imagine the fun!
GPUs may work quite hard to decode and fit the picture on the screen. How to do io better is left as an exersize for the reader. (这意味着你)
Whatever components we can get rid of buys extra space for the battery.
It also makes the handheld device cheaper to replace.
You may swap the battery or have a spare.(slide the empty one into the brick)
You may also break or lose it. It can conveniently be replaced. Nothing important is stored on it.
Lets make them with and without cameras. Imagine the opportunity to not make photos :)
To be clear, I meant that, when running your average (i.e. mostly-idle, not-very-graphically-intense, yet smoothly-animated) interactive-UI application, with the CPU+GPU module needing to stream vaguely-realtime updates wirelessly over to the display module, the display module would end up using nearly as much battery to receive and display the updates as the CPU+GPU module would be taking to generate and send them. It would be a negligible cost for the display module to just do the rendering itself.
Playing games or using the CPU+GPU module as a media server is a 1%-of-the-time use-case. If you want this architecture to not need a lot of battery in the display module, it needs to be low-power for the 99%-of-the-time use-case: scrolling a webpage.
(This is basically the classical thin-client / fat-client paradox: thin clients save on power right until you want them to do anything continuously. Then the IO costs outweigh the hypothetical costs of localizing that continuous CPU/GPU activity by pushing it down into a fat client.)
I read that as to say one should do both. Let the client render simple things, do the hard stuff on the portable server.
No offense but it sounds like you simply refuse to look for anything interesting in the concept. Or you forgot to mention it. HN the tech website where we collectively try to shoot everything down. haha
I don't see anything that appeals to me or anyone I know (and I know some very geeky people!) in the concept.
You can certainly add the CPU/GPU module — it's just a NUC with a battery strapped to it, essentially — but if doing so doesn't make the display module lighter-weight and longer-lasting than a smartphone for what people tend to use a smartphone for, then I don't see what I gain by carrying it.
Remember that the conversation here is in the context of an OP about mini-sized phones; everyone in the thread is presuming your point had something to do with the separating-out of compute from other tasks resulting in the "terminals" you mentioned, becoming more like the "iPhone Mini-sized Android Phone" referenced in the OP. You did seem to imply this rhetorically, phrasing your desire as those terminals being "nothing more than" components X/Y/Z — as if this would imply they could be lighter-weight, etc.
But if you concede that even with your Personal-Area-Network (PAN) compute-offload module, the smartphone-sized display module effectively still needs to be a smartphone in order to be a "fat client when that is advantageous", with all that that implies... then you've lost the interest of everyone here, who were all hoping you were proposing some sort of key perspective shift that would allow for smaller, thinner, lighter, longer-lasting smartphones.
---
And to be clear, I do understand why you would want a PAN compute-offload module; that was a concept tossed around quite a bit in futurology circles ~10 years ago. But the zeitgeist has moved on — 5G came along, designed specifically to address the need to carry around such a brick.
In the modern version of this architecture, your PAN's compute-offload either lives in your house/car/etc., or is just some cloud VPS you're renting — either explicitly, or implicitly through amortization of big hardware payments into an implicit subscription (as with e.g. the Apple Intelligence compute cluster.) The rest of your PAN then uses offloads compute by pushing workloads to it through cellular radio; this is practical because the cells for the cellular radio in question are omnipresent enough [and thereby, the handset side of the connection low-wattage enough], and the protocol non-chatty enough, that having such a radio "up" but idle doesn't burn much battery — so every PAN device can afford to do it.
> I want a thick clunky device without a screen that can run for 4-7 days without charging.
That's a landline phone, you can buy it for cheap.
> It needs only 20-30 meter range.
And, this is trivially satisfied with a $10 extension cord.
That would be a different idea i also like. Something like calls over wifi but use ethernet in stead. No more radiation
I was thinking a regular analog POTS phone. ;)
so... VoIP?
What you need is a power bank. Then you can charge your phone, or any other device Why do you need multiple days? Charge your devices overnight. Get a fast charger that charges in minutes if you forget or are out. There are power banks with builtin chargers.
Also, if you want really small device, I found smartwatches are nice adjunct to phone. Can check notifications and do basic things on watch instead of pulling out phone. The watch uses phone for data, but there is no point in terminals when smartwatch chip can handle that. There are watches with LTE that work without the phone.
Why would you want one more thing to think about 2000 times per year?
I have a Nokia 6300 4G Dual SIM KaiOS phone that I can use as a 4G router for larger devices but has good battery life as a feature phone.
Discussed at the time:
I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31411191 - May 2022 (1053 comments)
Number one factor for me when buying a phone is how long is it going to last. I mean durability, camera quality, os updates. Will I still want to use/be using it in 5 years?
I cannot justify $700 as much as I _really want a smaller phone_. But _maybe if it was built to last_ I would be the customer and I would tell all my friends.
Currently use a Pixel 7a because it was cheap and OK. I was debating the iPhone 12 mini but it was already a little old, and I prefer Android.
I suspect, if others are like me, that those who want small phones also just want something that works and is a little minimal - not necessarily all the power best camera etc. To be clear, I _don't_ want one of those minimalist dumbphones, I want _a smartphone_ that's small Do y'all feel the same?
Propose a $500 small phone that's OK on specs but LASTS.
Yes. The iphone se was basically the exact thing I wanted (and previously the moto G series). It doesnt seem like apple wants to continue to offer the product line.
The 16e is the successor to the SE in case you want to take a look at that.
16e is not a small phone, it's about the same size as an iPhone 16.
https://phonesized.com/compare/#2552,2644,1975,1863
Right, and even the 2nd/3rd gen SE got much bigger than the original. I basically want the original SE (which I believe is the same as the iPhone 5s), with no bezels.
Actually, looking at that handy link you provided, it appears the 13 mini is basically that. Discontinued in 2023 : /
Since Google is about to brick my Pixel 6a with the battery botchering update, i find myself in the same struggle again i had when buying the 6a.
Basically you have to make compromises on performance and camera and then this was, what i came up with: - Zenfone 10 (flagship with prices still above launch price (!), which soon gets no updates anymore) - Unihertz Jelly Max (small, but thick and bad camera) - Rakuten Hand 5G and Rakuten Mini (also bad camera and older Android) - Balmuda Phone (which i really like, but also bad camera and discontinued, so probably not even security updates and no custom rom support) - Bluefox NX1 (really tempting, but appearantly kind of bad build quality and no NFC)
All other options are even older phones. Samsung S25 line does exist, but i really like vanilla Android. I think the price chart of the Zenfone DOES somehow indicates the existence of a market and i wonder if it would be big enough for a small niche player!?
Personally I am considering a pixel 8, which is the "smallest" of current phones, but it still really isn't small. And i don't see myself as a Google customer because of the battery topic...
I personally would have been more happy had Eric made a small android phone instead of the new pebble, but hey...
I have the Pixel 8, and I've been happy with the battery and pretty much everything. It's got a great performance/price ratio.
I got a Pixel 8, and it's not small, but it's reasonably sized. About the same as the Moto G7 I replaced, much smaller than my kid's current Moto G Power. The good thing about the Pixel 8 is that you can run LineageOS on it, which was the main thing that determined my choice.
Couldn't you put lineage on the zenfone?
How problematic is app compatibility with Lineage nowadays? (banking, google-pay etc.)
Rakuten hand was/is very small.
Couldn't get my hands on one so far as they don't sell in Germany. Could you elaborate a bit if you had the chance to try one?
Funny enough, in 2023, Asus released a good very close to iphone Mini-size android phone. The asus zenfone 10. https://www.asus.com/us/mobile-handhelds/phones/zenfone/zenf...
Not only is it not a very small phone, I can't even properly type this message one handed. It's also not a good phone which I regret purchasing.
Zenphones until the 10 had easy to unlock bootloaders, leading to long in official support by the community. However with the 10 ASUS stopped that tool and they've been lying ever since that they're still working on it.
My zenfone is now on its final major android update, the rather minor android 15 version, and I've only got two years of security updates left until I need to look for a new phone. That's one thousand euros for barely four years of software support, it's such a disappointment.
That aside the camera is lackluster, it's auto whitebalance is horrific, turning the same snowy scene into a sunset or illuminated by fluorescent light depending on the phase of the moon and it's sampling questionable making images much more blurry in a surreal way. But the optical stabilisation is seriously impressive. Overall I preferred the pixel 4a's images though. A smaller phone and my zenfone's predecessor.
At least I get to just plug it into my stereo thanks to the 3.5mm jack though.
Agree on the Camera, bafflingly bad.
Thumbs up on the headphone jack though. Can't fault it there.
I don't know why it was reported so frequently as a compact phone, the ZenFones are much larger than the iPhone mini. It's the same size as a standard iPhone or Galaxy S series.
https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Apple-iPhone-13-mini,...
I was convinced you were wrong but that's correct. The Mini is much smaller and the Zenfone is about the same size as the regular iPhone.
The Zenfone 10 is closer to an iPhone than an iPhone mini.
iPhone 16/Zenfone/13 Mini (in mm)
Height: 147.6/146.5/131.5 - the mini is 15mm shorter than the Zenfone which is only 1.1mm shorter than an iPhone.
Width: 71.6/68.1/64.2 - the mini is 3.9mm thinner than the Zenfone which is 3.5mm thinner than an iPhone
Depth: 7.8/9.4/7.7 - the Zenfone is significantly thicker than the iPhones.
Volume: 82.4/93.8/65.0 cubic cm - the Zenfone is physically larger than an iPhone 16 by a decent margin.
The Zenfone simply isn't close to an iPhone mini size. It's larger than an iPhone by volume and the depth does matter when holding it. If we're talking about front-edge to opposite front-edge, we're talking about 87.2mm for the iPhone vs 86.9mm for the Zenfone and 79.6 for the Mini. The Zenfone saves you 0.3mm in grip-distance over an iPhone, but a Mini saves you 7.6mm in grip-distance.
Heck, let's look at weight. A Zenfone is 172g, iPhone 170g, iPhone mini 141g. The Zenfone is the heaviest of the three.
One of the big limiting factors for Android phone manufacturers is the battery. iOS is a ton more efficient. The Zenfone is thicker to accommodate a 4300mAh battery compared to the iPhone 16's 3561mAh (21% larger battery). And the Zenfone's battery is kinda small by Android standards.
People often don't think about the challenges of making a small phone. The electronics don't shrink. If you need a certain square mm for those electronics, they take up a larger percentage of the interior on your mini. You don't need as large a battery because the screen it is powering is smaller, but not proportional to its size - you're still drawing the same power for all the electronics. So you have a smaller percentage of interior space for the battery and you need a larger battery relative to the interior space - or you need to sacrifice battery life as Apple did with the mini.
For example, the iPhone 13 mini is 84.4 sq cm and has a 2438mAh battery. The iPhone 13 is 104.9 sq cm with a 3240mAh battery. The iPhone 13 is 24% larger, but can accommodate a 33% larger battery - because the electronics take up basically the same space regardless of form factor.
So to make an Android mini, you'd be sacrificing a lot of battery life. The Zenfone is not a mini. Its grip-size is basically identical to an iPhone. In every way, it's much more an iPhone than a mini.
Of phones I owned 10+ years ago:
iPhone 6S: 138.3/67.1/7.1 = 65.9 cc the mini is just barely smaller.
iPhone 4S: 115.2/58.6/9.3 = 62.8 cc smaller than the mini.
Treo 650: 113/59/23 = 153 cc which is about the same volume as a Galaxy Z Fold 3... the displacement was so uncomfortable, people often used hip holsters for the former.
Commenting just to appreciate this analysis. I totally bought the marketing that this was a small phone, while it seems it just had a small screen.
but I missed MicroSD slot. I think my requirement is simple: not too wide (<=70mm), has 3.5mm audio pack, and has MicroSD slot.
and end-up only Sony products comes out. and I sacrificed performance for a shorter phone so I bought Xperia Ace III.
but I don't know when will my ISP shutdown GSM-1800. If this happens I have to buy Xperia 10 series then.
Despite sibling comments, it's still a smaller phone compared to others from the same year. I have one and I'm extremely satisfied with it.
12 years ago a small Chinese company made this Android clone of an iPhone 4, but with additional features:
https://www.gizchina.com/2013/11/07/jiayu-g5-unboxing-hands-...
https://www.gizchina.com/2013/09/18/exclusive-hands-video-st...
https://www.gizmochina.com/2013/09/22/teardown-picture-jiayu...
That was the "peak smartphone" era for me; lots of companies making slightly different variations on Androids, at relatively low prices, but almost all of them with the same basic set of practical features which are nearly extinct today. Now it seems all we get are faster CPUs and RAM, more (non-removable) storage and battery capacity, no headphone jacks, a very limited choice of screen sizes, and far too many cameras along with the obligatory unremovable spyware and locked-down OS.
Just wait for smart watches to keep getting bigger until they are mini-phone sized?
Funnily enough, I don't consider the iPhone 12/13 mini miniature at all. Granted, my hands are quite small even for someone of my height (5'7"), but remember those times people made fun of the iPhone 5 and of how gigantic it felt compared to 4S? I don't think human hands have grown that much since then. And I still believe the 1st generation SE is the best smartphone Apple has ever released: a rectangular screen, no camera bumps, a fingerprint sensor (that is still faster than Face ID), a mini jack, light, affordable, etc.
Unfortunately this still hasn't happened yet. There are almost no good options for reasonable size Androids anymore. Zenfone 10 is pretty good, especially with the headphone jack, but it's already out of print and will be obsolete before long. And smaller would be nicer.
Any other current gen recommendations?
People recommending Zenfone just proves that marketing works on a lot of people. It's literally only a few mm smaller than a standard flagship samsung and yet the small phone crowd recommends it as if it's tiny
A few mm smaller is the best we can get.
Also don't forget to account for case to protect that beautiful glossy slippery fragile back of your Samsung phone.
ZF doesn't need any case.
Zenfone 10 isn't even small; it's 2.5 mm narrower than an S25.
I went through the same process as a former Pixel 5 user.
Ended up with Galaxy S25 which weighs around 165g.
I pretty much hate Samsung for the One UI interface taking away the stock Android experience. If I could turn it all off I'd do it in a heartbeat.
But I put up with it because there is no other Android phone in 2025 that meets all the checkboxes (less than ~180g, supports all the current LTE and 5G comms, supported by the vendor).
Unihertz JellyStar. Has a headphone jack too.
I tried with a Jelly Max but despite what they say it doesn't work on verizon :(. It's the perfect phone for me otherwise.
3" sounds like a novelty, but the Jelly Max seems a bit more reasonable at 5". Cool company.
I had to make this decision yesterday and picked Galaxy S25. A lot lighter than my work Pixel 9.
Seconded. Unfortunately the latest leaks suggest that the next gen - S26 - will be a bit bigger.
https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-galaxy-s26-screen-s...
blackview n6000. Bombproof. Cheap. Almost a week's battery life.
What a coincidence, I also want an iPhone mini-sized iPhone :) the 12 mini is the perfect size but sadly it was the last of its kind.
There's a 13 mini
I wrote this post https://maori.geek.nz/small-light-robust-phones-for-a-type-1... that has a bunch of examples of small phones. The requirements are not exactly the same, but in the same boat as for want of good solid small phones.
I recommend the pixel 4a 5g with LineageOS installed, or the Q9 mini.
I moved from a Pixel 2 to the Pixel 5 and I'm very happy small phone user.
What I find fascinating is that Apple's and [Android manufacturers]'s previous attempts at smaller phones aren't even worth maintaining after they assess sales.
In my mind, these companies are all so massive they can afford a little fragmentation for the obviously small market, with no meaningful impact to their sales numbers or profits.
On the iPhone minis, there's very obviously a market for them, but the market is so small compared to the market for "all iPhones" that it practically vanishes in comparison, which leads Apple to not bother. Is it really that expensive to maintain a more niche line for each generation?
> Is it really that expensive to maintain a more niche line for each generation?
Think of just the work that goes into having an assembly line customized for a specific form factor. To keep price, quality, and profit in line with their other phones I think the answer here is clearly yes.
Especially if having that line means only 1% more customers and 19% customers that just buy the small model instead of the other model. And unless you are launching the Mini Pro Max Ultra X you are losing money on that 9% of customers that would have bought the higher margin phone but instead bought the mini version which is only available at the more base model.
(Numbers made up to illustrate the point)
I fall into that category. My first choice would be an iphone pro mini. My second choice is an iphone pro max. I refuse to explain my preferences.
I want it too. And I have it: https://www.unihertz.com/en-de/products/jelly-star
I have it since more than a year. I had the first one two weeks because I lost it as it fall through a hole in my pocket. So fix your pockets and buy this phone. I'm really happy with it :) And didn't found bugs since I have it.
We've seen this story play out before. Every phone manufacturer has had the bright idea of introducing a small flagship. They spend a ton of money developing and marketing it. Internet people get excited. And when launched - no one buys it. They learn their lesson and move on.
> They spend a ton of money developing and marketing it.
I beg to differ. How much marketing money did Apple spend on the mini line, in comparison to the "standard" size ?
> And when launched - no one buys it.
Pixel 3 and 4a are still the most sold phones in the Pixel line.
The news when Pixel7 was launched:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/gadgets-news/this-is-the...
It does not surprise me that the things that "internet" people want are not generally popular. What I don't understand is why that means they can't make money selling them anyways. Companies used to make money when the entire cell phone market was _dramatically_ smaller than today. Sure, maybe only 5% of customers want that phone, but 5% of a huge market is still a lot of people! I just have trouble believing that there isn't room for serving that segment of the consumer base.
Yeah, that is surprising and frustrating to me as well. I don't mind being a smaller market. Hell, I don't mind paying more because of it. But companies these days are largely unwilling to have a steady, sustainable business in a smaller market. The insatiable desire to capture the biggest market at all times leaves society as a whole much worse off, because if your needs aren't the most common - you simply cannot find anyone who will do business with you.
Apple never released a flagship iPhone Mini, i.e. an iPhone Mini Pro. If you wanted good cameras (like the more useful 2x or 3x lens, rather than the mostly-useless 0.5x lens that they added to the base models), you had to get the large or larger phone.
I would've bought the 13 Mini Pro if it had existed, but camera quality wasn't something I was willing to compromise on.
the foldables seem to have found their niche at least in this space though. But they get away with it by... also being a big phone
iPhone Fold is rumored to be 5.5" screen size.
Slight tangent, I thought nowadays everyone is (are?) internet people. Everyone's on their phone all the time. Even if it's tiktok or instagram, why aren't brands spending to reach this audience.
1% of people post/comment, 99% like/retweet or just read. everyone you read on the internet is weird by default
That's sad. I've always felt that by engaging in a community, I'm being weird somehow. Even mainstream social media, I don't see my peers commenting anything. When I comment I feel like I'm being weird.
You can actually find small Android phones via excellent GSMArena phone finder: https://www.gsmarena.com/search.php3?nYearMin=2023&fDisplayI...
Quick search for just display size found these 10 phones released after 2023: https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?nYearMin=2023&fDisplay...
My very lax criteria yield only 4 phones released since 2023:
* A phone, not a watch
* Android 14 or later OS
* Thickness: 9mm max
* Height: 150mm max
* Width: 71mm max
and three of them are the overpriced Samsung Galaxy S phones. Only 7 released since 2020:
https://www.gsmarena.com/search.php3?nYearMin=2020&nHeightMa...
and they are Samsung Galaxy S's, a couple of Asus ZenFone's, and Google Pixel 5.
If you're willing to add another 5mm, there are also a couple of Sony Xperia's and Sharp Aquous, and Google Pixel 8. And if you want to cap the height at 145 mm - it's just Google Pixel 5.
We are unfortunately a neglected part of the market.
I used to have a Pixel 5. As somebody who uses phones minimally (<10 min average screentime per day), but still wants utilities beyond a feature phone for special use cases (maps, translate, digital tickets, public transport, NFC payments), it was about as small as I needed it to be to tuck it away in my pocket for the whole day. It was also quite a nice form factor with a black stone-like back case, which didn't seem to scuff or attract fingerprints.
I had two of them. The first one lasted 2 years before the battery swelled up and I had to dispose of it. Google replaced it for free with another. Then eventually Google Pay stopped being supported on the second, since it was a few years beyond security updates.
After that I found no alternative within the Android ecosystem. I don't want to get into Apple products (despite minimal use, I did have the phone customised so that it was stripped bare in terms of apps and notifications, and had a launcher which I preferred over Google's native design), and every tech blog talking about small phones led back to Pixel 5, or one of the ones just after which was also out of sale and security coverage.
Even though they are sold at profit, I get the feeling phones are viewed by the industry as vehicles. Get one with a big screen into peoples hands, then keep riding on the payments for games, movies, TV and web browsing that follows that. As somebody who never used my phone for any of these things, I'm clearly not important to the market for the one-off payment of a new phone every 5/6 years.
I'm using a google pixel 5 with google pay right now.
Just a heads up, when I contacted Google Support about this, they insinuated that this is something slowly being rolled out across Pixel 5 devices, so while it may work now, it could stop at any moment.
The issue I received when tapping to pay was "Your phone doesn't meet software standards". It did mention it can be due to rooting (my phone wasn't rooted) or "uncertified software" (of which I didn't have any).
I'm sure you might already do so, but I'd advise not to rely on the phone to pay going forward. For me, I was caught off guard in a shop without any other payment method. There was no warning or notification about the change until I tapped to pay at the card terminal.
I tried a few more times afterwards with another payment method as backup, and it never worked again, even after rebooting, toggling NFC off and on. I never received an email, notification or warning in the app itself. It was quite disappointing as I reckon I could have run that phone for a few more years as a minimal phone.
Google did offer me about £100 off of a new Pixel. So if this happens to you and the lack of Google Pay is a dealbreaker, I'd give that a try.
Terrifying. I opened this thread to leave the same comment that Google pay is working for me on my pixel 5. I bought it second handed and replaced battery so I didn't spend too much money on it, but it would be a real shame when that rollout reaches me. Especially because I also quite enjoy the size and functionality. It's enough for everything I need to do on a phone..
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
In hindsight, I really miss using the Pixel 5 and semi-wish that I'd kept using it and just switched Google Pay/Wallet for card. The form factor and size was perfect.
I changed to a Pixel 9 because I had an opportunity around the same time to get it cheaper, and thought I may as well go to the latest model to keep security updates up to 2030. Even after a few months, I can't get used to the weight, size, the back case design (slippery glass and fingerprint magnet), and sticking out camera block. I still use the phone minimally, but now I carry around a brick everyday.
Yeah, I'll hold on to it until I lose the pay as well. I was looking at either pixel 8a or 9a for my next phone. Like you said with pixel 9, I assume it would be a big leap with both of these phones. But at least with 9a I won't have the camera bump problem so that's hopeful.
I have on my desk, the Galaxy S8, iPhone SE (First generation), the iPhone 13 Mini, the iPhone 14 Pro and the Galaxy S22. I intentionally now choose and look for phones that are the smallest possible now (S25, iPhone 15pro or 16pro) etc
My favorite to take with me is the 13 Mini. Would love an iPhone 18 mini.
Just as an FYI to everyone who thinks such products are financially "infeasible" - look at companies like Unihertz (or heck, even Framework). Niche categories can and do attract a small but devoted following.
Btw:
1. Unihertz recently launched a BlackBerry esque phone (titan 2), if anyone reading this is interested. (Not sponsored by them)
2. There are many forums (and I think r/smallphones on reddit) where you can find much more discussion on such topics if you're interested.
Unihertz's phones are unfortunately simply technologically infeasible (to use). Their software is apparently write-once update-never, and any phone you buy of theirs will be riddled with permanent bugs.
If Unihertz kept their phones up to date for a few years after launch, rather than only for the few years prior to launch, they would be an incredibly strong competitor in this space but as they are they are next to useless.
Unihertz makes phones in a ton of interesting form factors. And then never support them with updates. The number of phones where my mouse has hovered over the "Add to Cart" button on their website before deciding updates are too important...
Actually Framework is often asked to build a phone. So maybe the author should partner with them.
You can't even buy an iPhone-mini-sized iPhone anymore.
Get used to making calls on a TV tray, and walking around looking like a schlub in cargo shorts for the rest of your life.
I was hoping that the foldable phone market would fix this, but instead of making normal sized (huge) phones that fold into half the size, they made tablets that fold into normal sized (huge) phones!
you can get a Samsung Galaxy Flip series phone
It's something. (I may be biased, just switched to my 2nd foldable, even more foldable than the previous one)
Larger phones have better battery life time.
Screen power draw and battery capacity scale as the square of the linear dimension. They largely cancel out.
However, all the other hardware are a fixed size so proportionally large phones have longer battery lives.
Chinese manufactures has been using silicon carbon batteries with larger densities for long time, for example 6.3" vivo X200 FE has a 6500mAh battery which should solve small phone-smaller battery problem
Ya but manufacturers believe, rightly, that folks will always prefer battery life to pocket confort.
I say this as someone who clung onto his 1st gen SE until I got my current 13 mini
Also panel manufacturer will not run limited run 5.4in panel just for a niche market and if they did cost would be super high.
Like internal component can be rearranged to an extent, and battery is a tradeoff, but the panel need to be one on the market, no demand, no panel
> $700-800
I can.
Nothing will make happier than ditching Apple and get a smaller Android phone. In fact the size of iPhone 5s was the only reason that had piqued my interest and I had migrated to the iPhones. Then I stayed for other (and important) reasons.
> Stock Android OS
Ah, no. I take that back. That is not going to be worth 700-800 just for the size! In fact take more and put it to a fight which tries to force Google to "decolonise" every aspect of this mobile OS and push for apps to go for alternative app stores.
But as long as Google has it claws and fingers and feet and palm and teeth (imagine every other organ) into my data (and also existence via sensors and what not) on an Android phone in every way possible (sometimes not even imaginable), such pervasive and entangled, that getting out of this Kafkaesque privacy nightmare means using a custom ROM that no OEM supports (or probably will every support) and half the app I use (including bank/payment/Govt apps) will stop functioning and it makes me feel like puking - even the thought of being tracked like that non-stop!
Until then sadly I will contribute to the trillions of Apple and participate in this cozy duopoly these companies have established and rather be in this Kafkaesque control and closed walled garden. It is sad.
So no, I am done with "Stock Android OS" trope at this point :(
The reality is - and it is a sad truth - such a phone in today's world can only exist as a vanity/niche product and hence even with high cost it will suffer from lack of support, abandoned update/upgrade promises, and a really really bad support experience unless it is released to "just few cities" (not even few countries) because this is going to attract such a small number of people!
"Stock Android" usually means "what runs on Pixels" in Android user circles, not actually AOSP. It's a comparison between Samsung/Huawei/Xiaomi/... and Google/OnePlus/Motorola/...
“Stock Android” means where Google does inside it what I have listed above in less savoury words. The ones you’ve listed are basically compromised devices in your pockets — so a notch higher or lower, depending upon how you look at all this :)
Of course, but that's why the bootloader is unlockable. A production device will ship with either a close-to-stock (== close-to-Pixel) ROM or a heavily customized one. If the ROM is closer to stock, it's easier to develop and maintain custom ROMs, so it makes sense to want that as opposed to the alternative.
That doesn’t really help. If you play around with it, the plat integrity test will not pass and there goes too many apps — so that nullifies even MicroG etc as well. I haven’t played around with microg’s #2611 (had seen it on github when it was getting implemented) but the point is — it will remain cat and mouse in this manner and that is a headache one doesn’t want to have on their primary device.
I'm well aware, but I'm not sure what the point here is.
The OP was complaining that the author of the page wants "stock android". On a production device, you can either have 1) the manufacturer's custom version of Androi, 2) a near-stock Android, or 3) your own custom version but with all the usual issue that brings. There is no secret fourth option. So I don't see what the OP's complaint is trying to achieve.
You don't have to see what OP's complaint is trying to achieve. Besides you never even indicated trying to see OP's point in any of these comments you made.
On those lines I don't get any of the points you are trying to make (assuming you are) either. So maybe it's an hn thing.
Doesn't "unlockable bootloader" requirement solve this problem?
There is no "stock android" btw. There is no such thing.
It's turned into a generic term that usually means the ability to remove all corporate branding from the UI. A lot of it is in the ability to apply themes. For example the Icon style for Android 6 (Marshmallow) is now considered retro.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_Marshmallow#/media/Fil...
I particularly despise the way Samsung wants to use impose a "bulging squircle" icon shape and I always find a way to override that (Nova Launcher still works well for this use case).
The Mudita Kompakt (https://store.mudita.com/store/mudita-kompakt-global) is a 4.3” e-ink Android based phone that's about the size of an iPhone Mini.
It doesn't have the Google Play Store but one can sideload Android apps onto it
My only gripe with the Mudita Kompakt is that one of the reasons I need a smartphone is to run those little apps without which you cannot navigate the modern world - 2FA, corporate proprietary 2FA, parking, bank (my bank lets you deposit checks through the app, but not through the website, else I would only use the website). And a lot of those require the Play Integrity API at some level, unfortunately.
Yeah, same here :/
I recently got a Samsung S25 and it's the best phone I've ever had. I went for the base model and the size is just perfect. It's a small enough phone that I barely feel I carry around all day. It's light and slim and has premium tier hardware so I don't miss out. Never paid more than £300 for a phone before, but I am more than happy with this one.
With a battery that can be swapped rapidly without tools. Bonus points for pogo pins like a Samsung XCover phone.
Smaller size means smaller battery, but that's mitigated by the above. I want utilitarian. I don't want a phablet. I want practical and unobtrusive. The smartwatch was meant to replace the phone, but doesn't hit the right notes for me.
In past lives, I've clung to 3.5mm jacks and battery swaps (although I consider myself much reformed, yes I maybe would buy an updated LG v20 if one were released: that was an amazingly built metal slate of a phone with both. Just hot and slow, on that Snapdragon 820).
Today, bluetooth works quite well for me (I love not having cables... but it sucks that performance with a microphone is trashfire). 3.5mm adapters are cheap and easy when needed (rarely. I also have a $10 bluetooth->3.5mm in my travel kit that does get used once a year!). And with usb-c providing fast charging, I rarely feel like I'd benefit from battery swaps. I can give myself 50%+ in 30 minutes, with a portable battery that will power not just my phone, but any other device I run into. With Qi 2.2 releasing with 25W wireless charging, and magnetic coupling being standard now, you don't even need wires anymore. Carrying a bespoke phone-only battery seems like a massive downgrade today. (It also felt like a massive fire hazard!) Time to update your expectations!
Worth mentioning that battery swaps make water-resistance much much trickier to pull off. There' a real cost to battery-swappability.
I do wish we saw something like Ara, some phone modularity & extensibility. Fairphone has some modular parts, but it doesn't feel like an open ecosystem, and the parts dont seem super designed for expansion but more just replacement. I guess maybe Framework is doing the best work, albeit in a bigger form factor space, with their Expansion Cards, which are basically just a card form factor USB-C. Licensed CC-BY-4. https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionCards
For me, the battery swap interest is down to using CGMs and uploading that data to a mesh of local "follower" devices belonging to family members, as well as to my Nightscout server. That's quite intensive with new data every minute. We've had blackouts here before, and it's those moments you really value stuff like battery banks, however, keeping them charged and making sure others don't siphon your juice from time to time can be annoying (lol!). Would be nice to keep an additional battery just for my device in my pouch of diabetes-related paraphernalia.
Once upon a time, I had a Motorola A920 in the early '00s that came with a dock to put a second battery into to charge it (pre-CGM era of course), but something like that would be lovely when combined with a foldable or flip phone.
After Google pushed a firmware update to my Pixel 6a today, it definitely gives a feeling of vulnerability. https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/16340779?hl=en
Would love to recommend the Fairphone, but not available in every country. One of my cousins wanted one (his dad is diabetic too), but unfortunately not available to buy in Canada.
Hopefully Framework humour the idea of a phone at some point, but it'll be difficult to please everybody, and I'm not sure it's economically viable.
The Samsung XCover are mil-spec with swappable batteries (major selling point on their site) and don't struggle with being waterproof, so it can be done. I don't think it's as niche an idea as people would expect.
I excitedly followed the Ara for years! Was gutted it never amounted to anything.
I've come around on swapping batteries, and have decided that external battery packs are the way to go. Works on more devices, and you're not buying batteries that work on exactly one device.
Still want my phone battery to be replaceable, but I'm pretty fine with not being able to do it myself.
just get a larger phone and you don't have to carry bulky battery packs.
but I can have a smaller phone and also use the battery pack to charge my spouse's phone, not just my own
only if she prefers also smaller phones
foldables are possibly good for this, I'm considering the fold 7 personally
I'm definitely open to the idea of foldables or even flip phones (perhaps even enthused!). I'm gutted that the Japanese "Galapagos syndrome" keitei are becoming extinct with fewer and fewer releases each year. The ones that are newly available tend to run Android 10 (yikes). The keitei were always very tasteful, ergonomic, and sensible. Sure, not always flashy in specs, but they didn't need to be when they prioritized the form above everything. Would love for the rest of the world to pick up this dropped ball and run with it.
I've also been interested in this but a little at sea when it comes to navigating the alternate dimension of Japanese flip phones. Do you have any recommendations when it comes to identifying the last best example of the Japanese flip phone?
The first and foremost thing is checking the radio frequencies it operates on. Depending on where you live (or travel!), you might not be able to use it. Each device is different, so don't fall in love with it before you've checked the frequencies on the spec sheet.
Then, realistically, you need to make sure that apps you do want to use do still offer functioning Android builds for what's almost certainly going to be an older version of Android running on a keitei. You might really struggle with banking apps due to this (despite plenty of keitei having NFC!), it depends on your bank's policies. You might also struggle with any official government apps if they force a recent version of Android.
If it's Android, you can almost certainly run it in English, but beware any obscure outliers who heavily customize their ROMs and save space by removing other languages (few and far between, but they apparently do exist and can bite you on the ass if you don't read Japanese!).
You'll probably really struggle to make it work for you overall if you don't live in Japan where this kind of phone is still expected to be supported. There's some beautiful phones, absolutely gorgeous designs in fact, but the above are a total pain in the arse and is what's made it non-viable for me (what forced me over to a Pixel 6a on release). The Pixel 6a getting a firmware update today that affected my battery (https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/16340779?hl=en) is why I'm pining after another keitei, but I don't think there's anything that can tick the necessary boxes for me. I'm gutted!
There are some nice ones that have dual-screens, touchscreens, and touch-sensitive capacitive keypads for scrolling or navigation. Some can be folded to be used like a standard touch-only candybar style phone if you don't want to use the keypad. Some allow the display to be rotated, but those are very uncommon these days.
I hear Gen Z loves retro flip phones as they are less intrusive and more sensible with swappable batteries, built-in screen protection et al, so perhaps there's a potential market fit for something in the West that ticks these very specific boxes.
The funny thing is that I look at the average side-opening book-style wallet-esque case for candybar style touch phones in the West and they're basically recreating the beefits of flip phones with the hinged screen cover cases, but without much of the impact protection.
I'm not a luddite by any means, I'm not even nostalgic for flip phones in any way, I just think that I've realized there's pros and cons to both, and the current offerings available in the West don't really suit me.
Most popular phones in Japan these days in terms of units sold? iPhone and Pixel. That's what's killing the "Galapogos syndrome" keitei in terms of new models! A few friends I have in Japan find the candybar form-factor to be novel and cool, and others want larger screens for media, specific iOS-exclusive apps. or just enjoy the Apple ecosystem as they use a Mac for their work and play. They do tend to agree that there's pros and cons to both though! Pixel trails after the iPhone in numbers BTW.
Neat, I wasn't aware of that kind of Japanese flip phone before. Seems like one of the few phones I'd use without a case these days.
I wonder if any were ever designed with a ThinkPad like aesthetic.
It's interesting to see someone bring up ThinkPads!
I have been saying for a few years now that I want the "classic ThinkPad of phones" with readily available parts, sensible design choices (drainage holes on ThinkPads were a boon! Same with quickly swappable battery handles!) and some kind of afterlife that goes beyond whatever the manufacturer or OS developer decides it is going to be.
To my knowledge of keitei, there aren't any Richard Sapper-ish ThinkPad-styled ones, but you do occasionally see red flourishes like the ThinkPad nurple/TrackPoint, but they're usually on things like a SIM card tray, but not generally contrasted by black, but similar impact to Sapper's distinctive style.
I love me some utilitarian industrial design—I think that's what I'm searching for in modern phones. Sadly, I think that mentality is leaving us as the likes of Sapper pop their clogs and take the mindset with them. It's definitely somewhat oldskool values buried amidst all this.
Sent from my modded classic ThinkPad next to Richard Sapper's '70s Artemide Tizio lamp with an aftermarket LED upgrade to make it energy efficient. :- )
(sorry, meant the flip 7)
My first Android phone was an HTC Desire S. It had a rather sturdy metal case with some plastic inserts for the antennas. The bottom insert slid off to reveal the battery and SIM and SD slots. The only downside is that because of this construction it has the USB port on the side. I used it way beyond official support by installing custom ROMs, but eventually apps got so bloated it couldn't run them without frustrating me.
So, uh, can I please have that but with a more modern SoC and a non-potato camera?
Market wants big phones. The solution... look to the east. Phone accessories to manage big phones. Many women with small hands using finger loops (that double as kickstands), wrist straps, full body lanyards.
Convincing main brands to dump 100s of millions to cater to small phone crowd should be proven DOA by now. The minimalist EDC crowd is niche aberration, most people throughout civilization EDC was more cumbersome. Most people are simply happy carrying more shit around. Look at Stanley cups.
TBH 99% of big phone yucky crowd problems would be solved by a lanyard, but that's too goofy in the west. IMO what we need is better pockets. Front of legs or side belly of shirt. Have a little place to attach a chain like pocket watches. Fix for big phones is not a smaller phone, but better accessory/wardrobe.
>Most people are simply happy carrying more shit around. Look at Stanley cups.
This is only true for the American lifestyle of home-car-office-car-home. If you need to walk for more than 30 seconds Stanley cups become extremely inconvenient.
I thought Stanley cups is a weird choice to make "more shit" sound wasteful or a bad thing. Typically I think the American lifestyle is people carrying fewer things usually. I walk or cycle most places but always take a backpack, but I've frequently seen American-centric communities dismiss this as weird (because the car becomes their backpack).
As plans develop during a day it's easy to end up being out of the house 12+ hours, so it's comfortable to have a refillable water bottle, warmer layers, sunglasses, hat, umbrella, any other comfort things etc.
I disagree, it seems the Eastern phones are gigantic for some reason
And yes I do want smaller phones. Samsung S10e was the perfect size tbh.
But no it seems the option dwindle and now I can't find a phone smaller than my thumb. At least some phones have a "shrink screen" option, but that's not the same thing as a smaller phone tbh
Tiny market =/= no market, but not sustainable market. One hand mode + one hand type mode is not the same as small phone, but it makes one hand mode on big devices feasible. I'm personally waiting for eastern foldable phones to get hilariously gigantic so the front cover screen become useful "mini" phones.
Some people want a phone where they can use the screen with one hand.
Phone finger strap + learn one hand mode.
I just tested one hand mode on my phone and it is all kinds of broken. It doesn't allow scrolling certain pages to the bottom, so it's useless.
You scroll in normal mode. One handed mode let's you reach top UI element with an extra gesture which is more or less all you need for if you want to operate a phone with thumb.
I had filled out the form for this. Wish Eric stuck to this instead of the Pebble revival: it'd have a bigger market.
I don't understand how the market isn't considered big enough for any phone OEM: how can it be smaller than that of foldables? Or even if it is, isn't it still big enough, and shouldn't there generally be more sizes and form factors of phones?
It's as tho the car industry decided to only make 184" long SUVs (6.2-6.7" phones) and 200" long 3-row SUVs (foldables)... no other SUVs, no sedans/hatchbacks, no sports cars (much smaller and much lower volume). And different cars are actually hard to engineer and mass-manufacture the chassis and bodies for... in contrast a phone's HW is inherently more modular and mostly just the screen and battery need to be changed for each size.
Wait, is there any chance Google has released Pebble OS source code so that Eric doesn’t pursue making a small phone?
I switched from a Pixel 3a to an iPhone 16 and it really bothers me that it's way too huge for everyday usage. Maybe I have extremely short thumbs but here's the maximum reach I have on the screen when I hold my phone "normally" in my hand: https://i.postimg.cc/Cx97jxLZ/iphone16reach.png - I can't reach the upper part of the screen at all, without doing finger-gymnastics or using my other hand. I'd love to switch to a phone that is 50-60%% of the size of the iPhone 16 but there are essentially no (modern) options for this. It's really a bummer :(
It's clunky and stupid, but if you "swipe down" off the bottom of the screen, it will bring the top half down into the reachable area. That's the fix they chose, instead of making phones that fit in a human's hand.
I have both and they're surprisingly essentially the same size. Except the iPhone has less bezel and is thicker. I only have the iPhone for dev purposes and I actually prefer the Pixel 3a, but I'm afraid it might die soon...
Anyways, are you sure you're talking about the iPhone 16?
I also wanted one, then Samsung released the foldable phones. The Z Flip was exactly what I wanted. Now that the Fold is so thin, I want it as a small iPad. I feel that Samsung has solved the small Android phone problem in a different way with foldables
I've wanted a small android phone for a while now too, but partly because I just don't care much for smartphones and want a small and cheap option. Ideally it'd be a pixel so that it should support GrapheneOS.
The foldables are such an interesting concept. I actually had a Surface Duo for a while (though a different style of foldable) and really liked it, but I only had one after they were a year old and I could try it out with a used phone for ~$200.
I guess people want different things out of small phones. I had a Z flip 3 for a few years because I thought the small pocket size would be nice, but it still doesn't solve the main issue that I can't reach the whole screen with my thumb. (and besides that I have a million other complaints about it, never going to buy a foldable again)
Heck, I want a new iPhone mini sized iPhone. I am stubbornly sticking to my iPhone 12 Mini because it is the form factor I really want.
I signed up for this perhaps two years ago. I don't remember the update banner being present at the top which says it's officially moving forward. I didn't find anything more on that, what's the actual status now?
I think it's a dead project. There hasn't been any updates. I signed up about the same time you did.
Wow, that exploded over night :D It's nice to see, I am not alone.
With Android working on including a "desktop mode" where you can add a screen and HID devices, I sure hope that the phone screens will get smaller again.
Man this hits home. I'm a reasonably sized human, but there are almost no devices on the market outside of iPhones where I can reach from bottom right to upper left with 1 hand without shifting the phone around in my hand. I hate it.
I'd be willing to take less battery life to get something like this, but nearly everything that's anywhere close either has no NFC (which means mobile payments are out the door) or doesn't have 5G or just has such an awful camera/processor as to be basically unusable for many every-day tasks.
It was quite strange to read this title this morning as my 15 year old daughter just received her iPhone 13 mini yesterday from Swappie. She too was complaining that the android phones are too big for her little hands.
I tried all my reasoning skills to persuade her to stick with android, but ultimately she nagged me into getting a second hand one that is still way too expensive in my opinion.
Well it looks like she is right and this is popular opinion. Perhaps small Android phones not selling well is a marketing problem. I've never seen one advertised with size being a selling point.
I think she prefers an iphone even if there was a tiny android phone.
Thing about iphones is yea, they’re expensive, but if well-cared for can last you longer. I’m on a 6-year upgrade cycle and could stretch that more if I wanted to. Will go from my 12 pro to the 18 or 19 pro.
I had a Samsung A3 (2016) which was almost the exact form factor of the iPhone Mini.
I loved it for being so small and light. The last few years it became too slow for regular use (and many apps refused to install) so I put it in airplane mode and used it as an mp3 player.
I'd still be using it today, but I lost it! I was very sad.
I also loved the LG K8 (2017), wonderful device. That one was a touch bigger, but had a really nice curved screen.
I used an iPhone SE (2016) until last year actually, which was even smaller.
It worked fine, until software updates made it useless. That's a recurring theme with my phones!
> I used an iPhone SE (2016) until last year actually, which was even smaller. It worked fine, until software updates made it useless. That's a recurring theme with my phones!
Very similar story with me. The iPhone SE 1st gen was peak iPhone. Small, had a headphone jack (and could charge while using headphones), nice display, decent battery life. I absolutely loved that phone. I miss having it every day (when I have to use two hands to use this clunker of a phone I have now, when I sit down and feel this gigantic phone in my pocket, etc).
I used my iPhone 4 until the cellular radio wasn't supported anymore. Then I moved into an iPhone SE 1st gen. When the battery bulged I killed it trying to replace the battery (I am not suited to small electronics repair). I gave up, at that point, and moved to a janky Android phone because I couldn't get any phone I wanted from Apple (small and with a headphone jack).
I wish I could have enthusiasm for phones again. Everything isn't what I want.
I certainly won't make the mistake of making a phone integral to my personal workflows and habits again. I certainly won't come to rely on any native apps anymore, either.
I recognize I'm a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of the market. Very few people regard their technology like I do. I feel like the computers (and, at one time, the phones) I use are extensions of myself. I think it's a little like how a musician might regard a beloved instrument, or a craftsman might regard a well-used tool. Very few people get bent out of shape about subtle changes in UI, appearance, latency, or functionality the way I do.
I understand technology today isn't "for me".
It makes me really sad, though.
I'm still on my first gen iPhone SE. Thankfully the apps I use are mostly compatible, and I just use web versions for everything else. Have replaced the battery and screen a few times each.
This phone looks like it might be good replacement but it could also be a bit dodgy. I'm going to wait a bit for reviews before considering buying it https://aiphor.com/products/bluefox-nx1-4-0-android-smartpho...
There is Unihertz, but their 5G model is crap. They also don't update their OS.
I believe the big manufacturers don't want to make a small phone (as other users have indicated) because of the big screen's addictiveness. Also, they can't fit a large battery in them so battery life would be a few hours with 1000mp 16k cameras.
I'd rather carry a 1" thick, 4" tall phone than a 0.3" thick 8" tall phone. No pants pockets look normal anymore, and it is even more awkward to walk with tight pants.
Got two weeks ago a update for my jelly star. Don't know what they changed, whas not many, maybe some bugfixes. But I would be really angry when they just change the android version and the way I have to use the phone just with a over the air update that is installed without warning with one button press.
Android 16 is out, and Jelly Star is still Android 13. Unihertz doesn't even have that many phones to worry about updates. I don't understand why they aren't updating it to the latest. Look at the iPhone 11. Got iOS 18 after 6 years.
I had the titan pocket. The freaking wifi would just randomly disconnect.
> I believe
You can believe whatever you want, but it doesn’t make it true. We know exactly why they make larger devices and it’s not a secret, it’s what consumers by and large want. It’s not a conspiracy.
Every time a vendor falls for the “we want small phones” thing, they sell poorly thus proving the point again and again that it’s a minority at best that are interested.
> Cameras must be as good as Pixel 5
> must have great low light performance
You'll probably have to compromise here a little too. Having "good" smartphone cameras is more about the software than the hardware (there's only so much you can do with small apertures and small sensors), and the flagships have huge R&D investments behind them.
I too want a small phone, and I'd be willing to settle for "passable" camera quality.
I dream of a foldable with an e-ink screen for multi-day usage, and an OLED screen when folded open for media/game consumption.
Someone pinch me awake when that happens, thanks.
I want an Android phone that doesn't break. My iPhone is a beast, but I hate using it, I'm too used to the Android interface (especially the keyboard, I can't believe how bad the keyboard is on iOS). But every Android phone I've ever had gets dinged up very easily and eventually falls apart.
I bought an iPhone 15 and a Pixel 7 at the same time when I started a new job 2 years ago. I keep my work stuff on the iPhone. For the first year, I kept them in the same pocket and had them both everywhere with me. The Pixel within a few weeks was starting to look beat up. The iPhone still looks practically brand new.
Just last night, I got home, pulled my Pixel out of my pocket, and found a crack near the corner of the screen. Now the screen is glitching out on the bottom 15% of the screen. I didn't drop it, I didn't bump into anything. Regular pocket pressure while sitting in my car must have bent it and it buckled.
My wife has had similar experiences with Samsung phones.
If it weren't for the lack of good browsers on iOS, I'd put up with the shitty keyboard.
I want an iPhone mini-sized iPhone again...
SE user here... AMAZING device for it's size.
Now i'm on SE 2020, but every day i miss original SE form-factor.
I considered the SE2 but went with the regular iphone after seeing the battery life was much worse on the SE2. Think that's probably what killed the iPhone mini too.
If I have money and the knowledge to build a phone, surely i will make it possible one day.
But I don't know why new innovative people are not getting into smartphone making.
Everyone is trying to make the next big software. But why that grit is missing to bring the variety into small hardware devices that target majority?
Or, is it not reaching people like me? Is it the lack of awareness?
One reason is the modem, proprietary blob
I think another reason is sourcing good parts that aren't old and bulky, speaking from the Linux phones I tried
Also drivers somebody has to write em
I used to be annoyed that you had to choose between Android or iOS
I wish android phones had lidar
yes. that makes sense.
Check eg. the Mudita Kompakt: https://store.mudita.com/store/mudita-kompakt-global
And the Light Phone 3: https://www.thelightphone.com/lightiii
both seems to be good options. will try one of these one day.
My god... are we really at the point where even in the "nice to have specifications" people don't put a headphone jack anymore? Did the phone companies actually succeed at spreading apathy towards the headphone jack?
I want an iPhone Mini sized iPhone.
There are some rugged Android phones with the "mini" format ~5.5"
They can be quite chunky but honestly not too bad
I think the main reason is battery.
Imo the real problem here is being able to use a phone with one hand, UI standardization led both android and iphone unusable with one hand, so I'd argue we actually stopped research mobile touch interfaces. A smaller phone would still need you to stretch the thumb to the other side of the screen
I have a 13 mini and a case with a built-in 6800mAh battery. Without the case, this phone is low battery half way through the day. When watching videos, I do feel like 5.4" screen is a little bit small. Overall happy though. I wanted a smaller phone.
I literally have dwarf hands, after experimenting with various form factors I've settled on using iPhone SE (4.7") as the main phone and a android (6.7") running FOSS stack as the secondary phone.
I get the "just works" with decent privacy aspect of the smaller iPhone, health benefits from Apple Watch and for anything requiring longer screen time, termux, shelter cloned apps etc. I use the bigger android (Infact I'm typing this on the excellent HN client Hacki from android).
Earlier I used to use Apple Watch with android using a tool I built[1] which now serves notifications from android to my iPhone.
I'm glad Eric is going ahead with the small phone.
[1] https://github.com/abishekmuthian/apple-watch-with-android
Small phone person here. I tried the Sony Compacts and it was a good phone but very fragile. Smashed quite quickly.
Moved to a Pixel 2 and then to a Pixel 5. I'm happy with the 5, good size and good features, fast enough for what I want and battery is okay.
iPhone 12 mini lover and user checking in here. The haters will berate us for our choice stating that "no one wants a small phone", but that's a lie. Normal sized phones were never going to be instant day-one hits. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy to launch them during Covid, offer them 2 years, and say no one wants them.
Give them a permanent place in the lineup, treating phones like every other very personal device meant for humans. Small, medium, and large.
If you do that, and give people time to see exactly why 5.42 screens are superior to 6.1"+ sizes, then I think the numbers will start to change from what we saw with the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini, which were both launched when people were less on the go than in 100 years.
I want a Linux phone based on open source hardware. I gave up an iPhone for Android then switched to Pixels. My current Pixel 7 will be my last Google phone. I want out of the surveillance economy. I want AI assistance as badly I want a hole in the head.
I carry an 8 inch tablet (fits in a jacket pocket) and do most of my mobile web, email, podcast listening etc. on that, using my phone as a hotspot. Can't buy a new 8 inch tablet with a fingerprint reader. Got a couple of 2nd hand ones on eBay and will soon look at putting LineageOS on them (they have out of date versions of Android).
https://aiphor.com/products/bluefox-nx1-4-0-android-smartpho...
https://www.unihertz.com/collections/jelly-series
https://soyes.vip/en
https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-servo-mobile-phones.h...
They’re all kinda ass though
I want a pocket computer with phone connectivity (because too much still demands a phone number).
Why not a pocket computer with wifi + a softphone app + a virtual PBX service (e.g. voip.ms) for that softphone app to connect to?
As a bonus, your phone number wouldn't be bound to that device, but instead would exist everywhere you can install the same softphone app.
Most things which require a phone number block any kind of virtual number service since the only reason they are asking for a phone number is anti spam and KYC.
I tried to make the softphone approach work but I was unreachable far too often when Android decided to kill whichever softphone app I tried.
And if it did keep running, I'm pretty sure it consumed decently more energy than a dedicated telephony module. And yeah as mentioned, even with a "real" local phone number ported to voipms, I wasn't able to get sms codes from some services.
As a fellow small phone enjoyer, this speaks to my soul. The big phone trend feels like it’s being driven by media consumption and spec sheet flexing rather than actual usability. One-handed operation? Pocketability? Those used to matter!
Tha sad truth is that small screens don't work anymore, because apps are all tailored for bigger screens. I noticed this when I had an iPhone mini. It just did not work right. The UIs that are supposed to be surrounding the main part just cover too much. The range is from mildly annoying to completely blocked.
Really sad, because the device was physically very practical, and I don't really need such a big screen, just smart UIs like we used to have, that don't cram the screen full of every feature of every PM that ever worked at the company.
I gave up on finding a <6" with my requirements (audio jack, microSD, USB-C display) and can use my 6.1" Xperia 5 III reasonably well with one hand using a MomoStick. Other smartphone ring attachments exist but this one acts as a stand as well.
Small Android phones did exist. They got bigger because the big phones ("phablets") sold better.
Also, you can buy reasonably sized Android phones. They're still big-ish compared to say, 2008, but not huge considering the lack of bezel.
I'm still using a 2013 LG G2 (SD800) and can't find a single device that I can switch to. The compact size is just perfect. iPhone 5/s/e was also pretty good but apple killed them with updates :/
I remember when people complained that the iphone 6 was ridiculously big ... I'll keep my 12mini until it dies. Then I might buy another 12mini on ebay. I don't edit videos on my phone That's what desktops are for.
Theory: I prefer the iPhone mini because my hands are bigger. I think some people with smaller hands care less because they aren’t losing as much control as I am when the phone is bigger, not as much of a ratio difference.
I want an iPhone Mini-sized iPhone. They don't do them any more
I want an iPhone Mini-sized iPhone again.
I busted out my old 4S, and the fit//finish,, materials, and just how nice it is to hold in your hand and operate are still really nice. Would love to fill it with modern guts.
We see those posts regularly about people wanting a flagship small phone, but I see two options:
- either the market is dysfunctional, and the niche of people wanting those devices does not meet the smartphone offer.
- or the market is even smaller than what they think, making it unsustainable.
Both can be solved with time and patience (waiting for this to happen as conditions change) — or by voting with your wallet and making this requirement have priority over others (security, updates, quality, performance, compatibility, etc.).
This resonates strongly. The Pixel 7 is my current holdout due to its 'acceptable' size, even though it's not exactly "mini". It's a shame to see manufacturers like Asus move away from compact form factors, as I'd have been an immediate buyer for a smaller ZenFone.
The market's push towards larger devices is making e-ink 'dumb' phones increasingly appealing for me.
All this is available on China market. Go buy there. Everyone always makes this post when they can just buy Chinese phone. Go get a Soyes or something.
Japan still makes reasonably sized phones - plenty of them. Recommend shopping for one if you're going over sometime soon.
Heh. I want an iPhone Mini-sized iPhone (2025)!
I want a reliable e-ink phone. Minimal phone is good but flaky to the point that it is annoying.
Odd UX that can't be configured (and no idea why). For example, if you touch the power button, it'll unlock and wake up the phone. There's no way to turn that off and require a click. Other android phones can but not minimal. like what the hell was going through their decision making process?
There are many such phone sellers in China—you can find them in the second-hand market. But I feel like all the internal parts have been replaced. It may look like an iPhone on the outside, but the components inside are probably no longer original.
My iPhone 12 Mini's camera just broke (the zoom is failing..) I have been poking around for any solution that is around the same size. The best answer is generally never-heard-of companies that pop new phone models out and no certainty as to how long they'll last or be supported. That's on top of having to switch platforms (again).
I'm resigned to getting a new iPhone in Sept - reluctantly.
Everybody loves a mini phone. Then you hit your 40s or 50s, and you suddenly understand the benefits of having a bigger screen.
Yeah, thanks for the downvote. You're right. People older than 30 shouldn't exist and shouldn't be here commenting.
I'm very happy with my Unihertz Jelly Max aside from the camera being not great. I think it's the smallest it can reasonably be (62.7mm wide) while still having its touchscreen keyboard be usable and because it's fairly thick it actually feels good to hold in my hands and I don't need to stick one of those silly pop sockets on the back.
Samsung's S-series (without plus or ultra or edge or whatever) is basically this. Not quite as small as an iPhone mini, but just about small enough to be ok for me. Shouldn't be any bigger though (especially not wider!). For me the width is the big issue with big phones. It just feels uncomfortable in the hand then.
I was using Xperia XZ1 compact (4.6") and then moved to Vivo X70 pro+ (6.9") and it's so much easier for the eyes and typing. Yes, it's not the most convenient thing to carry around but I'd rather have less eye strain and typos.
Also I think China makes 3-4" android phones but they're mostly a joke spec wise
I'm a convert on this topic. I went from wanting a small phone to being unable to wait to ditch mine.
Like the OP, I switched from Android (Pixel 3a) to an iPhone SE 3 specifically for the smaller form factor. After using it for over a year, I've found the trade-offs in battery life and camera quality are too significant for my daily use.
These limitations aren't an issue when I'm at home or my desk with easy access to a charger. However, they become acute the moment I'm out for the day. For example, using GPS for navigation or connecting Bluetooth accessories becomes a liability. I can't rely on the phone to last. Also, photos are noticeably more pixelated, and the quality drop-off is clear compared to larger, contemporary phones.
This thread is evidence that the niche for small phones exists. But it's for people willing to accept these compromises by carrying a dedicated camera, a power bank, and using wired peripherals. For me and as the market suggests for most consumers, small phones just doesn't work out as reliable all-in-one devices. I'll probably wait till early next year to pick up one of the new iPhones after they iron out the initial kinks.
> carrying a dedicated camera, a power bank, and using wired peripherals
I'm a small-phone person, and I don't think these _should_ be necessary. I'm fine with wired peripherals (and prefer them), but in 2025, with efficient chips, I don't see why we can't power a device much longer than 24 hours. What if it had decade-old hardware, and -- this is the bit I think is the problem -- the operating system and apps were efficient?
Same with a camera. It seems more about thickness than width; I don't believe it should be impossible to put a large-phone-format camera in a smaller phone. It may take battery space, but see above, we should be ok there these days.
> but in 2025, with efficient chips, I don't see why we can't power a device much longer than 24 hours.
That is only possible if we don't write the software with dozen layers of abstraction and gimmicky features (looking at you, Liquid Glass!).
The biggest power drain is still the screen and those haven't really improved that much.
"the trade-offs in battery life and camera quality are too significant" - a small but thicker phone would have no trouble with battery life and could for sure have the same good cameras as larger phones – and could possibly even ditch the camera bump if it just made the entire phone as thick as the camera bump to fit a larger battery.
(After all, easiest way to increase battery size is to increase the smallest dimension. Add 1mm to a 4-4.5mm thick battery and you'll increase the battery size by 22-25%. Make the iPhone 13 Mini as thick as its camera bump and you would probably add ≈2.4mm, which would make the battery 60% larger)
If one were to make a iPhone 17 Pro Mini as thick as the iPhone 4 then it would:
- Likely still weigh less than a Pro Max - Have a battery with a capacity larger than the Pro Max - Have the pro cameras stick out about as much as they did on the iPhone 6
And it would feel as robust and solid as an iPhone 4 – my favorite iPhone so far
The iPhone SE 3 might have a poor camera, but the one on the iPhone mini 13 is excellent!
My conclusion is the same as the author’s: it’s a matter of you get what you pay for. The demand here is for a small premium phone. This would come with a good set of cameras.
Since Pixel 3a and iPhone SE 3, the battery technology has improved and especially the charging times have gone down dramatically so the battery life experience you had then would not occur today with the same form factor.
I want an iPhone Mini-sized iPhone! You can’t buy them anymore and now I have a big phone!
A weird correlation I’ve observed is that many tech savvy designer folks have iPhone mini’s. I think partly because they do their main work on a computer and don’t lean on their phones as much.
Switched from my iPhone 13 mini to a Qin F21 Pro. I will buy phones like this as long as I can ! It was a pain to setup but it works well for what I want (having a smartphone in Canada)
https://www.duoqin.com/
I have an xperia compact phone I bought for $50 in Japan. It's a bit slow, but I don't do much on it other than jot down notes, maps, photos (the lens is a bit broken so it creates a cool lens flare effect), and messaging. Fits nicely in my pocket and hand. A giant phone just seems so silly to me.
"My goal here is to rally other fans of small phones together and put pressure on Google/Samsung/anyone to consider making a small phone." 41k people is impressive, but that doesn't move the needle for any of these companies by a long long shot
I think a squat format like 4:5 would be much more practical than 9:16 or whatever most phones are. It's unfortunate that's the format that's come to dominate, especially when you consider the rise of vertical video.
Make your 5.4" screen phone with:
- a 3.5mm jack
- fingerprint sensor on the back
and it's an immediate buy for me, (almost, but not really) regardless of price!
The Pixel 4 had a 5.6" screen and it feels like the local maxima of mobile phone design. Ran GrapheneOS perfectly too.
HTC magic was just about that size ! (and it ran whooping Android up to 1.6 I believe). It was a 2nd publicly available android phone, right after the HTC with Dream.
Silly question: how hard would it be to find some manufacturer in China, that could manufacture several hundreds or thousands of low-mid range devices, of iPhone SE size or similar? Would be great to have ability to run PostmarketOS.
It is simply more difficult to cram the specs into a smaller form factor and they sell for less. A loose-loose situation. The same is happening in the tv market. 32” is disappearing because it’s more expensive to build smaller 4k displays.
This is almost describing the ASUS Zenfone 9 (except for some reason they wanted only 8GB RAM, while the zen 9 has 16).
The small size and clean stock Android were the main reasons I bought this, and it's still a great phone.
Forget Apple sizes, I want a 3-4 inch sqaure (4:3) phone. Preferrably with a keyboard that folds or slides out. Something I can use with one hand or two and not have to switch to two hands to tap an upper corner.
I'd even be happy with a 5.5" phone nowadays but no-one even makes them
Ugh, yes I HATE how big phones have gotten...
I like the idea of the folding flip style phones (Galaxy Flip) though and hope Apple makes one of those!
Maybe buy a flip-phone?
By the way, Apple is horribly behind in this area. It is time for them to realize that not everybody wants the same form factor. And people are getting bored by Apple's run-of-the-mill designs.
i get it. i want one of those. the problem is that most cellphones are not actual cellphones, they are entertainment machines. they are a pocket tv / social media feed place. most usage for my normal friends is for that.
Dream phone: Underclocked Samsung25 internals, iPhone SE design/dimensions, at least 90hz OLED panel, 1 back decent camera, 1 front too. 3A battery. Preferably an extenal SD card slot.
This was a hot post in 2022: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31411191
> "But whenever someone answered the call and built a Smartphone with QWERTY keyboard, the product failed commercially, simply because also to people claiming they want such a phone, at the point of sale they were less attractive than their slimmer, lighter, all-screen counterparts."
The slab form factor is excellent industry design; modern efforts to integrate a hardware-keyboard, i. e. in a non-detachable way, are quite frankly daft. It buys the worst of both worlds: added complexity and error-proneness, more (dead) weight, awkward handling, harder maintainability/repairability, etc.
The form factor that was represented by Psion-machines such as the 3- or 5-series was great at the time, but is now obsolete, as evidenced by Planet Computers' recreations. Integrated sliders (e. g. F(x)tec) are only marginally better.
Technically, the solution of course is very elegant and simple:
1. Slab-form factor UMPC/smartphone 2. Corresponding detachable (as "attachable folder"), roughly Psion 5-sized keyboard a similar 3. Small "click-in" keyboard dock à la Pinephone keyboard or a 4. Detachable slider
But that is indeed just one variable in the whole equation; there's a whole set of features I consider essential for a smartphone- or UMPC-like device that one doesn't find anymore.
I want an iPhone Mini-sized iPhone with the Pro model cameras.
The idea that nobody wants a small phone seems odd to me when Asus Zen Fone 10 is extremely rare and the iPhone 13 mini only exists in retail as refurbs.
I recently bought a new Pixel 4 BC I want a fresh battery, but don't want anything bigger than this.
There are so many Android phone models, but not a single one that's a reasonable size?
The iPhone 4S was just this. Small, and had it all. It was the best iphone i owned. After this the overall phone size has ballooned. Such a shame.
If there's anyone that can make this happen, it'll be Eric. I signed up and absolutely cannot wait for the Pebble hacker to do this.
I signed up 2 years ago. I think it's a dead project :(
I will hold my ip13 mini until i can't.
Take the compromise the the Motorola razr and never open it. At least for now, that;s what I’m doing
At this rate better chance of waiting for cover screen of flip foldables to be mini phone sized.
Samsung Z Flip 7 has that, it was launches few days back.
Mobiles are made by Asian companies to Asian tastes. They like big screens so that's what we get. The two exceptions are apple iPhones and Google pixel. The two American companies making phones for American tastes. Shame as the old 4.5" mobiles had such large bezels they could have accommodated 6" modern screens...
I love mini phones too but how naive do you have to be to trust a random page over an actual phone manufacturer? I can get a new pixel at 500$, install GrapheneOS on it, and call it secure enough. I wish google would make mini-pixel versions, same as apple does with SE
These days I want an iPhone Mini-sized iPhone phone... :(
I wish there was a phone, preferably with buttons (bb q10 like), that can run WhatsApp, banking app and Apple Pay (or whatever android version is). Also it should be running these stupid government apps. And music please... preferably with 3.5mm jack so I can connect my nice headphones. This phone can have mediocre camera.
Yeah... we definitely don't get what we want.
you can pry my 13 mini from my cold dead hands
You can still get a PVG100 on Amazon
>> "Now I'm building Beeper - a universal chat app that lets you chat on 15+ different chat networks (including WhatsApp, iMessage, etc)."
That is another idea which apple didn't like.
looks like iPhone SE 2025 should cover user needs for $800
i put my whole family on the last iphone mini generation
htc HD mini was the perfect form factor
For most consumers their phone has become their primary device, so the big screens make sense. Computer at home? Nope.
I have multiple screen with me, so my 13 mini is great.
buy a z flip
Umm I want an iPhone Mini-sized iPhone...
same
iPhone 13 Mini (2023) = 5.4 inches (discontinued).
Pixel 9 (2024) = 6.3 inches.
I know the Pixel 9 is not that small, but is close and an excellent phone (base or Pro models, the XL is bigger).
This was written before the Pixel 8, 8a, 9, and 9 pro. All of those are just slightly larger than a iPhone mini, at about 6.2".
They're slightly larger than a iPhone 16. Both are significantly larger than the mini iPhones. https://phonesized.com/compare/#2535,2552,1863
I have an S23 base for that exact reason.
A full flagship phone at 6.1" size