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Comment by bakhy | Hacker News Reader

the smartphone market is crap. it seems almost like the economy of a communist country - everything is the same.

recently my husband and me were buying new phones. i had trouble finding a decent smartphone (decent = good specs) which is <= 4,5". incredibly annoying. i simply want a strong device that fits nicely in my pants pocket, and it seems that's a weird request... my husband wanted one with a physical keyboard - now that's science fiction. completely unavailable in Europe at the time (aside from ancient phones on eBay).

so, this trend analysis seems really ridiculous. consumers have a very limited choice in the matter. the companies behave like sheep, and most writing about the market is sycophantic crap.

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We seem to be in the tail end of a consolidation phase right now, the one the article is about. I think it's largely brought on by the final commodification of the internals of a phone/tablet; even a $50 Amazon Fire tablet is now a decent tablet, something that wasn't true in that price range two years ago and perhaps even one (I wasn't looking then so I can't quite vouch for it). (Yes, it's probably subsidized a bit, but it still ends up setting the bar.)

Once that completes, I'd expect the market to expand a bit more as companies seek ways to stand out other than "we have the cheapest thing".

But you may never again see a "phone" with a physical keyboard. Too niche. Instead, you'll have to look for a case with integrated keyboard or something: http://www.amazon.com/Sliding-out-Wireless-Bluetooth-keyboar... I don't think it'll ever be economical again to produce a phone with a keyboard built in, but that niche can be filled with orders-of-magnitude-smaller runs of keyboard cases.

the case with a keyboard is an interesting suggestion, thank you!

BlackBerry Priv has a keyboard.

Blackberry still produces smartphones with physical keyboards and smaller form factors. However, I don't know about European availability.

I bought this "pocket-phone" recently (4.5" Android One). Not brilliant but good enough. Only available in Europe, I think:

http://www.bq.com/es/aquaris-a4-5

Sony Z5C is about it when it comes to decent specs in a small frame. The new nexus 5 is stretching it. Welcome to the world of large phones.

http://neo900.org

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