So long, small phones

They will have to pry my iPhone 13 mini from my cold dead hands! Small phone gang unite! ✊

I have a theory about small phones:

I see so many people asking for smaller phones, and, at the same time, the sales aren't very good when companies give it a try. How can both be true?

I believe (from my anedoctal observations) that small phone users tend to be people who don't want to replace their phones just for the sake of getting a newer one, and use their devices for several years, resulting in fewer sales than expected.

People have been saying this for the last 5 years and will continue saying this for the next 5 years. They make less smaller phones cuz people don't buy them

There was a time where 7" was a damn tablet (looking at you, my old pal nexus 7)

Personally, the Pixel 5 was the perfect size and weight for a phone.

No bulky cameras. No thick chassis. No glass adding pointless weight. Very usable as a one handed device. Symmetrical bezels.

Ooooh nexus..

My Nexus 5 and 5X were the best phones I had ever owned, period

What irks me about the larger phones is that there is so much wasted screen real estate. The phone doubled in size, but can only show me half the number of items on my shopping list?

I believe the (old but still decent) best small Android is the Samsung s10e

I'm currently in the market for a new phone because Samsung ended security updates for my current one, not because there's anything wrong with it. And I'm noticing that my choices seem to be buy a phablet or buy a total POS.

Remember when Samsung made a flagship phone in multiple sizes, and then also made a giant phone so big it had a built-in stylus? It wasn't that long ago. Now the flagship phone comes with a stylus.

Agreed.

Manufacturers seem to think that we all need a massive screen to watch films and play games on.

I just want phones that are shorter. They keep getting longer, which means more risk of breaking, and means the keyboard is unusable in landscape since it blocks the textfield.

I bought an unlocked pixel 7a because of lots of custom roms once it goes out of support

It's huge and doesn't have a headphone jack or SD card slot but it's very fast and has a good camera

My dream phone would be:

• Unlocked bootloader

• Replaceable battery

• Small

• Expandable storage

• Good camera

• IR blaster

• Updates provided for a long time

• Stock Android

• Very durable

I want a small phone with easy replaceable battery and a plastic sturdy screen.

I'm still on my pixel 3 which is line at the cusp of the size i can handle. I want smaller but every new phone is bigger. It's so infuriating.

I wanted small phone after 4 years with op7t and went logically for S23. But few years back it would be massive phone. Nowadays I found it like a perfect sweet spot of size, weight.. Performance, software and camera wise it's the only option.

The Z Flip is hard to wrap a hand around? Was this written by a toddler?

My phone is about 15cm (~5¾ in) tall, and to me, that's the absolute maximum. It's slightly too big. The width, about 7cm (~2¾ in) is totally fine.

This (Galaxy XCover 5) was the smallest phone that seemed to exist (and I wanted one woth durability, removable battery, SD slot, headphones etc). It was very expensive though.

Trying to find cheaper ones for various people in the extended family, they all specified "oh, not bigger than my current one", but it was impossible. There's basically nothing less than 16cm tall, and most are even bigger.

I'm scared of this one breaking. The XCover 6 is 17cm x 8cm.

I remember the last time this got brought up and I complained about my thumb not being able to reach the other side of the iphone 3 mini. Well, I tried the Samsung Z Fold the other day and I really like how narrow it is to the point where my thumb can effortly reach the other side when the phone is folded. Perhaps I'll get that phone in the future when my current iPhone 13 mini dies. At the same time, I do enjoy my Apple Watch though and I appreciate the longetivity of the iPhone compared to other brands.

I think the main smartphone market is kind of like the market for cars. The only people that can afford to buy them, can afford to keep up heavy consumer traffic, are the ones who are convinced they need to swap to the top of the line model with some sort of trade-in payment plan, where they want every new trendy thing, and every piece of bullshit technology that's not going to last even to the next flagship model. Basically, stupid people who are rich and are insecure about it. I'm certainly vulnerable to that to, just as I'm vulnerable to the unbearable lag on even just like a 6 year old phone, which should really not be that old, and then security updates and support are always a concern, I suppose. I think maybe the solution, individually, might just be to root my phone, or install some linux alternative operating system, cause I don't wanna keep up with this bullshit anymore. I'm trapped in a world of large 19:9 and 21:9 smartphones, unusable with one hand, and with screen space that's useless 90% of the time. I'm stuck without aux ports, and without any physical style keyboard, no nothin. I also want stuff like the DS stylus port and the flip camera they had on the zenfone 7, that shit is cool.

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I'd really like Google to make smaller phones again. The Nexus size was the perfect size.

I found my old ipod touch (5th gen, 4 inch screen) in the closet and power it on yesterday. Can't believe how small it is. I swear the screen was a lot larger when I bought it years ago. I guess my perception is skewed by modern smartphone screen size which keep getting bigger.

Fake news! Unihertz sells the Jelly

A small phone with flagship features are not happening.

To get a smaller phone, you have to give up screen quality, camera quality, fingerprint scanners and other flagship features.

I just want a small flip phone that acts as a smartwatch paired to my main phone. Nobody makes that either.

Their idea is but I giant phone or a watch phone. I love the mini. It’s too bad.

Smart phones killed small phones. Really, a small smart phone runs into usability problems.

I loved my old Kyocera slider, but all it was good for was phone and SMS.

1" screen, phone is about the size of a credit card.

https://a.co/d/0xKoRVp

I'm actually using a Titan Pocket currently. Works well enough for me. The security updates are lagging behind that's getting me considering switching back, but I'm otherwise cautious how I use it.

It's a nice feeling device, and makes me wish they'd make more BlackBerry style phones with bigger displays and Android capability.

People see you whip the titan out and think "oh he's doing that rollback technology thing", then you use Android Pay and they really flip out lol.

I had to get the pro max because the 12 pro was getting too hard for me to read comfortably 😭😭

I just turned 40

Still using an S10e, & getting around 7-8 hrs SOT, great phone, perfect size, good cameras & screen, with the bonus of SD card support & a headphone jack..

Me reading this on my zenfone 10.

I think the S23 is the perfect size, I wish that was the standard, with some larger ones for people who like that.

It's amazing that last year when I was looking for a new phone, the one I bought was one of the smallest I could find - asus zenfone. Same physical size as my precious sony, just a few grams heavier. I'm super happy with it and ny other phone seems super huge in comparison.

God I loved the Nexus 4, I had iPhones from iPhone 3G to 4 moved to a Galaxy S3 which I absolutely despised due to the bloatware.. sold that on eBay and bought a Nexus 4 16gb for £280... Had Nexus/Pixel branded phones ever since.

Haven't thought of small phones in a while, unless you look into dumb phones, like Nokia 3310 reboot.

Great little phone, but does not have smart features that smart phones have.

Nice to see the sizes being compared, I was not expecting it, but wow have phone become huge.

I wonder if Pine64 or similar would create a small phone, they have launched phones before...

This is the best summary I could come up with:

But for gadget enthusiasts like me, Google had other plans: it’s arbitrarily pushing buyers to the ginormous Pixel 8 Pro instead, bragging about how its larger handset can handle niftier features even though both phones have the same cameras and chips.

Plus, Samsung doesn’t actually let you use it like a small phone by default — you’ve gotta jump through hoops to use apps on the outer screen.

It’s called Unihertz, and its Jelly line is tiny and has nifty features like a BlackBerry keyboard or programmable buttons and extra LEDs.

The project hasn’t had a meaningful update in five months, and team leader Benjamin Bryant admits he had to pause to look for consulting work on the side.

“Samsung Display US is willing to champion us; the challenge will be convincing the Korean HQ that we are a viable enough project for them to invest time and resources into,” Bryant tells me.

Bryant admits that, in general, the small phone outlook is “bleak” and that some of his prospective customers “will be forced to upgrade in the coming year.”

The original article contains 809 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 78%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Currently in the process of switching to a degoogled OnePlus 5 which is only taking a long time because I'm having to find the right combo of system apps and replacements for googles apps which I've all but done.

Seriously if you're trying to make a google free phone try LineageOS microG. It's a spin on Lineage that gives you replacements for a lot of core apps like a location provider, and a load of other stuff you wouldn't realise wasn't in pure android.

Now all I need is a new battery and I have a FOSS( bar firmware, blobs, and magic earth, because no FOSS map app works well in the UK for me) phone.

But honesty I love this phone it's just the right size and it still has touch buttons for home, back, and recent apps instead of on screen ones( which I kinda hate). Paired with dual cameras and a gorgeous 1080p OLED display.

And you want to know the best part?

It only cost me £50!

Seriously if you're sick of modern phones and yern for the good old days this is a pretty great middle ground.

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I really liked it when I tried my Samsung GT-S5830i again. It only has a 3.5" screen. It's just perfect for one-handed use. And it has a home button. I miss those.

But anyway, I still probably wouldn't choose a small phone. I prefer bigger ones overall. I really liked phablets when that was a thing. 6-7 inch screen but in 16:9 aspect ratio. For me, that's gold, as I usually use my phone in landscape (I am typing this on phone in landscape too).

That's why I switched to a flip phone. It's smaller in my pocket.

Galaxy S8 was my perfect phone, I still keep it around and throw my SIM card in for certain things.

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Try a large phone and you'll stay for the battery life alone.

God, the small phone crowd are so exhausting. The iPhone Mini. We get it, some people do like tiny phones, but as an example, for iPhone buyers that seems to be <3% of buyers. There is simply not a large enough market for them.

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/21/iphone-13-mini-unpopular-march-quarter/

You only see tech nerds having small hands and small cocks what a coincidence 🤕