I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone | Hacker News Reader

I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone

smallandroidphone.com

1,658 pointserohead1,053 comments

I’m a long-time small phone Android user. But after the Pixel 5, I have not been able to find a suitable small Android replacement. The Pixel 6 is gigantic, and the Pixel 7 looks like it is also destined to be huge. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve resorted to using an iPhone Mini, biding my time and hoping desperately that some Android OEM would step up.

But it’s increasingly clear that a small premium phone is not on the roadmap. So I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands. My goal with https://smallandroidphone.com is to rally other fans of small phones together and put pressure on Google/Samsung/Anyone to consider making a small phone.

I have a very specific set of skills and industry connections that I have acquired over a long career in the hardware business (my first startup was Pebble). I will put them to use in our shared quest to get the perfect small Android phone. If no one else builds one, and enough people sign up...maybe I will be forced to make it myself.

If you want a small premium Android phone, this may be your last chance (ever?) to help bring back the phone category that we love.

It's pretty damning that when one searches for 'best small android phone' the pixel 5a (massive!) is at the top of most lists.

Maybe they are conflating Pixel 5 and 5a. 5a is larger but 5 while still a big phone, is not that bad.

Pixel3 here, cause it's still pretty small (but not too small)

The Pixel 5 was just right IMO. I upgraded to a Pixel 6 after the fingerprint sensor had problems. The first thing I noticed was it was too big. I liked the size of the five much better.

Hear hear! I hope your gadget guy dreams come to fruition again and you sell 10 million! I only am chiming in to say a premium phone should be water resistant!

Similar user, and I have no idea if there will be anything left to buy after the Pixel 4a. I expect the 4a will be good enough for another 3 years at-least, if there are no accidents.

Hopefully by then there is something available which continues the form factor. 4a has been the perfect successor to the Nexus 4, it's a little taller but other than that has practically the same footprint.

With the 6a moving in a different direction (eg: removing the headphone jack) I'm just hoping someone else comes along as a spiritual successor for the Pixel Xa-series.

I am also planning to move from a 4a, and at this point it would be either a Sharp R7 (probably not available internationally though) or a Sony Xperia 10 IV.

The Sony seems to be the best alternative though I have no idea of the software quality.

> Sony Xperia 10 IV

Unfortunately, it looks like it won't be sold in the US. Does it support US LTE bands so I can import it at least?

Band support seems to be better, though I’m not sure which band would work in the US. Also they haven’t announced the non carrier bundled model yet, so I’m stil waiting as well to see how it pans out.

Is Sharp R7 your option? It's just a normal sized (read: big/weighty) flagship phone.

I've been burnt by Sony. Back in the first generation of the compact flagship. A great phone in all aspects... Until it was dropped. A tiny crack in the corner of the screen, you wouldn't notice without looking for it. Unfortunately engineering choices by Sony folk meant that any crack anywhere disabled the digitizer (i.e. the touchscreen loses the touch part). Such a bummer.

Countering your anecdote with mine.

I have an Xperia 10 II (or something like that, the slimmest Android device I could find back in early 2021). The back cover is cracked all over, to the point I sometimes get cuts on my fingers. Two of the corners have dents.

The back camera that takes the actual photo is several degrees off (like 10 or 15°) from whatever is used for the preview. Works perfectly in all the other ways. Probably isn't waterproof any more, but I never needed that before, either.

Is there a crack on the touchscreen itself though?

List of smaller Android phones with decent specs:

Pixel 5 - 144.7 x 70.4 x 8 mm

Samsung S22 - 146 x 70.6 x 7.6 mm

Zenfone 8 - 148 x 68.5 x 8.9 mm (could be higher thanks to narrower body)

Xiaomi 12X - 152.7 x 69.9 x 8.2 mm

Samsung S21 - 151.7 x 71.2 x 7.9 mm

Sony doesn't produce phones, but remote controls. Their software is nice clean, but their camera is pretty bad, might as well buy Zenfone 8 if you don't mind camera.

Probably not what you would deem decent specs .. but small.

SHIFT5me - 141,5 mm x 71 mm x 9 mm

https://shop.shiftphones.com/shift5me.html

only 3mm shorter, but other dimensions bigger than pixel 5 plus MUCH smaller display thanks to huge bezels

>Sony doesn't produce phones, but remote controls. Their software is nice clean, but their camera is pretty bad, might as well buy Zenfone 8 if you don't mind camera.

I imagine few who have used one would ever be able to say this with a straight face. I never met an iPhone user who believed me when I told them all the photos I was showing them were taken with an Xperia XZc (1 and 2, respectively) and that's with every single one of them. There may be half a dozen compact smartphones that really compare to the XZ2c. Sony just gave up on them because the herd loves their phablets so much.

I am also a current owner of the Zenphone 8 and its camera is also decent. If it's really important that you be able to snap the best photos possible, though, they've been developing these discrete camera things for over a century (and the best of them will likely continue to outperform any general purpose device for the foreseeable future).

Meanwhile the iPhone 13 mini is 131.5 x 64.2 x 7.7 mm

There's really nothing small about any of the Androids.

Snag up a lightly used Pixel 5 while you can. You get 5G and it is basically the same form factor, just a bit better all around. (I've had both and the Pixel5 is a step up for sure)

The 5 was already available here when I purchased the 4a (Europe), but the 5 was twice as expensive - which is hard to justify for "a bit better".

A headphone jack is much more useful for me personally than 5G, so I happily saved the money.

5G is completely useless in The Netherlands for the time being (until at least end 2023). You can safely ignore it if you're from NL. In other countries, how useful it is going to be depends on your use-case. For example, German autobahn has good 5G coverage.

I've been looking into the Asus Zenfone 8 to replace my 4a eventually. It's expensive but it's compact.

I like the form factor of mine. Only thing I don't like with it is the battery time, which is shorter than I'd have preferred. But I bought it almost a year ago now, there might be a new model coming that fixes that.

A spare battery could fix this. Of course, only if designed this way.

I was about to buy exactly this after reading reviews, wanting a compact phone, and my Note8 dying.

But for a few different reasons I ended up just getting my wife an S22 (non plus) and then inherited her S20 (non plus), which has a very similar form factor.

Definitely felt the OPs frustration in looking for compact Android phones. They just plain don't exist.

I've been very happy with mine. As another user mentioned, the main issue with it is the battery life isn't as good as some other Android phones, but it's good enough that as long as I charge it daily I rarely have to worry about it. Though I do really wish it had wireless charging.

Another Pixel 4a user here. I haven't found a single compelling reason to move to another phone, and will drive this one into the ground... Hopefully there's a suitable replacement once it's dead, otherwise I'll just buy another 4a

Yeah, I've been using the 4a for about a year now, it is pretty sweet. It's the phone I wanted after the Nexus 5. (but with wireless charging). The size is great and it's light. I hate heavy phones.

I faced a similar problem when I didn’t find a sanely sized flagship non-bloated (though that’s essentially an oxymoron in Android world including the Pixels) Android phone sometimes back and I decided to vote with my wallet and I bought the first iPhone SE, then 7, and now 12 Mini. I am an Android developer and the way the OS is designed (UX and privacy wise; even the stock one) I don’t really see myself moving back to Android anytime soon but I wish there was a a flagship normal sized phone.

I dislike Apple for a lot of things but in this duopoly the size of a phone is such a fundamental characteristic that you’re out of options anyway.

I think most of the people are “swiper users” — the “content consumers” — so they want big phones and OEMs are simply making what the near 100% majority (yup!) wants.

Growing up I was told the major advantage of capitalism is that you get a diversity of offerings. This seems less and less true as time goes on, but maybe it was always an illusion.

It is only true when entry barriers to the market are low. Capitalism will give you a diversity of toasters or beer. Complex tech devices like phones have higher barriers, you can't just hack up a phone in a team of 5 people. Besides, economy of scale makes niche products more expensive.

The pixel 4a will be good for another 3 years? What kind of apps are you using? I'm still using a Samsung S7 and don't plan to replace it until it explodes or turns into dust. Then again I don't play games, but I do use it extensively to write/browse/chat. It's somewhat sluggish, but who cares? This idea that we need perfect loading times and constant high-tech phones is such a spoiled mindset.

> It's somewhat sluggish, but who cares? This idea that we need perfect loading times and constant high-tech phones is such a spoiled mindset.

It is, however, probably not a great idea to use a device that hasn't had a security update for several years.

Even if you were using a custom ROM and trusted that it was correctly patched (which is a big if) then there's hardware exploits on the Snapdragon 820, and I imagine there are probably similar on the Exynos 8890. Some of these can't be mitigated by software.

Just buy another Pixel 4A. There must be a brand new model still available with some retailer.

I use an S10e. Love it. It's not small-small but def small by todays standards. Probably switching to an iPhone here soon

I also got an s10e because iirc it was the only smallish Android phone with ok specs and ok IP rating (also I avoided Chinese brands—though Samsung isn't necessarily everyone's choice either). Very comfortable format!

Why? S22 has almost same dimensions.

List of smaller Android phones with decent specs:

Pixel 5 - 144.7 x 70.4 x 8 mm

Samsung S22 - 146 x 70.6 x 7.6 mm

Zenfone 8 - 148 x 68.5 x 8.9 mm (could be higher thanks to narrower body)

Xiaomi 12X - 152.7 x 69.9 x 8.2 mm

Samsung S21 - 151.7 x 71.2 x 7.9 mm

I've gotten the s10e just last month because it's the top phone that can still run linux on dex (which is a disappointment, but that's a topic for another day), and doesn't have those stupid Samsung edge displays (s10+ 12GB RAM edition).

I'm not sure those other phones are any better in terms of running linux (termux) and those non-samsung ones don't even have dex so I don't even know what the high specs are for.

S22 should be good once it's no longer the latest phone and you can grab at a discount, and maybe Android 13 with KVM is out by then.

One of the reasons I want a small phone is because I already have other devices with a larger screen: computer, laptop and tablet. That's why I want it to be cheap, I have already spent a lot on different devices and for the little use I give it I want it to be cheap and small.

Of course. But phone manufacturers don't want this. They don't want you using those other devices. And they have the power, so you will submit to their decisions.

why don't they? then they could sell me two things! back in the day i had a motorola droid AND a xoom.

I'd love a small primary phone with good battery life for general use (SMS/IM, and (shock!) making/taking calls). Relatively low resolution screen would not be a problem at all.

But I, like most people I expect, also use my phone for many other uses some of which make good use of a larger screen at higher resolution: in-car GPS and while running/walking out on the trails, web browsing and social media stuff that would not be pleasant on smaller screens, occasionally video. The better screen necessitates a bigger battery too, increasing the weight and size a bit more.

I'm not sure there is a solution for that, other than perhaps carrying two devices around. Most people would not be happy with that solution and tethering the bigger device to the smaller ones (so they share internet connectivity instead of both needing SIMs & paid accounts) will reduce the battery life of the small device noticeably (running the 4G/5G and WiFi radios constantly being quite a drain I find, when tethering a laptop to my main current phone).

For a lot of people who would want the smaller phone, there is a secondary need for which they want the larger one too, and putting up with a big device for everything is likely to be the preferable “compromise” compared to carrying two devices.

I've considered the two device approach, but the only really small phones (significantly smaller than my current main device) I found were cheap Chinese imports and one of the first corners cut on those is using a cheap battery that won't last long on active use. Battery life is why my current phone is large than the previous one (which was already larger than I'd prefer often) as it can last a goodly while in active use (GPS and screen on).

tl;cbatr: I suppose the point of this directionless rambling, is that I think the market for a smaller device, people who would actually buy one rather than just those who think it is something that should exist, is smaller than you hope.

This is where I am. Love the idea of a small phone like the android Palm Phone, and almost bought one. But my iPhone 13 Pro Max is basically so big I use it in place of my laptop for many, many things. So it basically replaces my dslr because of the camera quality and my laptop unless I’m writing software. Though I would love a small phone, I didn’t buy the Palm which would have been perfect for when I’m running or something, so I’m not sure I would buy this, even though I want it to exist.

Palm phone fwiw also got discontinued for lack of interest as far as I know.

Palm phone was expensive with garbage specs. But I suppose I was never in the market for it; I wanted a phone that was good enough to be my only phone.

The specs are indeed garbage, but I've been using it as my daily driver for over a year and I really don't want to change to anything else since the form factor and weight are just so nice for when I'm out of the house. For reading the news at home or similar stuff, I do use an old Pixel 3a though.

You can still buy it on Amazon [0].

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Palm-PVG100-Premium-Unlocked-Titanium...

> in-car GPS and while running/walking out on the trails, web browsing and social media stuff that would not be pleasant on smaller screens, occasionally video

I think the last time I considered screen size a limiting factor for these activities was when the flagship phones had 4.5" screens or so. We've gone well beyond what's needed for me to find the screen large enough for regular activities, and well into the realm where I find using my phone with one hand to be uncomfortable.

Size isn't the reason I went with the larger phone last time I upgraded - it was the longer active (rather than standby) battery life. I can be a fair distance from any source of power for a goodly time and not worry about it shutting down for that reason. Even smaller devices (of those easily available at the time) showed less endurance in independent tests, due to having the smaller battery in their smaller form and/or less advanced chipsets, the exception being one with a lower resolution screen but that was a compromise point too.

> I'm not sure there is a solution for that, other than perhaps carrying two devices around. Most people would not be happy with that solution and tethering the bigger device to the smaller ones (so they share internet connectivity instead of both needing SIMs & paid accounts)

People do that all of the time and gladly pay the extra $10 for a smaller “phone” - the cellular Apple Watch.

I will leave my phone in a heartbeat when I’m going to the gym, the pool, or anywhere else where a large phone isn’t convenient and I still want to be able to keep in touch with people

I would think if you were running that you would prefer a smaller screen, having to stick a gigantic slab in my pocket whenever I transition from my walk to my jog constantly reminds me that I've got a brick flopping around in my shorts.

I never had a problem using a GPS on a small iPhone hooked up to a magnet on my dash in my car before, I can't imagine an extra inch and a half of real estate making that much of a difference.

> I would think if you were running that you would prefer a smaller screen

On of the reasons I'd like a smaller device, though there is the already stated compromises around smaller battery too, and it being a general use device. If I had a small device with excellent battery life I could carry that normally and tether a larger device, in my backpack when not in such use, for mapping and other when needed (I'm not talking nipping out for 10K here, sometimes this is full- or multi-day walking-or-faster events).

> having to stick a gigantic slab in my pocket … reminds me that I've got a brick flopping around in my shorts.

While the perfect phone doesn't exist, I have found the holy grail of shorts: big enough pockets that the slab fits, but tight enough and small enough that it doesn't jiggle noticeably, but not tight to me such that is exacerbates sweat in that patch. Also, the phone for nav on long routes is tertiary, I have breadcrumb trail on my wrist and a printed map (on rip- & water-resistant paper), so if I'm going far enough to require a bag for water/foot/1st-aid/other then there is room for the slab in there too and it isn't too out of reach.

I think Sony Xperia 5 is a premium phone in you spec target range

Curious how would you solve the battery issue, since in your spec you mention 4Hrs of Screen On Time (SoT), and it would be a 5G phone (battery drainer)?

iPhone Mini with its H/W & S/W integration barely manages 4Hrs of SoT. An 'Android Mini' phone with its mini batteries, how can it match upto iPhone Mini? And mind you, low sale of iPhone Mini is also due to the 'battery/range anxiety' that its users have.

Upon that any Mini form factor needs to be even less thinner, as visual perception of thickness is inversely proportional to a form's face/back surface area. So for this mini phone to be reasonably attractive (not chunky) it needs to have a very slim profile; which translate to small battery.

I get that tastes vary and some people apparently don't mind the hole punch in the display, but I'm curious why you list its presence as a hard requirement. It seems like it would make the display unnecessarily harder to source.

I just had to throw away my Pebble Time ~1 month ago. It was the best watch I could have asked for but I got some ocean water in it and it wouldn't dry out this time :( I am also using an Moto G7 Play android phone from like 2018 because it's the only small phone I could find for a reasonable price. I would love to see you make something like this!

I want to add another comment here supporting the fact that the camera is probably the main device feature I care about, and why I end up with a phone fancier and bigger than I’d like, and maybe second most important factor is battery life.

Yes, I'm as frustrated as you are. I want a no-compromise 4" Android phone, comfortably usable with one hand. For me, the phone is a communication device for the outside, that's it. I hardly use it at home except for calls. My primary device is my laptop. I have exactly zero use cases that would benefit from a large screen, yet all of my use cases would benefit from being able to fully use it one-handed. I don't watch any kind of video on my phone because it's a torture either way, and I'm okay with smaller fonts to make more things fit on a smaller screen.

It's gotten so bad I contemplated porting Android to the iPhone SE. Not the complete OS, just the userspace, enough to run SystemUI and apps.

Except: a headphone jack is a hard requirement. If a phone has no headphone jack, it could as well not exist for me.

Very much the same situation for me. I'm especially interested in why Eric doesn't mention the headphone jack -- does he simply think it isn't a noteworthy feature, and assume the phone WILL have the jack? Or does he assume that bluetooth is the future and only silly luddites like us care about the jack?

I hope Eric eases up on the weirdly specific requirements, like dual rear cameras, symmetrical bezels, and a punchout front camera, and refocuses on features that make or break the phone to end users.

I agree that the requirements should be pared down to the absolute least common denominator, but disagree that the headphone jack belongs in that category. You (and GP) surely have to recognize that at this point requiring a headphone jack is also a niche request.

That's just fiction phone manufacturers want to make true by repetition.

Bluetooth is the new line-in/out.

No. This software-controlled madness susceptible to interference from microwaves can't possibly be a replacement for just plugging things in. It's literally a Rube Goldberg machine for sending an audio signal between two devices that are a meter apart.

Phone are available with and without headphone jacks. The ones without sell better. The ship has sailed, move on.

Uhhhh no. Most phones lack headphone jacks these days, so of course the ones that still have them would sell "worse". The same can be said about screen sizes, there are no new phones smaller than 5" "because no one buys them". Of course no one buys something that no one sells.

There are myriad models available with headphone jacks. If it's an important feature to you, you have a lot of choice.

The best-selling mid-range phone in the world was the Samsung A51 if I'm not mistaken. I have one and it has a headphone jack. It's only the highest-end phones and tablets that don't have it.

> mid-range phone

I said "phones", without qualification. So while your factoid is interesting, it has little to do with what I wrote.

The fact that the lack of a headphone jack was normalized by Apple with the release of an iPhone 7 doesn't mean it's any less of a nonsensical idea. Unlike storage media, wireless can't supersede wired simply because each of these options has its own strengths and weaknesses and whether one is better than the other is highly subjective.

Everyone I know gets annoyed from time to time that their modern phones lack the jack.

A lot of people are willing to go without it because practically nobody makes smartphones with the jack any more. But given the choice of a phone with, say, 2% less battery and a jack vs. a phone with a slightly bigger battery and slightly better waterproofing... I'm pretty confident what more users would choose.

I am more concerned about the lack of a microSD card slot.

I'd love a microSD card slot as well. I suspect, though, that it's less popular a feature than the headphone jack. Until 2016, almost every single smartphone had a headphone jack. Maybe 50% of phones at best had microSD card slots.

That being said... the Xperia compact series is all the proof you need that a small phone can have it all. Good battery life, flagship camera (though understandably you won't have as many sensors as a giant phone), a headphone jack, a microSD card, good battery life, waterproofing, a fingerprint sensor...

It's such a shame that people continually insist that technology we HAD in 2012-2016 is impossible today. All I want is an Xperia Z3 Compact with modern bands and software support.

Hey! I got the Z3 Compact as well. Besides the medicore camera, it was a great device! Too bad mine died with some crappy Google app update (constant reboot loop). Happened on my Shield Tablet as well...

Why is the headphone jack so important? These days there are very good wireless earbuds. Except as FM antenna or to plug into legacy devices...

because it works (TM) everytime, no compatibility issues whatsoever.

Because I own nice headphones that I like to listen with, I like that they never run out, I like that I can plug them between my phone and my computer as I please instead of praying to the fickle bluetooth gods that they will sync.

It's not that I have never owned wireless headphones, in fact I am literally forced against my will to own and use them and am wearing them as I type. They have some convenience, but adding a headphone jack doesn't mean not being able to use bluetooth headphones - I should just be able to use both.

Reliability (no dropping 'pairing', no interference)

Security (no practical eavesdropping)

Simplicity (just plug the damn thing in and get a hard connection; the connected device is much simpler)

Options (nothing prevents having both Bluetooth AND headphone port)

The only reason it's eliminated is it's convenient for the manufacturers and they try to sell it as if we all want it, clearly a marketing lie.

>Security (no practical eavesdropping)

https://bestsecuritysearch.com/hackers-can-eavesdrop-victims...

Yes, there are ways to extract signal from almost anything.

Eavesdropping on either the output of the headphones or the audio data before it leaves the computer/phone is the same for wired vs Bluetooth. The latter seems to be the mode used in the (pretty coo) hack you posted - it's software attacking the Realtek chip, which must be driven by the wire, so exploiting the quasi-equivalence/reversability of speakers/microphones and the back signal from the speaker diaphragms.

This still requires access to get malware onto the device itself, and I'm more considering 'drive-by' or remote attacks in my comment.

To do this against a ~1m wire with millivolt signals without putting a clamp around the wire seems pretty tough in contrast to cracking a signal that is explicitly broadcast with not great security. Not only that, while eavesdropping the signals on the headphone wires will yield only a conversation in the room, which can be much more easily gathered directly, cracking a Bluetooth 2-way comms channel will yield much greater access to the device.

For most of us, neither is a concern, but it certainly is for people who do have real security needs, e.g., I've read that the current VPOTUS specifically uses wired headphones for this reason. Many people who also work with Classified information, Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), or just with business security issues have the same need. Failing to produce a device with this capability is a failure to address a key and leading market.

Because:

1. I already have nice earphones, I don't want to spend another $200-$250 for no reason (the going price of most wireless earbuds I've been interested in)

2. Way lower latency than bluetooth.

3. I have too many things to charge as it is. The reduced anxiety of having 1 less device to charge is worth something to me. I know USB-C to 3.5mm dongles exist, but a headphone jack is still better.

4. I oppose the idea of companies artificially taking out basic hardware features (that we've always had for 10+ years) just so they can force more disposable consumer goods to their users year after year.

Bluetooth is shit.

>>These days there are very good wireless earbuds.

Yes, and now I ended up in an idiotic situation where I have to have a pair for every device I own, because switching bluetooth connections is an unbelivable pain in the ass. No such problems with wired - you only need one pair, you plug them in, they work, end of story.

Not to mention issues like audio sync, which is just broken as hell. As an example, using top of the line headphones(sony MX4s) + a top of the line phone(Galaxy S21), audio isn't in sync with anything other than youtube. Playing games? Enjoy hearing your shots 1s after you fire them. And using them with windows? Now everything is slightly out of sync, because windows is a flaming pile of garbage when it comes to bluetooth audio.

It just works. Bluetooth does not.

Just to get the same audio quality in BT earbuds are going to set you (me) back 10x more compared to wired ones. And then what all the sibling comments said.

The USB-C-to-3.5mm dongles are bothersome, but they're not that bad. You buy one for each headphone you use, and expect to replace each of them once or twice a year. It sucks, but it has stopped the headphone jack being a /hard requirement/ and instead a nice-to-have.

If a smartphone is just the communication device for you, why don't you get Samsung Galaxy Xcover 4s?

I have a Pixel 4a, and I'm in agreement with you. I'm thinking about jumping to an iPhone Mini, however, even Apple doesn't seem to be making a new version of that....

i dunno what makes you think that. the iphone 13 mini was released alongside the other iphone 13's and is the latest gen. all signs point to apple releasing a mini version of the next iphone, too.

Yeah, I'm 100% switching to Apple on my next upgrade, probably the mini, but it's screen may be a tad too small. Either way, I've been with Android since the start, but I'm over it. They depreciate so fast.

My Pixel 3 is just a bit bigger then the iPhone 13 Mini... works great with Lineage OS... might have to change the battery in a year though (not looking forward to it).

I just replaced the battery on my pixel 3. I also replaced the USB C port, because it was cheap and the phone was open. It's pretty simple to do, just tedious. I would recommend buying a replacement back as well so you don't have to worry about keeping the glass intact.

I would love a smaller phone then the pixel 3 but I'll stick with this for now, it's my absolute max size.

thanks for the tips, will definitely try to replace the USB port and back when I do the battery. Is your phone still waterproof?

No not waterproof, but I didn't try very hard. I would sort of prefer the phone to be easier to open. I used t-7000 glue which seemed really good, the main spot I feel like is not waterproof is where the finger print reader attaches to the back panel, and the camera lense cover.

I might replace the fingerprint sensor if it's not too expensive because that's the part I'm having the most issues with...

Looks like it's less then 5 bucks. I bought everything from injuredgadgets. I'm sure there are other good places as well. Can't really review the battery, it's only been a couple days, but so far it's good.

Why only aim for 4 hours of screen on time? I understand the battery will be smaller too but so is the screen. I'd hope to see a bit more. Also, remember that most people won't care about thickness so much especially if it's rugged enough to not need a case.

But anyway good luck with the project! I backed the first Pebble and I'll probably use Beeper once it's fully available. You have a history of delivering on your promises. I just want to wait a bit to see how this one turns out in detail.

Thank you for taking initiative on this! As a 5'5" woman with small hands, I haven't had an android phone that I could use with one-hand since my Nexus 5 (which I used for 5 years straight). The current android flagships are unwieldy even with two-hands for me, and it's been just a quality of living downgrade ever since my Nexus 5 broke. I'm not into apple products myself, but I know many other women swear by the iphone mini since it's the only phone that fits their hands.

What did you think of the Pixel 5? It's only 0.5cm taller and otherwise more or less identical in dimensions.

I used a friend's once and it seemed fine! Taller height is generally more manageable. It's the lack of one-handed keyboard usability that irritates me the most with modern android phones, and that's more of a width thing.

I'm a fairly large person (185 cm and decent sized hands), but I prefer the mini, and in my Android days used the Xperia mini. I don't particularly want a large phone on a day-to-day basis.

Unfortunately it seems that it's a niche that doesn't generate enough revenue to get broader support.

I got the feeling, that niche markets could be lucrative if the middle man (retail) is left out. The internet is a very powerful tool in this regard. It brings together customers from all over the world.

I actually think the loss of retailers is part of the problem: without places to go and touch and play with things, we've become increasingly beholden to reviewers and shrill opinion factories to try and evaluate things. Niches, especially niches that rely on non-spec driven evaluation, wither and die.

5% of people who buy an iPhone think that the mini is a good choice, but literally every review or discussion of it is positively hysterical about battery life. If you haven't picked one up and handled it, you'd think that it offered no merit and was going to shut down 2 hours into the day.

A recent discussion on this at my work was centred around the notion that large phones don't generally fit in women's clothes pockets (when they have pockets), as the pockets tend to be smaller. There seems to be an inherent sexism in phone design (and clothing design, and many other things).

Overwhelming majority of women I know always carry a purse. I have yet to see a phone that doesn't fit into the smallest purse.

Maybe that's because women's clothing tends not to have pockets?

That is very culture dependent, I think. I don’t know a single woman who usually carries a purse! (I live in Norway. And maybe my acquaintances are unusual. But still.)

This is really interesting! I live in the UK. I know exactly one woman who doesn't carry a purse and to a big degree it is due to an injury.

Obviously, these are tradeoffs decided by the capitalistic (pseudo)majority. It’s not sexism. (And I have hands smaller than your average woman.)

I've been mostly wearing men's pants for the past few years to get past the pocket problem (skinny leg men's pants fit me pretty well and still have OK pockets). I'm probably in the minority though, most women just carry a pocketbook.

I'm a tall man with large hands and my S10 is uncomfortable. Just ordered an iPhone 13 mini after finding out that the Pixel 6a, my last hope for a small Android phone, will be big. This will be my first iOS phone despite 10+ years on Android. The situation is idiotic.

I have an iphone SE 2016 because I too felt that new Androids were too big, switched in 2019. If too many people are upset at the price maybe you could have an Android Mini-a like the Pixel line.

I had the first Pebble and have fond memories. I have high hopes for this!!!! I also love hardware but I never made it stick for work. I was one of the first engineers at Mesur.io, but things didn't work out.

My other thought would be to make this highly configurable; there is a large cohort of HN crowd who also want an un-Googled Android phone, myself included. There are no un-Googled small android phones, however with Project Treble many of them can run GSIs such as this most popular one https://github.com/phhusson/treble_experimentations/releases . Of course Lineage OS deserves a mention, maybe you could ship with that, build on what the community already offers.

The Unihertz line of phones deserves mention, but also scorn; they do NOT support their old hardware at all. The Jelly had 1 update to Android 8.1 and was left for dead. Additionally the system updater software included in the stock ROM was spyware. So unfortunately they were written off in my book.

Finally, I would like to see band 71 LTE availability for T-Mobile in the US. It really makes a big difference in the sticks. Unihertz does not support that, and for that reason I am sticking with my iPhone SE 2016 for the moment (until I find a small Android phone....)

Can't wait to hear more!

I always wondered about Unihertz. I almost considered one of their keyboard devices. Thanks for the heads-up.

Thanks for mentioning my GSI ^^

With regards to Unihertz, I'll add on top of what you said, that they are hiding behind ""crowdfunding"" to give non-existent customer support, while devices have already passed Google certifications months ahead (so my guess is that the device is actually already produced when they start the crowdfunding). In my case, the smartphone I ordered never arrived, and I never got any compensation for it, even though

However, hardware-wise, they aren't too bad, so once you managed to receive it, and you flashed a GSI on it, it's a rather acceptable experience. I know someone daily-driving a GSI (I think it's ProtonAOSP?) on Unihertz Jelly 2, and they are happy with it.

In my opinion, Unihertz small phones are fun, but /too/ small. As the article says, target would be 5-5.5" borderless, 4.5" in Jelly2's format, and I couldn't find any model that match. Closest is Xiaomi Qin 2 Pro (I have it, the form factor is really awesome), but it is too thin and thus its battery is abysmal. (If anyone is interested in Xiaomi Qin 2 Pro, yes it can run GSI just fine, but it requires a bit of work - feel free to send me an email for help)

I've never owned a better phone than the Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5G because it's substantially thinner and lighter than any other phone of that size. A smaller screen size may be nice but I've realised how much more I really care about the phone being thin and light. I don't even notice it in my back pocket. I'm now allergic to picking up the new heavy iPhones.

If the smaller screen wouldn't make the phone even thinner I probably wouldn't care enough to switch.

Thank you for working on this! I want to be honest, though, and say I think you're missing what the majority of users on this forum want in a small phone.

> Sub 6" display, matching size and design of iPhone 13 Mini

No, bad. What most of us want are the particular set of trade-offs made by phones around 2015. Design wise, that means that you've got to have another hole in the bezel, because there's going to be an earphone jack. That's apparently anathema for modern phones, but probably 90+% of us want it. Again, that's Hacker News specific. I haven't polled the market in general. I just know that I (and many others) won't consider buying your phone unless it has a jack.

Likewise, I have not much interest in a phone with a hole punched in the screen (?!) for a camera or an ugly "notch". I realize this is more controversial, but I don't know the last time I even used a front camera. I think it's more in keeping with the ideal 2015 design to make the bezel just large enough to contain a camera, speakers, light sensor, flash/LED, etc. I would reluctantly buy a phone with a camera hole if it was otherwise acceptable and there was no ideal option on the market.

I'd prefer if the back were completely flat as well, with no camera bump. That's totally just my aesthetic preference though, I don't know how others feel. I think it should be possible to achieve this if we're going back to not worshiping thinness, and making the small phone thicker for the sake of battery life.

I'd also prefer a 16x9 display to whatever Apple is doing now. So much web video is still 16x9.

> Design wise, that means that you've got to have another hole in the bezel, because there's going to be an earphone jack. That's apparently anathema for modern phones, but probably 90+% of us want it. Again, that's Hacker News specific. I haven't polled the market in general. I just know that I (and many others) won't consider buying your phone unless it has a jack.

Your jump from "I want" to "90+% of us want" is an egregious failure in reasoning. You say that you haven't polled the greater market, but you also haven't even polled HN.

That's fair. On the other hand, if there's a single issue with modern phones that gets HN users raging more than their size, it's the lack of a headphone jack. I don't think I've seen a single issue that's been more complained about. The dominant narrative on HN seems to be that even if one doesn't use headphones personally, the removal of the jack served no purpose other than to pad the pockets of Apple. (Someone even managed to modify their iPhone to add an internal jack without breaking it, so it was definitely possible for Apple to do so without compromises.)

This is a bias in what you notice, not what people care about. Some people care strongly about headphone jacks, but until you have data indicating that some==most, you shouldn't let that feeling turn into a population-based argument.

That's entirely possible, but this whole thread is based on exactly the same perception! The claim, possibly false, is that a sizable portion of HN users want small phones. That could be just visibility bias as well!

My comment is asserting that if we're assuming that the narrative on HN around small phones is not just sampling bias, then it's also good to assume that the narrative around a headphone jack is not just sampling bias. That means we have to believe that a large percentage of users looking for a small phone are also looking for a headphone jack - basically, what I called a "2015" design.

> The claim, possibly false, is that a sizable portion of HN users want small phones. That could be just visibility bias as well!

All you need to do is look at iPhone sales metrics. The iPhone 12 mini and SE2 collectively were 10+% of iPhone sales in the second half of 2020 and first half of 2021. 10% of iPhone sales is 24 million phones per year.

> if we're assuming that the narrative on HN around small phones is not just sampling bias

_We_ aren't. You shouldn't be assuming anything about some supposed narrative on HN at all, and you definitely shouldn't trust your own perceptions of such a narrative when you've already shown that you mentally translate "I and also I saw some comments some times" into "90+% of everyone here".

Such a narrative not only doesn't really exist, even if it did exist it still wouldn't matter, because, again, we have sales numbers for small iPhones that prove that people buy tens of millions of them annually when available.

> you mentally translate "I and also I saw some comments some times" into "90+% of everyone here"

First of all I said 90% of people here who are interested in a small Android phone, not 90% of everyone here.

Second, I feel you're trying to make me feel like I've gone insane and can't trust my own eyes by pretending that threads about the lack of a headphone jack don't routinely make the front page here [1] [2] [3] and that comments about the lack of a headphone jack don't routinely become the highest voted comments in any thread related to phones.

I don't think your point about iPhone sales holds any water, because you could just as easily show that people buy phones that have headphone jacks. The 12 mini is a smaller phone than the 12, so you could argue that some people who don't care about the size of their phone might be preferentially buying the mini! There's no way to make an airtight argument for either a headphone jack or a small phone as someone arguing on a forum, but I believe there are a lot of people who want both.

Moreover, my argument is that the removal of the jack was not done for any engineering reason, but for profit and aesthetics. Even if you are right that 50% of people would use a headphone jack instead of 90%, that's still a perfectly legitimate reason to include one.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18538881

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31356405

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17997487

No bad. I don't want those iritating headphone wires. Also a phone that doesn't mind being dropped in water, so no headphone jack please. Notch is not really an issue, front facing camera is useful for video-calls. And i don't have a camera bump, that's solved by the case. Also, no idea what i'd do with memory cards, there's plenty memory in the my phone.

The iphone 13 mini works well for me. No idea if this represents anybody elso on HN...

> Also a phone that doesn't mind being dropped in water, so no headphone jack please.

People have somehow managed to forget this, but phones have been waterproof since ... basically forever without forgoing a headphone jack. I could link probably half the phones made between 2012-2017, but this phone is actually linked by the site itself: https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/16/9549247/sony-xperia-z5-r...

Honestly, I'm not sure what the issue is supposed to be here. I've literally never, in 12 years of owning a smartphone, dropped it in water. I have no clue how that's even supposed to happen short of it falling into a river.

Since this is a small phone, I suspect most people will probably not be using a case that adds significantly to the size. Just a guess on my part though. I can live with a camera bump if I have to, I just think a lot of us miss the candy bar designs of ~2014-2015.

Some might want to do it on purpose… like recording videos in a pool or lake. I’ve done it with a 6S, it survived just fine.

The most common way that a phone gets into water is that a woman has the phone in her pocket and it falls into the toilet. Most women's clothing has extremely terrible pockets that cannot securely hold a modern-size smartphone.

I've never dropped a phone in water either, but what I did do was ride a motorbike in heavy rain with the smartphone as GPS and no case around it.

I am typing this from a waterproof phone with a USB C port and headphone jack. Yes, I have put it underwater. There were plenty of waterproof phones with headphone jacks before flagships dropped the port.

please reverse the order you list the phones in your last image... no reason other than it irks me that the lowest phone in the image is listed highest and vice versa

I would buy your phone, but I don't really like the iPhone mini industrial design. The square edges make it a bit hard to hold. I also don't mind if it's a bit larger than iPhone mini. Pixel 3/iPhone 13 size is my limit.

If nobody makes something like this, I'll likely switch to iPhone 14 when it's released.

At the moment it looks as if there will be no iPhone 14 Mini. You don't explicitely mention "Mini" here, but from context it looks as if you mean that. Just a heads up (and the reason why I bought a 13 Mini even though my old phone was still fine).

I bought a Palm Phone as soon as it came out, it is the perfect phone. Basically same size as the old Motorola Razr but even a bit thinner.

I'm very sad they discountinued it. I hope mine lasts forever or that either Palm or someone else fills this market gap for a small phone. If this initiative does it, thank you!

My highest requirement for a phone is that it easily fits into the front pocket of tight jeans so I can't ever even feel that it is there. The Palm Phone meets this requirement, haven't found anything else that does.

Sony dude. The screen ratio makes it feel small in the hand.

I'm curious why you say "After the Pixel 5". Isn't that still pretty current specs wise? I love mine. I too would like to know where I'm moving next, but I'm also quite content with its specs for likely awhile yet.

I’m in the same boat, though I like apple. I’d still go for an android phone if they made something really small though.

However, I think the era of small phones as we know it is over for now. The smallest we have is the Mini, and even that isn’t small.

In fact, I think the next version of the small phone will be flip phones. We already see this with the Samsung fold. I tried one and was pretty impressed, and I feel like this is the likely direction the industry may take.

However, I’m using my current phone for the next five or six years. I’m sure by then, the folding screen tech will improve a lot, and apple may even have their own version out by then.

If this phone allowed for 2 SIM cards, I would pay a silly amount of money for it

The Pixel 6a is supposed to be nearly the same size as the Pixel 5, I thought.

Samsung S22

I agree with you, but the Pixel 5 is barely a year old. Why did you move on so quickly?

I have baby hands, I am a dwarf.

With each generational increase of display size, The number of times I drop the phone over its lifetime increases proportionally. I've used android phones from 2.8" to 5.7" display as daily drivers over the past decade.

I assume, Many with small hands(palms) do face the issue of dropping phones, So I finding it quite surprising that 'Easily Repairable' wasn't included in neither 'Must have' nor 'Nice to have'.

Repairability is so important to me that, I have stopped buying new smartphones since 2017. My last/current phone has full-metal construction, is easily repairable, has security updates(sans proprietary blobs) via LineageOS and I'm planning to switch to a postmarketOS device from near-same generation for better security(Only bootloader is proprietary).

IMO in the age of Fairphone, there's no excuse for a non easily-repairable phone; Especially one which has community interests in mind. I wish you the best on this endeavor.

I’m not a dwarf, but I do have smaller than average hands and really struggle to type on a phone one handed. I dropped my phone a lot trying to balance it.

Have you come across pop sockets? Small collapsible self-adhesive handles for the back of your phone. They’ve made an absolutely massive usability difference to my phone usage (although I aim for the smallest handset I can get without compromising too much on quality anyway). Total game changer

I tried pop sockets on the phones of my friends, my fingers are too small and stubby that I felt I would drop the phone more by fiddling with it so I didn't use them.

Btw checkout Swiftkey's one-hand mode for typing, If you haven't already.

Thanks for referring to Fairphone. I didn't know they existed and am considering getting one.

Welcome, I assumed everyone knows about it here hence I didn't include much details about it[1].

Fairphone, Founded on the principles of ethical consumerism have consistently delivered on their promises which by itself is an extraordinary feat in the world of smartphones (or) consumer electronics in general.

Occasional but common criticisms on their devices from HN include specs not being competitive with flagships and build quality not up to expected levels(But newer devices have got good feedbacks on the build quality).

They are only available in EU + few other countries, If you don't live in their supported countries list then getting their phone might not be advisable as getting the parts easily for repair is their main USP(Besides telecom radio support).

So if you use phone as a utility and not as sustenance then Fairphone is a good choice if you can get it, Besides money goes to a socially-invested business.

[1] https://www.fairphone.com/en/

I have largish hands and I still find the pixel 6 painful to use due to its sheer weight. the pixel 3 really was the perfect size for me.

> pixel 6 painful to use due to its sheer weight

Weight is indeed and important factor. I recently held an iPhone13 Pro Max with acrylic case and was shocked by its weight,

iPhone13 Pro Max: 240g

Pixel 6: 207g

I hope that extra weight goes towards rigidity of the phone, Anyways its not intended for people with small hands.

What are your thoughs at the Zenphone 8? 5.92 is too big?

im using one now. and yes, i consider it too big to use one-handed without dropping it.

also, the physical buttons are way too easy to press. every time i hold it, i accidentally press something :(

5.5 inches is about the limit for me, with pretty avg hands, imo.

previous phones were sony xperia compacts. last one was xz2 compact and felt pretty good, though could have been a tad thinner/lighter.

I want headphone jack and SD card compatibility back, so I can store my audio library somewhere else (more reliable and less costly) other than the cloud, but phone makers are bent on disappointing customers and customers keep buying whatever junk they make and label as overpriced flagship devices.

Samsung S7 user here. Perfect phone. Good looking (silver one is awesome), no notches, great camera, good battery.... and perfect size. It's hard to accept for companies that they already achieved a great result, and only minor improvements need to be added. Maybe because if they would keep selling S7a, S7b, etc people wouldnt be so convinced to buy new ones so they need to make changes and somehow convince people the many changes are for the better... even if they aren't.

List of smaller Android phones with decent specs:

Pixel 5 - 144.7 x 70.4 x 8 mm

Samsung S22 - 146 x 70.6 x 7.6 mm

Zenfone 8 - 148 x 68.5 x 8.9 mm (could be higher thanks to narrower body)

Xiaomi 12X - 152.7 x 69.9 x 8.2 mm

Samsung S21 - 151.7 x 71.2 x 7.9 mm

S22 has almost identical dimensions as Pixel 5, so there is your upgrade. Personally I find all of these overpriced for what I need, I would be perfectly fine with 4A specs with better battery, so can't justify to upgrading to some of these.

Pixel 7 dimensions: 155.6 x 73.1 x 8.7mm

Pixel 7 Pro dimensions: 163 x 76.6 x 8.7mm

Pixel 6 dimensions: 158.6 x 74.8 x 8.9 mm

Pixel 6 Pro dimensions: 163.9 x 75.9 x 8.9 mm

When I broke my Pixel 5, I bought another one, even though the Pixel 6a was out at that point.

The Galaxy S22 has a similarly-sized screen, but the EU version is rubbish.

If you can make a phone I love as much as my Pebbles, I'll buy nothing else, forever. I guess confirming there's a market for it is the first step.

My phone requirements haven't changed much in the last ten years. I bought one of the first "phablet" phones with a comically oversized 5" screen that got me ribbed by friends ("compensating for something eh mate?") Now 5" is at the bottom of the available size range. I'm a smallish person/manlet and don't need a phone I'm going to drop, but I do need something big enough that I can reliably type on it.

I'll gladly support your endeavor. Thanks for taking the initiative.

edit: fine with me to make the phone thicc so it has a day+ battery life. A little thicker is far easier to hold on to, anyway!

edit2: I did own a Pixel 6 non-XL for about a day. It was large, but the bigger problem was that I found it incredibly topheavy, which made it difficult to hold on to. I swapped for a used 4a 5G, which is a well-balanced midsized device.

I think than some two of the prerequisites are the real problem :

* Great cameras

* Stock Android OS

There are plenty of recent small smartphones with a display under 6". But most of them use Android Go and a not-great camera. I have recently tested one, the Logicom Le Wave, a 60€ phone with a 4" display sold in Europe.

During my test, i have find Android Go 11 very reliable. It's even more easy to avoid using Google applications and to not link the phone to a Google account (by using F-Droid & Aurora Store) than Stock Android. There are also nice features for managing battery usage. That said the two cameras are indeed crap (but i do not take photos with a phone, for this i use a real cameras). My main problem with this phone is that it's also bad for... phoning: I mean than the sound quality is crap too.

I was probably unlucky with my choice, but there are plenty of alternatives for 4" to 6" smartphones. Search for "teenage" or "unbreakable" phones.

If the real objective is to have a light phone, who fit nicely in the pocket, than can be used one-handed and who won't fall out of the pocket while bicycling, then this sort of phones are perfectly fine. So my question is why the need of a good camera and stock Android ?

(For the main point, i agree with you, smartphones are becoming ridiculously too big)

By the way, I was interested in Beeper but it seems the airtables link to sign up blocks any ip addresses from Hong Kong. I just get a blank page when I try to sign up. Just bringing it up, I have noticed quite a few sites have blanket bans on HK ips but it's rather frustrating.

Jelly 2

Hi Eric, I'm a hardware startup guy myself (our paths have crossed) with the distinction that my own "very specific set of skills" has been honed at smartphone megacompanies and smartphone startups. OSOM, Essential, HTC, Samsung, Apple. I've designed and built a lot of phones. I'm building one now. I think this is a noble effort, I personally prefer pocketable phones too, but I think there are nigh-insurmountable hurdles in your paths forward.

- 1. Supply chain / component R&D -

You will be very, very hard pressed to source a pre-existing, high quality, non-exclusive 5.4" display with a hole punch. If you end up doing this as your own startup then you're going to start by trying to buy off the shelf parts to keep costs down. But that display you want is simply not on any of the development roadmaps for the major component manufacturers. The industry has its own momentum, and the component suppliers have also been looking at the trendlines so they are building bigger and bigger.

If you can't find the screen you want in a catalogue then you have to pay someone to build it. Convincing BOE et. al that your phone will sell enough to pay off R&D costs is unlikely, so be prepared to pay several million bucks in NRE to make it worth their time (it might still not be) and the wait a year for them to spin up the fabs. So ~$5M and 9-18 months later you have a display.

- 2. Big players are uninterested, not uninformed -

Big companies are drowning in market data. They know some people really, really want small phones. But it's a long-tail opportunity they're willfully ignoring, and people who need phones will still buy something even if reluctantly. I've been in the meetings, small phone advocacy goes nowhere.

Also I'm a little surprised you're hoping an online petition will work after your prior experience trying to influence your acquirers. I presume you saw the inside of Fitbit / Google and how decisions are made...

> and the component suppliers have also been looking at the trendlines so they are building bigger and bigger

but... aren't they influencing the trendlines by doing this? if the only things manufacturers make are bigger and bigger, they then get to use the sale of those bigger items as justification to continue to make bigger items?

Also seems a bit weird with more eco-awareness going on that some manufacturers wouldn't explore/embrace 'smaller' in some sense. At scale, it would mean less materials, less shipping, less warehouse space, etc. Apple made a huge stink about getting rid of a wall plug in their packaging, and... over hundreds of millions of units, that little bit doesn't hurt.

Wouldn't more 5" screens (vs 6"+) require less power, less weight/shipping, and less input materials?

iPhone mini is 3% of sale. That's the trend.

When did you see they promote mini? It's always the PRO since high margin is only there.

What about against the regular iphone 13? I think sales for that are something like 5x to 10x higher.

Good point, with caveats: What is the comparison of 13-non pro vs. 13 mini? When I almost bought an iPhone recently, the thing that made me hesitate to consider for so long was that the mini is not pro - I want 90/120 hz, and they made a substandard flagship and blame poor sales on size. However, if the non-pro-fat 13 has great sales, you have a point.

Second, it's only iphone. I hesitated for so long to consider it at all because it requires switching environments.

Is it even physically possible to fit all the high-end features in a mini? The 12 mini was panned for poor battery life and they just about got that fixed in the 13, but now you want 120 Hz (which will eat away battery life), someone else in here demanded all the cameras (which will take away internal space from battery), not to mention the difficulty of heat dissipation

And here's the rub. I personally don't need the telephoto lens on the mini. But I tell you, after experiencing high refresh rate on a phone, it is terribly difficult to go back.

Apple touts their variable refresh rate for better use of battery than competitors - surely they could put it on the mini and still get it through a day of use.

Yes, it is absolutely in a feedback loop. It's kind of bizarre to see up close.

The consumer hardware duopoly of Apple and Samsung are the only ones who seem to actually drive manufacturing trends. There are also tons of devices being made for the Chinese market, but you can't buy those because they're usually locked up in supplier agreements and honestly they don't meet "flagship" specs for display quality.

Component suppliers, true we-make-parts manufacturers, are not really trying to influence the big picture so much as make sure they are running their manufacturing lines at capacity. And if they are building panels on spec for open market sales, they are going to build >6" displays because it's a higher probability they'll actually sell at volume.

"Yes, it is absolutely in a feedback loop. It's kind of bizarre to see up close."

So supply chains behave like ecosystems.

In the natural world we see insects and animals develop things like bright plumage and big horns because the animal before them was successful in doing the same thing. This behavior can go on for a long time too. Then an asteroid hits (tantamount to bad economic times) and the fast moving generalists seem to succeed better than the highly adapted specialist.

I wonder if there isn't a third factor:

3. Android OEMs can't make a good small phone, even if there was the demand to produce it at scale

Because of how efficient Apple's SoCs are compared to Snapdragons, Android phones typically have much larger batteries than iPhones while getting about the same battery life. Big battery requires a big phone. The occasional somewhat small Android phone (for example Galaxy S10e) tends to have awful battery life.

Pixel 5 has great battery life. Note that none of the requirements are that it is some game machine or anything. Even less than top-tier chipsets are just fine for me. I just want a good camera in a pocketable form factor.

I think OP means that Android Phones with comparable battery life to an iOS device tend to have a larger battery to support that (when compared to the iPhone), which is more difficult with smaller enclosures (i.e. in a large phone it's easier to hide a large battery, and they don't scale entirely proportionally to screen size).

i.e. the Pixel 5 will last about 10% longer than an iPhone 12 on a single charge, but it achieves this with a battery that is about 45% bigger (2,800 mAh vs 4,080mAh). Both have the same size screen (in fact, the iPhone is slightly larger).

The camera is often the reason i end up with a phone that's way bigger than I'd otherwise like. The Pixel 6XL has the better camera but otherwise I'd have been all over the 6 (or smaller if it had they done anything in that space). My Pixel 4 still feels way better sized when i go back to it periodically.

The Pixel 5 is closer in size to an iPhone 13 than a 13 Mini. IIRC it’s nearly the exact same size as an iPhone 11 Pro.

There used to be plenty of small Android phones. They could make them again. Battery life or processor power might be a bit less, but they used to work fine. There's no good reason why they can't again.

There are small phones with decent battery performance in Android too. Zenfone 8 from last year is an example. But new small phones is a dying breed going forward with big players not interested in making them at all anymore. Only less known brands dab in making them or some budget phones.

You can make thick phone. Thick phones are much more pleasant to hold.

That's another thing I want from a phone that no OEM seems to want to make. Make the phone thicker, get rid of the camera bump, and fill the extra space with a bigger battery!

The ulephone power armor series sounds just like the phone for you.

My Unihertz Jelly2 is much smaller than TFA is asking for (and has a shitty camera plus midrange CPU making it disqualified), but battery life is Just Fine. Making the phone significantly larger should easily allow for a large enough battery for a flagship processor.

Not intending to start a storm here.

Why does the author want an Android? The iPhone mini would do the job right? I have a iPhone mini for the same reasons of size, premium feel and price.

It would be cool to hear what the founder of Pebble has to say about "why Android". Has he said it anywhere else?

Article:

> # Why don’t you just use an iPhone Mini?

> I actually do now! I switched from Android back to iPhone in late 2021 because the Pixel 6 was too ridiculously large. This was my first iPhone since the OG iPhone.

> But only 5% of all iPhones sold are Minis (roughly 10m phones per year). This means that Apple may decide to kill the Mini. For Apple, 10m phones is peanuts. But for an independent company 10m units per year would be spectacular.

> If Apple kills the Mini, those people will need a new home. An Android phone (with Beeper for iMessage) might be an adequate alternative.

[... snip ...]

I'll speak for myself, but I don't think that the iPhone Mini users that chose the iPhone Mini for it's form factor will switch to Android. Personally, I'm all-in on the Apple ecosystem. I prefer the Mini, but I would chose an iPhone 13 Pro over any Android (large or small).

From the website:

>[...] personally, after 6 months of iOS I am itching to get back to Android. Why? The notification system SUCKS on iOS compared to Android. It’s impossible to move files between apps. Hard to get any work done on it. Beautiful hardware though!

oh yes I remember reading this now.

Co-incidentally I was just glad today morning that iPhone doesn't show the row of small notification icons on the top-bar all the time. And then noticed that notifications don't show on the home screen also. I pulled down the notification list and saw a ton of notifications - I said no thanks and left them all unopened.

I did switch from Android to iPhone recently. I think notifications on iPhone are way better, I get distracted way lesser. Tho I don't get many important or time-sensitive notifications. Just a bunch of transactional notifications.

Remove all the crapware and you are generally back to a good battery life

S10e battery life was generally fine for me, always lasting at least one day of typical usage, even when I was on the go all day.

Talking about notch/hole-punch displays. As somebody who never ever uses front-facing camera, can I have a phone/display without such defects, please?

Yeah, no kidding. How much of the small phone demo overlaps with the selfie demo? I could go without a front camera.

"selfie"? Video-calls are especially normalized now, since the pandemic. My family and friends use video-calls more often than voice-only calls now.

You do that on the phone? I'd never.

And nobody I know has changed their communication. Discord, text, call. Everyone in my milieu is painfully average.

Nobody? I'm sort of in the same boat (I quite dislike video calls), but my extended family (from young to 60+) have started during pandemic and now continue to video call each other quite regularly - including group video calls.

As I said, not my preference and I rarely join, but for example my wife does video calls almost on a daily basis. So the "selfie" camera seems to be increasingly an important feature for the regular user.

I've seen it used once and to a disastrous result. I kinda feel like there are other workarounds too:

I remember one of the Motorola phones was designed for expansions, but that was pre-USB C. If you had a horizontally symmetrical phone, maybe widgets could solve the problem? Front facing and rear facing, while also being privacy respecting, no notch necessary, and similar resolution to boot. so maybe easier to source. Free up some room on the SOC and relieve some complexity while providing the added benefit of port protection. Presumably this could be applied to SD and obviously 3.5mm jacks.

> I've seen it used once

Ok, let's just accept now that you live in an isolated bubble, if your experience with video calls is "I've seen it used once and to a disastrous result."

I'm not denying your experience, but it's not the experience of the vast majority of the modern world now, across all categories of people. Many people may not use video calls regularly, but most people have had more experience than "seen it used once."

I don't think they do. Meets and Zooms seem to be the way people have gone, I hadn't even heard of phone video calls becoming more common before this thread, and my family definitely hasn't done it.

A lot of people on my circles have moved to Signal, and we do short video calls.

Front cameras are also useful for other stuff e.g. taking angled pictures with little visibility is much easier with the front facing camera because you can see what you're aiming at.

It can even take pictures in the dark because the display will be used as a floodlight, though in that case aiming doesn't really work unless the software brightening is sufficient to at least gain an idea.

Front camera also works as a mirror in a pinch, much easier than trying to aim the back camera then flipping the phone around and finding out how off you were.

Do people taking selfies even use the front camera? I feel like image quality is really rather poor for that use case but it's not my jam.

I love a small phone but I need the front cam for quick video calls.

Front camera, 3mm headset jack are must for me. If I could get a notification LED too... You might be able to get a lot of money out of me!

Indeed. Those notches, hole-punches etc, I could do without. I very much prefer to have a bit of bezel and have a proper screen (preferably even with angular corners, rather than rounded corners). This also helps when handing the phone to somebody else to show them something... they have a place to hold the darn thing without accidentally swiping, tapping, or - worst of all - hitting the back button.

Apparently, Android now has an option to emulate a bezel, thus hiding the hole-punch camera.

On my G7 Play with LineageOS, I was able to "disable" the notch -- that is, draw a black bar around it, and have a proper rectangular display with a full-width status bar right below it.

Works great, especially considering the display is not quite small enough for me in the first place.

You can do that with the stock Android too, once you've enabled the developer options in settings. The setting needed is "Display cutout" --> "Hide".

If you sum together the stuff people in this thread has suggested, you have the Homers Car of phones on your hands

It's this or a Youtube clip that's maybe monetized by Disney at best... https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer

The Homer was a car that Home Simpson built to exactly what they wanted without any tradeoffs for off the shelf components, trends, or sensibility of what currently was common.

It's also somewhat design by committee, with features like a more luxurious bubble for the adults, and a micro-bubble for the kids; presumably so you can ignore anything but the screams or silence.

I also suspect this fictional car might have been an ingredient in the market shifting from minivans to SUVs. Those don't have such great audio isolation but were even taller than the minivans (which were taller than station wagons). Or it could be the 'backup camera' finally reaching a tolerable price level.

I also suspect this fictional car might have been an ingredient in the market shifting from minivans to SUVs

The simpsons also did the canyonero:

https://youtu.be/PI_Jl5WFQkA

Didn't Homer buy the women's model? Was it the F-series?

I dont remember, I remember this as an end of episode gag/commentary on the suv’s rising popularity of the 90s

It's really just the iPhone 3GS.

...what stuff?

The suggestions I'm seeing are yes hole punch, no hole punch, a screen you can use with one hand, just enough battery-filled thickness to have no camera bump, good camera, microsd, fingerprint sensor, headphone jack.

And one person wants a keyboard but I don't think they're suggesting that for this phone.

Once you decide if you want a hole punch or not, I see no issue with implementing the rest of those features in the same phone in a reasonable way.

It probably wouldn't work well for a small phone, by my oppo has a pop up camera which works much better than I'd expected.

Majority of the time I enjoy a full screen experience with a tiny bezel. If I need the selfie cam it silently and very quickly is there.

I think they didn't catch on as they are complicated and inhibit IP68 ratings.

But I think I'll struggle to move on from it. The notches and hole punch cameras just look like an irritating defect when I use them.

No, because there are so few of people with your opinion that those types of phones will not sell enough to recoup costs, much less make a profit. At most, you can buy a phone with a pop-up camera (the OnePlus 7T Pro is nice, although a few years old now) [0].

[0] https://www.androidauthority.com/pop-up-camera-phones-slider...

The popup selfie cam on the 7pro is very, very good, because:

a) guaranteed not to be on until it's out

b) never eats screen space, ever

My current phone is a 7pro. I haven't seen a good replacement yet.

same. It's a shame OnePlus decided to drop the popup camera. They had a really solid mechanism. Going back to a screen with a notch or hole just feels primitive.

The hole punch is a nice to have. A phone with a case that was half the area of a pixel 6 pro, and also had a top bezel would still have a perfectly usable screen.

> Big companies are drowning in market data. They know some people really, really want small phones. But it's a long-tail opportunity they're willfully ignoring

I would argue that they don’t know what people want at all, since market data just reinforces previously held assumptions. For example if you surveyed people in 2006 what kind of phone they wanted, most consumers would probably ask for a better flip phone. It wasn’t until Apple came along and defined a new market that Smartphones even became a thing in the mainstream consciousness.

Smaller screened smartphones aren't a new market that needs to be defined though. Most people know what they are by virtue of having lived through the era that they were the only choice.

And as OP pointed out, Apple makes a smaller screened smartphone, so they exist. In some comment on this post someone said that it accounts for 3% of Apple's phone sales.

How big is the group of people that want a smaller smart phone but aren't willing or able to switch to Apple? Who knows. My intuition says not many, but maybe we'll find out through OP's efforts. I'm an iPhone user and the only reason I haven't switched to something like the iPhone Mini is because I want the better camera on the pro's.

Apple's limited success is not only a factor of the screen size but also market positioning. The mini is inferior in some specs to other iPhones but at the same time really high end as far as mobiles in general go. That makes it a niche product even if screen size was not a factor at all.

It targets people that have plenty of cash for a flagship but are willing to forego the top tier specs for a smaller size. Apple prefers you just buy the pro. And if you don't have much cash you can get the reheated 2017 iphone 8 with SE slapped on it :)

I bet if they made a mini T the price of an SE with a more limited camera and screen spec than the current mini it would take 50% of SE sales away.

You can't judge the market viability of one aspect based on a single model.

Even the small phone user base is probably fragmented between people who want a lower cost phone and people like me that want the Pro or better, just smaller.

Apple already has the SE for the low cost market. They have positioned the mini as the mid-range. What they're missing is a high-end small phone. I'd happily pay for it.

iPhone 13 mini.

Having said that, the specs of the SE are nothing to sneeze at.

It doesn't have the full camera.

Edit: I'm not sure what the disagreement is but it's objectively verifiable that the 13 Mini does not have the same camera setup as the 13 Pro.

The current SE isn't a small phone; it's a previous-era-of-design phone. It's a phone from before phones gave you as much screen as would fit on the front face of the body. If you want that, you can just buy any new-old-stock phone from 5 years ago; they're all cheap, they're all that size, and they're all (IMHO) painful to read or watch anything on.

A low-cost small phone would be the opposite of the SE: not good-specs, bad-screen; but rather all-screen, bad-specs. An iPhone Mini minus-minus.

Agreed, I think this is not only for the reason of cheap manufacturing (I doubt it's a lot cheaper than just reusing the iPhone XR case). I think it's just a conscious disincentivisation (word?) from Apple to avoid cannibalising their mainline models :) I'm surprised it's so popular, because I really don't miss the bezel. All-screen phones are a great advancement.

If I had an iPhone I would seriously miss the fingerprint scanner but this is not an issue on Android, the in-screen option works amazingly well.

The mini is inferior in some specs to other iPhones

I’m typing this on my iPhone 13 mini; saying it’s inferior to the rest of the iPhone 13 is an overstatement.

All of the core features are the same as they rest of the line.

Ironically it’s the largest iPhone I’ve owned, having upgraded from an iPhone 7 and a 6s before that.

There probably won’t be iPhone 14 mini, so I’m glad I was able to get this form factor before I had no choice.

They really had the room to put a x2 zoom camera on there though... what a shame they didn't.

The biggest issue for me is the battery. The first mini had horrible battery life, I know the 13 is better. The fact is I'm spoiled rotten with the Pro battery life and don't see the size winning me over.

Same—I just bought a new iPhone…I thought the mini was right for me, but after three days of using it, it was clear that the battery life was worse than my years-old Pro. So I returned it and got the Pro instead.

The other challenge was that I found it hard to go back to the smaller onscreen keyboard and display. I think I was deluded about my vision being as good as it was 10 years ago!

Try swipe typing, it really helps make small screens a lot more comfortable for me. I have one tiny Android phone with 2.5" display and it actually makes that one usable.

Wait, is the iPhone Mini larger than an iPhone 6/7/8?! I thought it was smaller.

iPhone mini is almost exactly the same size in the hand (2.5" width) as the iPhone4/5 and smaller than 6/7/8/SE (2.7" width) , but the screen coverage/diag is significantly larger than the SE (85%/5.4" vs 60%/4.7").

I think he meant diag screen size? The 11/12/13 are 6.1" while maxs are 6.7"

Yes, I meant diagonal screen size.

Dimensions in millimeters:

13: 71.5 x 146.7 x 7.65 13 Mini: 64.2 x 131.5 x 7.65 3rd gen SE: 67.3 x 138.4 x 7.3 1st gen SE: 58.6 x 123.8 x 7.6

I strongly prefer the 1st gen SE because it's significantly easier for me to use with one hand, it's got a completely flat back (no camera bulge), and it's got a headphone jack and home button.

All the same reasons for me. Plus I like cheap. I just bought a 3rd gen SE but only because my 7 was on its last legs. The idea that an iPhone 7 isn’t good enough anymore is just absolutely silly to me. I was hoping the 3rd gen SE would be a throwback in size and cost $300, but I didn’t get my wish.

I mean compared to the pro.

I would consider both flagship models, considering the pricing. For me mid-range is < 500€ (and normally way below that) so the iPhone SE doesn't even qualify here in Europe (it's 529€).

My current mid-range phone is a Samsung A52s which costs 329€.

But perhaps my long Android history has skewed my pricing concepts somewhat.

> The mini is inferior in some specs to other iPhones but at the same time really high end as far as mobiles in general go. That makes it a niche product even if screen size was not a factor at all.

I feel like it being smaller is a factor in it having inferior specs: much easier to fit a better camera etc into a larger body.

Indeed, I desperately want a smaller phone, but I heavily use the camera on my phone and in the end I decided I wasn't willing to give up camera quality for the iPhone Mini. So Apple's data may suggest that I don't want a small phone, but the reality is that I want a small phone that's actually as good as the big ones. No one has offered that.

My last couple of phone purchases have actually been camera purchases.

I got an iPhone XR for the low light performance of the camera, not because I needed a new phone.

I got a 13Pro for the cameras and lidar, not because I needed a new phone.

My reality is I want a great camera that fits in my pocket and is durable - that also makes calls, runs Signal, streams Spotify/AppleMusic, and has a usable web browser...

Same, I went from original SE to 11 pro max because of camera envy. Maybe once all of my kids are a bit older I won't care as much about the camera though.

None of the leaked specs (if real) for iPhone 14 include a "Mini" variant, so it looks like Apple killed theirs.

I'm going to buy a 13 Mini because of Apple's long term support, so it should last me a good few years.

I do not care if they do not make a new mini every year. I just want a mini available for purchase, and the 13 mini should be very capable for at least a few more years.

That might actually be what Apple is doing, skipping mini for 14, but not stopping mini forever. Sony did the same, there where Compacts of Z1, Z3 and Z5.

> How big is the group of people that want a smaller smart phone but aren't willing or able to switch to Apple?

It just feels like surely capturing 100% of the market for premium small Android phones (there really are none right now) must be at least as good as yet another large Android phone entering a market full of large Android phones.

I suspect there are two constraints working against mini mobiles:

1. The industry push for thin due to the consumer dislike of thick.

2. The invisible consumer expectation that smaller mobiles should be cheaper.

A mini screen with a fat body (large battery, good camera) is what many functionally oriented people should want, but cost and form will limit consumer desire and make it an extremely niche product?!?

Edit: I am thinking more Canon IXUS cross bred with a 20000mAh powerbank and stock Android One. In fact Canon or another reliable camera brand would be the perfect manufacturer. Fat and robust could work: sell the functionally ugly to practical tradesmen type? Unfortunately writer desires thin and light, which I don’t care about. No need for front-facing camera, instead put a 1” (4:3?) screen on the side of the main camera to allow for pointing/framing when doing selfies.

Functionally oriented people often have other constraints. I have tight constraints for mobiles: I am price sensitive (I break or lose phones), I want vanilla Android (manufacturer skinned often has broken upgrades & broken privacy & broken features), and I generally won’t buy products from extremely niche brands (unpredictable reliability, & trust issues).

* Small battery capacity

* Lower performance due to small battery and poorer heat dissipation

* No physical space to put top-tier camera

The battery doesn't have to be small if you're okay with moderate thickness. And a lot of power goes to the screen so that cancels out. To the extent that this is true, you're just restating "push for thin" and it's not a separate problem.

Lower performance than what? I'm not convinced that's a real issue unless you're trying to make a flagship.

Why couldn't you fit a top-tier camera? That's like a square centimeter.

> That's like a square centimeter.

I was thinking much larger optics and mechanicals, similar to a PowerShot N (except with modern video specs): Optical image stabilization, 8x optical zoom, 1/2.3" Sensor (6.17mm x 4.55 mm), Maximum aperture F3–5.9, Macro focus range 1cm. A real camera: even though I realise in the past there have been plenty of failed camera-phones in the marketplace!

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Canon+PowerShot+N+Teardown/6...

https://m.dpreview.com/products/canon/compacts/canon_n/speci...

Oh, well that's just a phone limitation, not a small phone limitation.

It's been tried. Although it could've been a better design, it didn't go over well.

https://thenextweb.com/news/bad-news-for-anyone-who-wanted-t...

¡Awesome! Even if shit execution, fugly, one-trick gimmick, with terrible branding.

* “Other manufacturers have managed to make a success of selling high-capacity smartphones. BlackView (and, for that matter, Ulephone, Doogee, and AGM) does especially well. Although they come with ginormous cells, they’re primarily designed to be hardy, and can take more of a beating than Mickey Rourke in the boxing ring.”

* “French smartphone manufacturer Avenir Telecom attempted to crowdfund the P18K on Indiegogo, but ultimately failed in a way that was previously unthinkable for a project that’s attracted so much press coverage and public interest. In total, Avenir Telecom ‘sold’ sixteen (absolute) units.”

* “there are people who would benefit from a phone with a 18,000 mAh battery. I’m talking about military users, people working in the oil and gas industry, famers, and even truckers. Avenir did nothing to cater to this valuable niche.”

* “The P18K, on the other hand, lacked waterproofing and shockproofing, making it thoroughly unsuitable for outdoor users.”

* “Avenir Telecom wanted €600 for a phone with the internals of a €200 phone. Without anything extra – like ruggedization – that’s a hard sell. It just didn’t represent good value for customers.”

* “Measuring several inches thick”

I was exaggerating a little by saying 20000mAh: about 5000 to 10000 would probably be sweet.

Also camera lenses on the P18K were not flush with reverse side - ugggh. There should be a proper shutter button (positioning and half-press to hold focus). Lenses needs protection eg. manual sliding shutter which when opened puts phone into camera mode (I have cracked mobile phone camera lenses).

Plenty of people want a proper waterproof camera (low light, macro, Tele, optical image stabilisation) in their pocket, and why not combine that with hardy mobile phone?

I can imagine making the screen plus battery plus the USB port all as a single user-replaceable part? Those are the usual culprits that get broken or need replacing.

Edit: Slight edits above for clarity. Also see Blackview Pro 11000mAh https://thenextweb.com/news/this-bonkers-chinese-phone-holds...

I think 20000mAh is achievable now. I have a 20k battery pack on my desk and it’s pocketable, if heavy. Much thinner than the Energizer phone. I’m picturing your phone design as an original Galaxy Fold, but solid instead of the hinge/internal screen. The chassis could fit more than a 10k battery easily, and the shape is simple to ruggedize.

> Avenir Telecom wanted €600 for a phone with the internals of a €200 phone.

This is the big issue. Avenue’s not to blame here. It’s unavoidable, the design is just too non-standard.

If you could get a military contract then it might work.

I love the big battery stuff but I don't see how it's profitable because powerbanks, powerbanks cases, and even magnetic or clipon wireless charging powerbanks exist and can cheaply be tailored to fit tons of phones. What benefit would a massive battery confer over a massive battery bank case. One that would be swappable / replaceable. I only recently gave up my S5 with a 10,000mAh extended battery. But with powerbanks and wireless charging it doesn't seem like a real market anymore.

> powerbanks, powerbanks cases, and even magnetic or clipon wireless charging powerbanks exist and can cheaply be tailored to fit tons of phones

This is true. This is also irrelevant if nobody actually does it. My nexus 7 tablet survived 6 years with a dead battery due to having qi charging. For every phone I've bought since then, I have searched for charging cases and not found even a single one at the time. This includes the moto e2, moto G5, moto G6, and my current Samsung phone (a32 or something, can't recall at the moment; it's the free T-Mobile 5g phone). Basically I wanted something that ideally supported wireless charging, but at minimum was semi-permanently attached to the charging port (charger built into the case itself to protect my port).

Apple has market data - they sold a premium small phone for two years. Rumors are that they will be discontinuing them this year.

It was almost premium. Still didn't had Pros camera.

Real example was Pixel until version 4. The only difference between smaller and bigger versions was the obvious screen and battery.

And Google also stopped selling smaller phones…

That’s splitting hairs. Premium ≠ Best in all components. And the iPhone 12 and 13 have sold pretty well by all reports so the screen size is the only differentiator feature wise. (And battery which is unavoidable)

non-mini iPhone 12/13 are sold well enough.

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - Henry Ford.

However, in this day and time when it comes to established tech such as a smart phone, sometimes the best way to 'innovate' might be to give people what they actually want. Sure not all companies can cater all niches. But hopefully someone will! Im also a small phone advocate.

Also horses that could run at 100mph for 5 hours at a time would be far better than early cars. They run on clean renewable fuel, have built in natural intelligence to avoid crashes and carry drunk drivers, and come in a variety of pleasing colors (not just black!).

The main benefit of cars was that if you delay maintenance your transportation doesn’t die.

The emissions weren't so pleasant, however!

But you do get self replication. Try wrapping your head around that feature.

By the time any consumer product offers self replication as a feature, would anyone even remember what smartphones were?

Have people not seen any sci fi with self replicating mechanicals? It never goes well. Humans wouldn't be around for very long to remember anything at all.

There will always be room for some horses.

> The emissions weren't so pleasant, however!

Do you mean from cars or horses? If the former, early automobiles were far cleaner than the animals they replaced (and still are). Cities faced huge issues with animal excrement and cars represented a cleaner alternative.

Obviously you can't do such a simplistic direct comparison between horse emissions and car emissions. How does leaded petrol play into this comparison, particulates, etc.

You're totally right, my comment was far too simplistic. However it captures the feelings at the time, cars at that time were far "cleaner" in that they smelled a lot better, did not clog streets with excrement etc

Obviously play the car out a few decades and the emissions were _not_ so clean.

Do you mean 10 mph?

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” - Henry Ford.

Just a note that this quote, and a similar one by Steve Jobs (‘Market research could never have given us the Macintosh’) are amongst the most misinterpreted in history. Most people see them as saying ‘market research is useless’ - what both were actually saying is that you need to take a new innovation to the customer and _then_ ask them what they think of it.

So no, don’t just flat out ask people what they want - but intuit and give people a little taste of what they could have - and then ask them what they think.

What people think say and do are 3 mostly unrelated things. so yes it really fits into whole life really.

There’s still a market for faster horses.

There's still a market for buggy whips too.

No VC firm is investing millions expecting a 100x return in buggy whip startups though.

No, but if you need a buggy whip, they are available in sufficient quantity relative to demand.

>For example if you surveyed people in 2006 what kind of phone they wanted, most consumers would probably ask for a better flip phone.

Better flip phone would be good too.

Samsung make one called the Z-flip. Way too expensive for me, but to me it's the better flip phone I've been waiting for since 2005!

I have the Z-Flip 3 and love it. It meets the 2 criteria of the post's 4 that matter to me:

1.fits nicely in pocket. I can sit down comfortably with it in a pair of jeans. No dodgy posture.

2. Won't fall out of my pocket

Its screen is also much less likely to break like has happened with all my old phones when they accidentally fall out of jacket pocket

Just don't drop it on the hinge.

Also the z-flip battery life is atrocious, and the CPU is old prev gen tech.

I really want a top tier foldable.

I too want a foldable with the latest generation tech but is that available today?

At the time I bought the z-flip 3 my understanding was that the tradeoff was unavoidable. My opinion at the time of purchase was that the incremental benefit of the latest version of CPU, camera and battery were pretty marginal relative to the large benefit from the unique form factor.

I'm not currently in the market but that could well have changed if new foldables have since been released.

Unfortunately it has been tested. Rumors say that there won't be an iPhone 14 mini. (Sent from an iPhone 12 mini).

"They" say that people just don't by the smaller iPhone. People always go for the larger + cheaper thing.

Apple has weird economics where I'm sure they profit handsomely from iPhone Mini, but they tend to get rid of things if they don't make $10b annually.

Slate phones were already a trend before the iPhone.

> most consumers would probably ask for a better flip phone

I'm not sure about that, sidekicks, plan and blackberry were pretty popular and gaining a lot of mainstream interest for modern 'smartphone' type things

I’ve owned smart phones since the treo.

I’ve owned blackberry phones, windows mobile, even a palm pre.

I’ve had nearly every iPhone since launch.

I’m on an iPhone 13 Pro Max.

Nothing makes me yearn for a smaller screen.

I held an iPhone 3G in my hand last week after finding it in a drawer and was amazed at how it felt too small to be really useful these days.

My gal has a 13 pro max.

My folks have larger phones.

My siblings have larger phones.

My friends, colleagues, business partners, clients, all have larger phones.

The biggest complaint I hear is battery life.

I hope small screen fans find what they want but I do not believe it’s a big market.

The reason it's not a big market is that if glove-sizing worked the same way as phones, you'd have people with small glove size walking around in ginormous gloves. That's not the case because glove sizing actually behaves rationally, as opposed to truck-sizing, where every human in America wants a ginormous truck regardless of their actual need. Sadly, phones follow trucks, not gloves, because the former is ego-driven, not need-driven. Apple deserves credit for recognizing the counter-example to its own market presence and engages fully around it while no competitor follows suit.

Agreed. When I bought the original Samsung Galaxy Note, my friends all thought it was hilariously, ridiculously, impractically large. It was smaller than my current Pixel 5.

Yes, this phone is hard to use one handed, but the value of the large screen outweighs everything else.

Last month I had to use an Essentials PH-1 phone for a day while i waited for a new phone. It was the perfect size for me and the build quality was really nice. Unfortunately, the OS was outdate and the specs not as high. It has 4GB RAM, Snapdragon 825, 13MP camera @ 2160p and a 5.7" display.

It looked premium, it felt premium and was the perfect size. If someone could pack more punch with specs in that phone I would buy it for even $1k.

I suspect that part of the problem is that, as measured by actual purchases, people don't really prioritize small size and displays that much.

Look at how long all of the requirement lists posted around these threads are. Some people really want a nice camera, some a headphone jack, some a SD card or big battery etc. I would expect that it's a fact of life in a small phone that you can't fit everything anyone might want, but everyone has a different list of must-haves, making it much harder to make one device that all of the small-phone-wanter market will actually buy.

And price. If you really want some one-off thing, you've gotta pay more for it. Would you pay $2k, $3k, more for a great small phone? Seems likely that such prices would help a lot at getting them made. But in reality, people seem to refuse to pay more than a modest markup over the mainstream model with tens of millions produced. Sorry folks, I don't think it works like that.

> Some people really want a nice camera, some a headphone jack, some a SD card or big battery etc

We used to have these things in small form factors. Those of us annoyed by where the big companies forced the direction of development are mostly very aware that things have regressed hard.

> But in reality, people seem to refuse to pay more than a modest markup over the mainstream model with tens of millions produced

Worse, they expect it to be cheaper since "it has less screen and battery it must be cheaper to make!"

> people who need phones will still buy something even if reluctantly

I'll be blunt: no I won't. I reluctantly bought the phone I still use (a moto X4) back in 2019, at which point it was already getting old. It was one of the smaller Android phones available at the time; I measured it diagonally corner to corner (including bezel) at 159 mm (6.26 inches). The screen size is 130 mm (5.2 in) according to Wikipedia. This phone is in fact much too big for me, and I'm not happy with it.

But I will be sticking with this phone into the indefinite future: until it breaks, becomes unusable, or a worthy replacement arises (a phone the size of the Nexus 5X or preferably smaller, with my must-have features). In the event I can't get this I will switch to a cheap feature phone since I need something for emergency use. I'll look into the mp3 player market to see if there's something I can use for playing music and audio books, maybe if I'm lucky there's something with a nice screen and an e-reader.

I'm sure you're right and some people are more willing to compromise than me. However, what also seems likely is that many people are somewhere in between and will wait until their current phone is unusable before reluctantly downgrading to whatever the latest model is. Surely plenty of sales are lost due to this.

> In the event I can't get this I will switch to a cheap feature phone since I need something for emergency use.

I tried switching to a feature phone and was surprised how often I use a smartphone; and how many people, banks, government organizations, restaurants, etc, assume that you have one.

Yes. COVID contact tracing in New Zealand nearly completely relied on QR-code sign-ins with an ios or android app, for example. My company has an app to manage my sick/annual leave in. Sure, there are fallbacks, but they're inconvenient and time or energy intensive in a way a phone isn't.

There are vanishingly small numbers of people who will insist on a perfect-or-nothing approach to smartphones. This market segment is unserviceable. Sure, the size will be right, but it won't have the right battery size, or the battery has to be swappable on-the-go, or it didn't have quite the right sd card option, or maybe the software isn't 'polished' enough, or it had to have two headphone jacks. There will be something 'not good enough' and therefore it's passed over even though they want a 'small' phone.

I'm sure there are people like that, but to be clear, I'm not one of them. There are many irritations I have with modern smartphones, but I'm willing to put up with all of them if necessary except 2: must be small enough, must have headphone jack. I'll buy any LineageOS capable phone that meets those criteria.

Right, but those are your specific requirements, the next person will insist on dual-sim. LineageOS capability is another piece that requires work, the headphone jack might be too hard for a small-scale small-phone manufacturing line as well, since someone else will require that it's waterproof.

There is a smartphone that meets the needs of a small-phone purchaser, after all, if small is the requirement - the iphone mini. But purchasing that would require some compromise on your hardline requirements, which will be different to someone else's hardline requirements such as a swappable battery.

Exactly. I've long dreamt of a "dumb" phone that has a text-only screen, can do text and calls, have a great camera, and also do WhatsApp (text only) because that's an important mode of communication for me. But those are *my* requirements, so I know it's not going to be built because hardly anyone will have my exact requirements.

> until it breaks, becomes unusable

I decided to die on a different hill-- physical keyboard. The blackberry keytwo wasn't perfect but it was definitely one of my favorite devices I've ever owned.

And now AT&T will no longer support phone calls on it. Planned obsolescence isn't so easy to run and hide from. They will dash your usable, friendly, pleasing devices from your hands and sneer at you for daring to want better.

PinePhone is the only phone I know of with a keyboard. It has lots of other issues that you might not be able to accept, but it is an option.

Smart phones are too useful and becoming too ingrained to life for the vast majority of people to not buy a phone off some sort.

Yeah, due to the ever-increasing difficulty of buying reasonably-sized phones, I've been keeping my phone longer and longer, well past the point of lag and annoyance where I'd prefer to buy a new one.... because there is no new one that I want. They're too big. They're worse for me than an out-of-support old phone that limps along and may require a third-party OS.

All told, I've probably bought less than half as many phones as I'd prefer. Yes, I do eventually buy one because they effectively are required nowadays, but that's quite a lot of money that isn't going into these company's hands.

Meanwhile, the rest of the market also seems to be lengthening their time between phone purchases..... and phone manufacturers respond by releasing bigger and more expensive phones year over year over year. I won't try to claim it's the majority of the cause, but surely there's some connection between those two.

Among smartphone customers, what do you think the numbers are for customers who prefer a big phone vs a little phone?

99/1?

90/10?

80/20?

I don’t know this myself. But I figure that if no one is stepping into this market, it’s probably pretty damn small.

I'm not sure why you're asking me, but the OP's site says that 5% of iPhone orders (10 million phones a year) are the mini. That's quite a large market in absolute terms.

I'd prefer the mini, but want a better camera.

If the camera were the same, I suspect many, many more people would buy the mini.

See post above re: manufacturers.

I think this is at least partially a feedback loop issue. There aren't manufacturers even making small screens, and the time/cost of doing that isn't seen as worth investing in... because... look at what's selling - larger screens! - which are the only thing we're selling because... look at what's selling!

A small niche player that wants to try a different form factor/size isn't practically able to enter the market with anything but commodity screens.

> a phone the size of the Nexus 5X or preferably smaller

...so, a current flagship? Samsung's Galaxy S22 is smaller than both the Moto X4 and Nexus 5X.

Size comparison: https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Google-Nexus-5X,Motor...

In general, phone sizes have stayed roughly constant since the Nexus 5X, though the displays are getting bigger as the bezels get smaller.

Aha, you got me. I really should have specified that Nexus 5X was also too big.

Moreover, the specification that actually matters for one-handed phone users is the distance between the bottom corner of the phone (where it's held in the hand) and the top opposite corner of the screen, not the top corner of the phone. That's because that point is the furthest you'd ever need to stretch your thumb to use the phone. So actually, the displays getting bigger as the bezels get smaller has been part of the problem.

If you look at the Nexus 5X [1] you'll see that it has an enormous (by modern standards) top bezel. By comparison, a phone like the S22 has basically no bezel at all and will be much harder to use one-handed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nexus_5X

I actually used to be worried about the exact points you're making, as I used an iPhone 4 for years (which is tiny by today's standards).

However, in practice 'not being able to reach the whole screen with my thumb' hasn't turned out to be a big problem: navigation elements at the top of the screen tend to be less-used (as app devs also take into account that it's a hassle to reach them). If I really need to use them one-handed, I can always 'scoot' my hand up a bit. (I can see how this is harder if you have smaller hands, though.)

A larger screen also actually turns out to be quite nice, as more content fits on it (I'm actually writing this comment on my phone).

> However, in practice 'not being able to reach the whole screen with my thumb' hasn't turned out to be a big problem: navigation elements at the top of the screen tend to be less-used

If that's true, then app devs are thoroughly incompetent at it. Take a look at at Chrome on Android. The address bar, tab menu, and settings bar are all at the top of the screen. In 2021, Apple made the same change for Safari, moving the address bar from the bottom of the screen to the top [1]. The tab grid Chrome's push for tab grid [2] made it even worse, because depending on the tab, you may need to reach across the entire diagonal the reach the tab you want. Firefox has the option of putting the address bar at the bottom (and if so, the tabs show near the bottom as well), but the navigation buttons for bookmarks are near the top of the screen.

I don't think mobile developers think about one-handed phone use at all. Based on the designs used, with interactions bouncing all around the screen, it doesn't seem to be a concern at all. Perhaps they assume that everybody holds a phone with one hand and then touches the screen with the other hand.

[0] https://images.idgesg.net/images/article/2022/02/05-chrome-a...

[1] https://9to5mac.com/2021/08/17/ios-15-beta-6-redesigns-safar...

[2] https://m-cdn.phonearena.com/images/articles/372064-940/Scre...

In Android 12, Settings → System → Gestures → One-handed mode is helpful.

> > people who need phones will still buy something even if reluctantly

> I'll be blunt: no I won't.

Agreed. I used my 2005 Motorola Razr until 2020 because I have zero interest in an inconveniently large phone. When the Palm Phone came out I got it as a perfectly-sized replacement.

I won't ever go to a larger phone because if it doesn't fit my pocket, what's the point? Might as well not have one.

People who will happily continue using 15-year-old hardware are not a great market segment to target.

There's that, but happily isn't the word. Every year I'd go on a research spree to find a replacement but it had to be as small or smaller. Every year I came up empty so eked out another year on the old phone.

I'd happily replace more often if only palm-sized or smaller phones were available. I'm not particularly price sensitive either, I'll pay top premium price to get a conveniently-sized phone if someone is willing to sell it to me.

It's not always happily. There is no upgrade path for my S10e.

I had the same situation with the S10e. I don't know how it compares to the Moto X4, but with the increased sized phones I have no interest in a new Android.

I only got this one because I couldn't find one smaller.

At the current rate I would have to move to iPhone just to stay a similar size.

> some people are more willing to compromise than me

s/some/most/

> people who need phones will still buy something even if reluctantly

> until it breaks, becomes unusable

You say no, but then you give two cases in which you would be a person who needs a phone who would grudgingly buy something.

> Big companies are drowning in market data. They know some people really, really want small phones. But it's a long-tail opportunity they're willfully ignoring, and people who need phones will still buy something even if reluctantly. I've been in the meetings, small phone advocacy goes nowhere.

I love my iPhone 12 mini and prefer the form factor, but will go bigger, because of battery life.

The iPhone 13 Mini improved battery life significantly. The A15 series is significantly more efficient and they managed to increase the battery capacity. It should last somewhere in the range of 30% longer than the 12 Mini.

“and people who need phones will still buy something even if reluctantly“

So true... And my anecdotal observation suggest another detail that makes small unattractive to brands: the way my social circles happen to be, I crossed path with plenty of owners of various incarnations of the Xperia Compact (r.i.p.). If my observations where representative, the Compacts would come close to outnumbering iPhones. They all wanted a small phone, somewhat waterproof and with a reasonably good camera. Almost all of them identifying strongly with some outdoor hobby like cycling or rock climbing, but wouldn't want a dedicated "outdoor" or "sports" phone. So far so good, looks like a pattern. But they have another thing in common: none of them would ever consider buying a high end phone (the Compacts were, or reasonably close) at or near release price.

> You will be very, very hard pressed to source a pre-existing, high quality, non-exclusive 5.4" display with a hole punch

How about getting one of those foldable screens in the larger standard size, and then just... tucking away the excess inside the phone body?

Y'know, like the marketing material for the iPhone X claimed it was doing: https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-0fd6daf2b9b742bf5dbf10... (though it actually wasn't.)

You helped design the HTC EVO 3D!! I loved that phone what a great design.

Thanks for the kind words! I love the "helped" preface because it's exactly right, design is a team sport and I strongly believe in giving credit where due. Ben Chen (https://www.benchendesign.com/) was the creative lead on EVO 3D. I lead the technical side of the design for that one but he set the vision and the aesthetic. Great dude to work with too.

probably because eric has a history of pd from a customer frustration pov whereas your well articulated explanation mainly represents manufacturers' pov.

btw, such kind of math-checks-out logic is what keeps someone from developing the iphone in 2004. everything about mobile then made sense...to carriers and manufacturers.

I go to aliexpress, and I see a number of 4" screens. Some even come with capacitive touch sensors mounted on top.

Yes, they are low-resolution by today's standards, something like 800x480. Still, they are available for those who might be considering to produce a really compact phone. Instead, they go to high-end coffee machines and the like, and to RPi tinkerers.

My hunch that the limiting factor would mostly be the battery. Modern radios and modern CPUs and GPUs consume more, and you don't want to market a very slow phone, or a phone that has 6 hours of daily usage worth of battery. And you can't hide as much battery behind a small screen.

> You will be very, very hard pressed to source a pre-existing, high quality, non-exclusive 5.4" display with a hole punch.

I think GP probably needs to be more flexible about their "must-have"'s. If you could get a nice phone with a small screen, would a small bezel on top for a camera be such a disaster?

All the comments about how it will be too expensive and difficult to source unusually sized parts make me wonder how they make something like the Hammerhead Karoo for $400 - an android device with a 3.2" sunlight readable reflective screen (supposedly even more expensive), custom software. etc. Is the market for a bike computer so much larger than that for a smaller phone? I don't think they're burning VC, it was crowdfunded IIRC.

“matching size and design of iPhone 13 Mini”

So, by all accounts, the iPhone mini has been an extremely slow seller.

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/21/iphone-13-mini-unpopula...

Why would that form factor succeed in the Android space?

---

I see these meme on tech sites all the time: “oh phones are too big I just want something simple”. That is a valid sentiment that I think is shared by basically no average consumer. For a lot of people, phones are their primary computing devices, so a big screen is nice there. Bigger phones allow for more battery capacity. Aging populations like them because you can use screen zoom features to really blow up that text size without making the effective viewport too small.

And…people just like big stuff. I know that’s simplistic and a little condescending, but then look at SUV and truck sales.

Another under-mentioned reason is that iPhones have more efficient processors that generate less heat, and also need less RAM to perform equivalently.

Whereas, fitting a top-line Snapdragon into a small phone is a challenge. There’s a reason why top-tier phones have copper heatpipes, vapor chambers, and so on. All things no iPhone has or needs.

You could still do a small Android phone, but you might have to abandon the idea of including a Snapdragon 8.

I touch on this on the site. 5% of iPhones sold are minis. That's 10m sold per year! That is more than enough demand to cover the NREs and costs of making a phone.

* https://9to5mac.com/2022/04/21/cirp-iphone-13-best-selling-l...

5% seems quite small and not worth the trouble. It might be worth it if a small phone generated 5% in additional sales, but most people buying a small iPhone would likely buy a normal-sized iPhone if no small version was available rather than making the switch to Android.

The point is that 5% (or 10m phones) does not make sense for Apple to continue to build, but that has no relation to whether it's worth it to another company.

5% of 100 phones is 5 phones.

5% of 200,000,000 is 10,000,000.

5% can be a huge number, or a tiny number, depending on what it's 5% of.

I switched from Android to Apple specifically for the iPhone mini, and if they killed it, I would switch to the smallest phone on the market.

My point is that 5% is probably an irrelevant number because it’s not 5% additional sales. If the mini wasn’t available, many people would get a normal iPhone instead of switch to Android. So the net sales is closer to 0. Apple seems to agree with this sentiment and there will be no mini starting with the iPhone 14: https://9to5mac.com/2022/03/14/exclusive-iphone-14-coming-in...

Good luck with your switch.

That's why I picked up an iPhone 13 Mini. It's a really great phone and when I need a new phone six years from now, I'm hoping there's something as good to replace it.

Phone sales aren’t driven by switching, and haven’t been for a while, they’re about upgrading. Apple knows this better than anyone.

For example: I upgrade my phone every two years or so, so long as I like the new phones. If I don’t like the new phones, I wait as long as possible.

People that like smaller phones won’t necessarily leave the iPhone if they kill the Mini - they will just keep their current phones for as long as possible. And that can indeed hurt sales, even if Apple doesn’t lose market share.

I switched to Apple after 10 years of using Android. Wanted to have a good and small phone, which the 12 mini is.

Was a hard decision, because my Android was rooted with LineageOS, was able to block ads and all kinds of nice things.

But ultimately, it just pissed me off too much to carry around a bulky phone (Fairphone 3).

Fairly happy with the 12 mini, just don't like the Apple ecosystem that much.

Is there a world where the iPhone mini is necessary or desirable when the iPhone SE also exists? I don't see a need for both, especially when they run the same processor under the hood.

Optics on the 13 mini are significantly better!

Doesn't the SE have an significantly worse & smaller screen (not to mention camera), although it's a slightly larger package?

SE is clearly a 'budget' (at least for apple) phone. Some people really want a small phone that isn't.

The mini is a flagship phone with flagship specs and better design.

The newest SE is substantially larger and worse.

I love my mini, but it’s also clear this is the last one.

The current SE is bigger than the mini.

I use an iPhone SE 2016, which uses the same chassis as the iPhone 5/5s.

I tried an iPhone 6S for a year before I got this phone. Couldn't stand the size. The current SE is the same size as the 6S. I'm basically stuck at a dead-end of phone size.

The current SE is not compact by historical standards. I'm not saying all phones need to be smaller, I just want one decent option.

The iPhone SE is a full-sized phone. It just happens to be obsolete in the marketplace, and the other full-sized phones it competes against have become even fuller sized.

If the iPhone mini is managing to capture all of the "I want a small flagship phone" market, it's worth it. As long as the Mini exists, it's impossible for other manufacturers to try and compete.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagship

There is no such thing as a small flagship.

If we're talking about actual ships, USS Constitution is tiny compared to most US Navy ships ;)

(Not sure how good this example is, but anyway - flagship doesn't have to be physically giant.)

It would probably be useful to read the whole article that one links to, because there's no flagship small enough to fit in your pocket, unless...:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flagship#Flagship_as_metaphor

Now, whether an iPhone Mini fits into that metaphor can be debated, but it's just a metaphor, after all. :-)

Your argument suggests that there are actually 2 smart phone markets. One for iPhones, one for everything else. I think this is a fairly reasonable assumption for the majority of consumers.

Let's assume very few people are switching ecosystems at this point based on form factor. That would mean Apple made a new product to cannibalize 5% of their existing market. No similar product exists in the android ecosystem. It seems reasonable that an android phone maker could get similar market share but have these sales come from a combination of their existing sales and competitors sales.

I know more than a few people who got Iphones only because there were no or too hard to find Android phones in a smaller form factor. I wouldn't be surprised if at least half of that 5% would switch back in the no-mini scenario

>That is more than enough demand to cover the NREs and costs of making a phone.

Then why is Apple dropping it ?

because covering costs is not the same as maximizing profit

I half suspect that Apple will be coming back with another small phone a few years down the line and then a cycle will continue where they will always have something like an SE or mini, but it won't ever be flagship level.

I feel like that has been the problem with the Mini. I love mine (which I got because I was fed up with Pixel and Android in general), but I know I only have it because I got in at the right time. My wife bought an iPhone at the wrong time and hers is comically large. She would have happily bought an iPhone Mini if it had been available that year. By the time she needs a new iPhone, it will be another year where the only options are gigantic.

Agreed. I hope the rumors are false and that they'll continue to make the Mini. However, 5% does not mean much if market research proves that those people would buy a regular iPhone anyway if they drop the Mini.

I think there is also some competition with the iPhone SE. Even though the Mini is not intended to be a budget phone, it is 100 Euro cheaper than the non-mini. So, I can imagine a chunk of people would buy it for its lower price if the iPhone SE didn't exist. Even more if you consider that the Mini actually has a larger screen than the SE.

It's as good as guaranteed that the mini won't be returning this year - dummy models of the upcoming line which are used to size cases have made their way to the usual leakers, and even before that the front panels of the line were leaked. No mini, unfortunately :/

That said, Apple does tend to keep their designs for a fair while, so it's possible there will be one next year, or that it will become the new SE at some point.

I really really want a Pro Mini :(

You won't get one, unfortunately, both because there's no motivation for Apple to make it, and because battery life would be an insurmountable issue, at least with current tech. The battery life in the Mini is already significantly inferior to the other iPhones in the line; Apple's only going to be willing to push that so far before it's an obviously-compromised product and they would just refuse to ship it.

I'd be fine if they made it a biennial release. I don't need to upgrade my phone more than that anyway.

I feel like my plan right now is to hope with the iPhone 14 launch, the 13 mini will continue to be sold with a price drop, and then I'll upgrade my 12 mini to the 13 mini and get the battery improvement. I love the size of this phone and hope I'm never forced back to the gigantic "normal-sized" phones that we've gotten stuck with the past decade.

Hold on; the math is not that easy.

For one - most of the iPhone Mini sale is because of 'Halo effect', die hard fans who anyway would have bought an iPhone, bought the mini version. An Android phone maker will not have that brand pull or halo effect to establish a new category, so it would be no where near that 10M number.

Second, iPhone or Mac devices are known for hardware and software integration. That translates among other things to good battery life (similar to RAM. Apple never talks about RAM).

iPhone Mini has been weak in battery department [1], one of the factor in its low sale as compared to bigger device. A Mini Android device will have mini batteries, that means it will have no chance in h* to last through the day - the minimum requirement in this day and age.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/20/apple-iph....

If you’re a diehard fan why would you buy a subpar phone, and not the latest flagship? Smaller phones imply less usage because some things aren’t as pleasant as on a bigger screen.

I guess I am a diehard fan of only small iPhones, as since 2007 my lineup has been: iPhone 3, iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4, iPhone 5, iPhone SE, and currently 12 Mini.

As far as I am concerned, the mini IS the flagship. I would never even consider buying one of the larger models, as I consider them to be subpar, unpleasant devices to carry and to use. I'd choose to carry no phone over having to carry a full-sized phone, they have become too large to be considered conveniently portable.

For me, the perfect smart phone would be the same size and shape as a credit card, edge-to-edge screen on all sides, and approximately 3mm thick. And it would run iOS of course.

The mini line up is not “subpar.” There is utility in a smaller form factor that is equal to or greater than the the value of the better specs in a large form factor. If that weren’t true then everyone would be walking around with an iPad instead of an iPhone.

> most of the iPhone Mini sale is because of 'Halo effect', die hard fans who anyway would have bought an iPhone, bought the mini version.

Citation needed? A lot of people love to jump to the conclusion that nobody wants small phones. My personal experience does not align with that conclusion. I'm happy to accept this conclusion if you have some kind of evidence for it, but the linked article just discusses battery life, which was greatly improved in the iPhone 13 Mini anyway.

> iPhone Mini has been weak in battery department

might have been true for mini 12, but mini 13 has amazing battery life, certainly nothing like 2020 SE which is truly abysmal.

> it will have no chance in h* to last through the day

My previous Xperia Compact, which is of about the same dimensions as mini, survived for a couple of days easily when new.

> iPhone Mini has been weak in battery department [1]

The article says "solid battery life", which matches my experience with 13 mini.

But you're not Apple though.

The numbers on that site are a bit vague and I'm having a hard time making out the chart due to the colours, but they still sold millions of iPhone 13 Minis, right? Plus, you should probably add up the mini + SE as well for "small(-ish) phone demand".

I think you can make a profitable niche selling smaller phones. Most people don't want a 12" laptop either as they consider it too small, but some people do and various companies still make a profit designing and selling them. I don't quite understand why it's so different for phones.

Hopefully they just go to an every other year selling cycle on the mini or something like that.

>people just like big stuff

I'm inclined to think that applies more to Americans than people generally. Europeans and Australians can be quite content with smaller vehicles, smaller properties, and quite frankly smaller lifestyles.

But admittedly here in Germany SUVs are also on the rise, even though we have that "environmentally conscious" reputation.

Yall are the home of VW right?

And those SUVs still are relatively small compared to US-style pick-ups.

Admittedly also on the rise in Australia, but they're nowhere near the size of pickup trucks that occupy American highways.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk of Germans as environmentally conscious. Car culture is usually one of the first things that comes up when someone talks about Germany.

Sure car culture is big, but does that mean people like big cars?

Also curious where you're from that you never heard of this.

I have lived in Southern Germany for ~5 years and lived in The Netherlands before and after. Germans most definitely (at least in the south) have bigger cars on average.

I think your comment is a good example of the disconnect in how you and I seem to mean different things when we say environmentally conscious. In my opinion, driving a car every day isn't environmentally conscious, regardless the size of the car. These days, the difference between two modern cars is not that big, they're both still big polluters. You don't need to drive a 5-person car to work alone every day, nor to the store, nor to the gym, but it is what very many people in Germany do. Whether that car is big or small does not make that big of a difference when you compare it to the alternative of taking the public transport, cycling or walking. I understand the alternatives are not as comfortable, but that is a matter of choice — it is a choice to build cities in a way that favors cars over pedestrians and cyclists.

A simple example of what I mean is traffic lights. I've lived in many European countries, including Germany, and travelled a very fair bit in the rest. In Germany, traffic lights are green for cars for a long time and green for pedestrians a very short time (feel free to measure this at any traffic light in your city). In countries where infrastructure is planned around humans, it's the other way around.

Cycling is another example of this. Germany doesn't have "bad weather for cycling". People cycle to work in winter in Helsinki and don't bat an eye. The difference is infrastructure. Helsinki has not only built the roads, lights and the rest around it, but they also ensure it's in good condition. When it snows, bike paths often get cleaned before car roads. It's a matter of choice. I bring up Helsinki because it's easier to compare. Netherlands and the like are so far ahead everyone else in humane cities that the comparisons are hard to make. Helsinki is a good example because their developments are recent and go to show that you can choose to live a different way.

Well, I was talking about reputation explicitly. Buying a small car instead of a big one is generally perceived as environmentally conscious by most. Most international colleagues I deal with, and got my anecdotes from, are from France, Switzerland, Norway and the US. They are frequently amazed by all those little things we do that they consider proof of that. Whether we actually are environmentally friendly in a measurable way is an entirely different topic. :-)

I have lived in Germany for five years and this is absolutely true. Even many students have cars, which was completely surreal/absurd to me, since I didn't have any fellow students in The Netherlands with a car (only bikes). I'd cycle to work every day (22 km for the round trip), I'd regularly get comments from Germans that I was crazy to cycle that distance through all weather.

Watching German politics more closely during those years, I have seen that choices between: is better for car owners, is better for something else, gets decided in favor of is better for car owners 90% of the times. Heck, even some members of the Green Party are very cozy with the car industry (e.g. Kretschmann).

> I'd regularly get comments from Germans that I was crazy to cycle that distance through all weather.

It is a bit unusual outside of the Netherlands and Denmark.

I tried to cycle to work 8km or so and it was fine until I had to cross a slope. And since this slope was etched by the nearby river, it went through the whole city, so there wasn't any way around it.

Took all the fun out of it honestly, especially during heatwaves.

> I'd cycle to work every day (22 km for the round trip), I'd regularly get comments from Germans that I was crazy to cycle that distance through all weather.

The Germans probably don't know that with 2cm of snow, all the other means of transport, including the Amsterdam metro, stop working. So bicycle it is. I loved my 25km (round trip) bike commute when I lived there, it was such a great way to clear my head before/after work.

I wish we still got any snow to speak of...

Weird, all the europeans who visit me in the US talk so much about how great it is to have this much space.

While the americans visiting me in Europe complain about the cramped streets. One of these is polite.

It's probably easier to notice the upsides of "loads of space" without living there, while the downsides are more obvious when you live there.

That's weird, I'd expect them to celebrate the walkability (never been there but I've heard it is a major advantage to your towns and cities).

As a sibling comment noted, you have to live there - in this case to get to know walkability, especially if it was a foreign concept to you...

Right, it's not that we don't want bigger houses, apartments or cars, we just can't justify it in terms of cost.

I'd love to get my wife a bigger car, so she wouldn't be scared of driving in the snow, but just buying it would be three times the price (or more) compared to the small car she's currently driving.

Plenty of room down south, we'd be happy to have you both.

Where's the visa? :)

Plenty of room, but no women's rights to speak of and a lot of other unlivable factors involved.

You sound prejudiced

It's nice to have that space for your house, but on the other hand your kids can't go to school by themselves, and neither can you jump on your bike for some shopping and be back in ten minutes.

Bigger houses and more (sometimes mandatory) parking also means everything is further apart and making cars more needed even when going between stores.

I don't think it's as much a culture difference as you think, more like the environment where we use the cars.

I'm from Europe, living in bigger European city, and I have a small car (3-door RAV4). I bought it so I can drive and park easily in the city and go up hills and mountains when I leave the city once a month.

And if I'm honest, that is the best car I could afford. I see lots of rich people with bigger and bigger SUVs cruising in the city in Germany: G wagons, BMWs, Audis, Volkswagen Touaregs, Porsche Cayennes everywhere.

I went on a road trip in the US, rented an SUV that would be huge and impractical here, but there, it actually felt small. The roads were wide, traffic wasn't bad, parking was easy. I loved it.

If I lived in the countryside in Europe where I need to transport stuff for my ranch/farm (and if I could afford it), I'd definitely consider buying a pickup truck.

The same goes for properties. The reason why I lived in a 30sqm apartment with my wife was that is all I could afford while living in the city, close to good job opportunities. I would have been obviously happier if I could have a 300sqm house.

> I would have been obviously happier if I could have a 300sqm house.

This is not necessarily true, though something people often believe.

Okay, let's remove the "obviously" from my quote. Everybody is different.

In my case, I don't see why I would be sad over having a bit more place. It would be nice to have a place for an office, a small home gym, bigger kitchen, dining room, terrace with a BBQ, etc.

I'm not saying it would solve every problem in my life, but it would make a couple of things less inconvenient.

I really doubt anyone needs 300 sqm (~3000 sqft). I've never seen places like that where the majority of the space wasn't simply collecting dust.

> small car

> RAV4

Viewpoint from Japan: is it small?. I feel same thing for BMW Mini because it's bigger width than average on the road.

Yes, or mid-size. Japan is to Europe what Europe is to America in terms of car sizes.

E.g. vans within the Kei (keijidōsha) classification pretty much don't exist in Europe, but are common in Japan.

It's a three door version, 3860 mm long. It's about as much as the shortest Mini model. It's amongst the shortest cars around here, Renault Twingo, and "smart" cars are shorter, but nothing else comes to my mind that would be significantly shorter than the RAV4.

Ah three door version is very short than I expected.

American here with a Smart Fortwo, but I may be an outlier. Dead simple to park in the city though, and I hear lots of people complaining about parking, so… I don’t know why everyone buys those enormous cars here. :)

China loves the Pro Max - it outsold the Pro there [1], and my understanding (based largely on hearsay, so take it with a grain of salt) is that they generally love large phones over there.

1: https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/technology/2022/01/...

Didn't the oversized phone craze originate in Asia?

> Europeans and Australians

Australians will jump at the largest, cheapest Soniq TV JB Hi-Fi sells. Likewise (with 'local' brands) in the UK.

Every female member of my family has complained about devices being too big. Its clearly based on anecdotal evidence.

People with smaller hands want to be able to operate the phone fully with one hand.

My girlfriend liked the mini, but didn’t get it partially because it doesn’t feature the 3 cameras. As long as the mini is positioned as a down brand phone, even for technical reasons, some of the interested market is excluded

There's just not enough space for all the random features people want in a small form factor phone and keep it thin-ish. The Pro Max camera group alone is 1/5-1/4 of the back real estate on the 12 mini.

One thing I don’t think people appreciate is just how impressively compact the Minis are. Every bit of space is used up. I doubt any Android OEM (with the exception of maybe Samsung) could get make a comparable device.

Unless they used something akin to a laptop webcam, there simply isn’t enough space for a third camera.

Don't see the same with my family, girlfriend has a 13 Pro Max, mum and sister have the 11 Pro Max.

From what I have seen. The average person would rather two hand their phone than have a smaller one.

Every female member of my family has complained about devices being too big.

My wife's solution to iPhones being too big was to upgrade all of her handbags and to buy flouncy dresses with pockets.

Wanna trade families? Please?

What kind of illoyal loser would denounce their wife in public, offer to “trade” her like some property, all over some completely meaningless bullshit cliché complaint about their choices of style?

Wow, angry much? I suggest contacting your local mental health crisis hotline before you turn your internet rage into something people actually care about. In the United States, just dial 988.

Failing that, try getting a sense of humor. They're nice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henny_Youngman

Give me a break. You know damn well that the GP didn't really want to trade his wife and it was a joke, yet you felt compelled to gallop in here on your steed and bravely proclaim - on a tech message board, in 2022 - that you are against treating human beings as property.

If you thought the joke was distasteful, say it was distasteful. But pretending it was serious and loudly letting us all know you are against trading human beings is some of the lamest virtual signalling I've ever seen.

Not only smaller hands, but smaller pockets.

Most women I know never carried their phones in pockets, but in their handbags. Even in the tiny phones era.

I am saddened to hear that there will be no iPhone 14 mini. I have the 12 mini and like the author do not want a huge phone.

These "slow iPhone 13 mini" sales are more than all Google Pixel phones sold in a year. Think about that.

I don't understand when did the ability to choose a product fitting your preferences become a bad thing on HackerNews and modern American perception. Why is being able to buy niche products somehow not a worthy thing to be desired?

I don't understand when did the ability to choose a product fitting your preferences become a bad thing on HackerNews

Because so many on HN have been indoctrinated into the "scale at all costs" mentality.

It demonstrates the difference between HN and the real world.

On HN, if you can't serve a billion people, your product is niche. In the real world, billions of people earn a very nice living making niche products.

It's why so many people on HN don't understand Panic, or its PlayDate. They don't understand artisan anything. They've forgotten the whole hipster movement, which still exists in pockets of the world. They can't grok that there are companies that have been in business for hundreds of years making products one at a time — by hand.

"X doesn't scale" is HN for "I know nothing about how the world works."

> In the real world, billions of people earn a very nice living making niche products.

But rarely something as expensive to create as a smart phone.

Really? Because things like cabriolet cars, speciality cars, high-end audio equipment, luxury furniture and many others exist.

If anything, mobile phone market is exceedingly horrible because of consolidation into a single product with not much choice.

Maybe we could have a market for very high end phones that cost $3000, but I haven't seen anyone try to fill that niche yet. Maybe it isn't there?

Even if it was there, that doesn't mean the phone would be small. People who want small phones aren't necessarily wealthy, so they would only be going after the market for the intersection of 'wealthy + want small phone'... which might be a very small market and not worth pursuing.

That market absolutely exists, and a few people have tried to serve it over the years. Here's an old example, a Samsung phone promoted by Jackie Chan that cost about $3,000 back in 2012:

https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-sch-w2013-jackie-ch...

And in 2018, One Plus had a $3,000 phone:

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/this-3000-oneplus-6-is-the-...

The fact that none of these still exist proves that there is no market. It does prove that companies tried to see if there is one.

I'd be very careful about suggesting that failure proves there is no market for something.

Many PC companies failed before Apple succeeded. Apple itself failed to the point of almost being acquired by Sun before succeeding by buying NeXT and shipping some hit products in the form of colourful iMacs and iPods with click-wheels.

The biggest problem with luxury products is that they have almost nothing to do with the product's tangible features and everything to do with whether you can establish a valuable brand. We live in a world where people spend thousands of dollars on fancy numbers that we have a kind of gentleman's agreement signify that they "own" a jpeg anyone can copy.

I suggest that there is absolutely a market for ridiculously priced phones, but the problem is not hand-crafting a phone with rare materials, the problem is creating the collective hallucination that owning such a phone will make other people envy you.

Apple actually sold some solid gold watches. There was a market for a $18,000 Apple Watch. It wasn't something worth sustaining in perpetuity, but there was a market. They also launched ridiculously priced accessories from Hermes, and there is still a market for them almost a decade later.

People will pay large amounts of money for exclusive items, but it takes a particular set of skills to launch something and convince the world it's the must-have accessory of the moment.

I think this is not exactly what GP was talking about. These are normal phones with an expensive marketing gimmick.

The "RED Hydrogen One," by that fancy camera company is closer I think. At least it had some story that could hypothetically have ended with a compelling technological reason for it to exist (RED is supposed to know cameras). Although, it didn't seem to work out either, but with a sample size of 1 it could be a fluke of poor execution.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/10/red-quits-the-smartp...

I'm surprised none of the really consumer-oriented camera companies have broken into smartphones. Camera stuff seems like more of a selling point for smartphones, than phone stuff. But, it seems like they never really want to dive in fully.

Leica tried making one in Japan, but apparently camera cameras and smartphone cameras are somewhat different beasts.

I enjoyed MrMobile's review: https://youtu.be/skIgG8q_lKs

Yeah, this came up when I was looking around. I'd call it a case of not diving in fully. Since it is really just a rebrand of a phone from some other company (albeit one for which they provided the optics).

Huawei Mate X2?

Samsung made some folding phone which were pretty close to $3,000 on release IIRC. Pushing-the-envelope android phones can reach eye watering prices, and early adopters always pay up too. Personally I would rather wait for the 3-4th generation of anything THAT wild as the tech was very much not ready for launch.

Grains of sand getting into the hinge and mandatory factory-installed screen protectors are not things I want to deal with on a purchase that expensive.

The current folding generation launching this year (4th Gen) is likely to be the next big thing, rumors are huge price drop and likely a more polished experience as production is ramping up for more units.

> Really? Because things like cabriolet cars, speciality cars, high-end audio equipment, luxury furniture and many others exist.

Indeed, all those things are much much easier and cheaper to produce than a smartphone. You could do them at your home.

Try building from scratch a small Android phone at home.

The limitation to making niche phones are the stupid, sclerotic, CARRIERS--not the manufacturers. It's the carrier gatekeeping that prevents niche phones from forming.

We need a ruling like from back in the Bell System era where you are allowed to bring customer equipment to the network without the network owner permission.

You don’t need a network owners permission for GSM/LTE. The only time you needed that was for CDMA.

You need one for VoLTE (so any voice calls), 5G and Wifi calling.

Without carrier phone whitelist, you won't be able to call on AT&T and many other networks.

Also consider he's specifically appealing to makers of premium phones - you can bet Google and Samsung care a lot about scale. And to the parent's point about the iPhone 13 mini's sales still being more than all Pixels: ok, so then consider the already much smaller Pixel market share and how many people are left at the % of iPhone sales that the mini made up.

I'd love for this to happen, signed the petition, and will hope for the best, but I think even if there would be a decent market for this the big players don't care to make that bet.

If hipster culture was so good, it would have expanded across the world and taken over everything.

That’s not how it works. X is amazing, but has a steep price so only “hipsters” can buy it which prevents it from taking over the world.

Are you saying hipsterism can't be very good because it didn't scale?

If hipster culture is predicated on being different/“not like the other girls” then by definition it is unscalable.

The whole point of a lot of things is that they are unscalable and if they somehow do scale they are not longer what they were.

Saying that HN readers (who are quite diverse, btw) "know nothing about how the world works" or "don't understand" things in this context is just lazy thinking.

We understand just fine. It's not difficult to comprehend the appeal of customized, handmade work. The appeal is clear.

It's just that it's completely irrelevant in the context of this thread. Because you can't design and make smartphones by hand, one at a time. So what are you even talking about?

And it took Panic a decade to release the Playdate and it is still back ordered for over a year. Hardware has to “scale” to get manufacturing capacity and scale economies.

>> I don't understand when did the ability to choose a product fitting your preferences become a bad thing on HackerNews

> Because so many on HN have been indoctrinated into the "scale at all costs" mentality.

HN also has many fanboys that slavishly celebrate the decisions of certain prestigious companies as the best possible ones, because that prestigious company made it. Other decisions can be assumed to be inferior because, if they had merit, the company would have picked that instead.

IMHO, a lot of technology has plateaued, to the point where the hip new thing is objectively a regression that just looks different.

Much of that can be chalked down to the fact that Apple doesn't have that many models they actively sell, so the models that they do tend to have way more than any individual Android model, and that the mini is the cheapest iPhone in the 13 line. I know a few people who went for the mini because it was marginally cheaper.

"Oh, the Mini sells better than all of the Pixels, but only because of <complex set of reasons>"

I went with the mini because the new SE is fraking bigger with less screen. The mini is just about the limit of what i want to put in my pocket. If they get any bigger, im going watch with cell and leaving these phablets at home.

Do y all have really small pockets or something? For women, I get it, your pants don't come with pockets and that sucks. But for guys? I've had a Samsung Note phone in my pocket since the Note 2, they where the model that invented the phablet moniker... Never had an issue. Do I just make better pant choices than most people?

Actually, in certain situations, yes. My running shorts have pockets that barely fit iPhone mini. Yes, I know there are other accessories that I can buy to fit giant phones in but I rather not.

Sorry to post off-topic but I've never heard it before. Does chalking down mean the same thing as chalking up?

Yes, both — writing something with chalk on slate.

NRE costs on a phone are easily measured in the $Millions. Your niche has to either (a) have enough volume to dilute those costs; or (b) be willing to pay a lot more per unit to cover them.

It's not a "bad thing" about HN or American perceptions -- it's economic reality: it just isn't cost effective for the big incumbents to pursue, and it's (likely) beyond the scope of a grass-roots, Kickstarter-style effort.

While I agree with the sentiment of your post, I'm not sure if Pixel are the best example, as they have demand that they don't satisfy.

For example in Spain, the Pixel 6 Pro was only sold for a few days in February, then sold out, then returned a few days ago - so it only seems to start being consistently available now, and it's a 2021 phone. Oh, and only the 128 GB model is sold here. I had to ask an Australian friend to mail a 512 GB one to me!

And at least, they do sell it here. In most countries, you can't even buy it.

Compare to iPhone where you can get every model with every storage capacity consistently, in Spain, and in the overwhelming majority of countries in the world.

I've even seriously considered switching to iPhone for this very reason, by the way.

> These "slow iPhone 13 mini" sales are more than all Google Pixel phones sold in a year. Think about that.

That really doesn't say much. Google has never figured how to sell hardware, nor shown the will to learn. If Google was trying to sabotage the sales of the Pixel line, it could probably not do a better job.

> “oh phones are too big I just want something simple”. That is a valid sentiment that I think is shared by basically no average consumer. For a lot of people, phones are their primary computing devices, so a big screen is nice there. Bigger phones allow for more battery capacity.

My way of dealing with it is two phones. Besides my smartphone, I still use my more than ten-year-old Nokia when I do not want to take the big smartphone with me. Of course, it only has phone, SMS and a clock. But I usually do not need anything else when I go for a walk or meet up with friends. I just want to be reachable in case there is a problem.

Its old battry still lasts quite a long time, and I have it switched off most of the time anyway. So I can go 7+ days without recharging.

Do you still use your phone as a phone? Because I personally stopped using the phone features long ago, and I suspected many are in the same basket. So even for a minimalist/backup device, it would still need to be a "smart" phone, for note taking, calendar sync and what not.

Yes, I am indeed primarily using phone and SMS for mobile communication. I have never been on Facebook or WhatsApp and generally do not like too much distraction. If I am in the mood to socialise with people, I call them, email them or suggest a joint activity, but typically from home. And as I have been working from home office (or camper-van) even pre-COVID, I am prefering my laptop for email, calendar, to-dos, Web-browsing, etc. I think this reduces the need to carry a smart phone around quite a lot, compared to many others.

What could change that would be the availability of a smartphone that turns into a PC/laptop when connected to a docking station. I suspect that Microsoft is pursuing such a plan with the integration of Android into Windows 11. Let's see ...

> Why would that form factor succeed in the Android space?

Because it's not Apple selling them and Android smartphone manufacturers operate with much lower margins.

Take Motorola for example, which isn't even one of the 10 largest smartphone manufacturers. They released ~30 different smartphone models in the past year alone, so they apparently make money, even if they don't sell millions of units per model.

Yet none of the models released in the past year has a height shorter than 159mm or a weight lighter than 155g.

I believe the reason why no smartphone manufacturer offers small phones anymore is not because they want to, but rather because there is some non-obvious reason why they can't. My personal theory is because it's difficult to get proper display panels for smaller phones nowadays. The fabs producing the panels switched to larger sizes due to demand and efficiency, which resulted in no smaller panels with up-to-date specs (high-refresh rate, HDR, low power consumption, ...) to be available. I'd appreciate if somebody could proof me wrong, as that'd be quite a bummer otherwise.

I think this is the main reason, and why only Apple can afford to make a small slab phone. They can still make some margin with 5% of a massive number, while others can't make any.

Foldables seem like a better compromise here, and hopefully more like the zflip/razr get in this $700-800 range with stock android, good cameras, and decent battery life. The zflip 3 has been sold for $800, just give me stock android and I'd be a buyer. I'd be ok with a slightly slower processor if it means a better battery life, but within 10-20% of a flagship. Between a $450 6.1 inch Pixel 6a, or a $700-800 folding phone, it's going to be kind of tough to compete with a smaller slab phone if it's going to have to make more compromises to stay small.

I'd love a Nexus 4 sized phone again, but these aren't bad options, if you want small, go folding, or get a 6a. I'm sure the mini is a good option if you're ok with iOS.

Foldables are a crappy solution. I do not want a tablet. I have no desire to watch videos on my phone, and I don't need a huge screen for any of the things I do on my phone regularly -- text, listen to music, occasionally browse HN and reddit, take photos. I understand that they fold up to essentially become weird-aspect ratio very thick phones... but that's not desirable for me either, especially at the foldable price point of ~$1000+.

The zflip/razr foldables have smaller screens, and the zflip can be had for sub-$1000.

nit: Foldables aren't for video, aspect ratio is far from 16:9. Effective video size is not much bigger than non foldable. It's great for reading web/book/pdf.

There are two big issues with SFF, really:

- people tend to correlate size and price, and by default the correlation is direct (for some things it's inverse), so at similar capabilities (and thus prices) consumers will tend to go with the larger version

- for a smartphone specifically, there's a direct relationship between battery size and device size, and battery life is a really valuable convenience

The iPhone 13 mini has a 2400 mAh battery, the 13 has 3200. 33% more battery capacity is a lot, and at 2400mAh I don't think the mini doesn't survive an entire day of relatively heavy use without a charge.

> for a smartphone specifically, there's a direct relationship between battery size and device size, and battery life is a really valuable convenience

As the largest consumer of energy is the display of a smartphone, you don't need the same battery size to get the same runtime in a smaller phone. Also by increasing the depth of the smartphone by just 1-2 millimeters you can offset the smaller area available for the battery.

> As the largest consumer of energy is the display of a smartphone, you don't need the same battery size to get the same runtime in a smaller phone.

The battery capacity grows much faster than the display energy consumption, and it's not even a fight: at otherwise equivalent hardware, the larger phone has always had better battery life than the smaller one in every iPhone generation.

The minis both suffered significant criticism due to battery life issues, compared to their larger sibling.

> Also by increasing the depth of the smartphone by just 1-2 millimeters you can offset the smaller area available for the battery.

You can do the same on both smaller and larger form factors so that's not an advantage of the SFF phones.

And much to my dismay Apple remains very much not a fan of that: after having increased the phone depth to long-forgotten heights of 8.3mm (a chonk not seen since the 4S's 9.3), it's been reduced back down to 7.65 in the 13 (up a hair from the 12's 7.4). I fear an eventual return to the dark days of the 6S/7 and their 7.1mm you could shave with (but couldn't pick your phone off of the table for lack of ability to grip the thing without using your fingernails to pry it off).

> The battery capacity grows much faster than the display energy consumption, and it's not even a fight: at otherwise equivalent hardware, the larger phone has always had better battery life than the smaller one in every iPhone generation.

As an example, the Z5 Compact had a 2700mah battery in basically something ~1mm thicker than a 13 mini, which has a ~2400mah battery. The Z5 Compact is also a 7 year old phone, which didn't have wireless charging.

> The iPhone 13 mini has a 2400 mAh battery, the 13 has 3200. 33% more battery capacity is a lot, and at 2400mAh I don't think the mini doesn't survive an entire day of relatively heavy use without a charge.

So make it 3mm thicker?

Every iPhone person I know has complained about the 13 Pro being significantly thicker and heavier than the previous models. Literally, things like "it feels like a brick in my hand." Making phones thicker/heavier is an HN meme that is completely out of touch with what normies want. Consider that for most people, the phone is their primary device, and one they hold in their hand for ~6h a day.

one of the reasons newer iphones "feel like a brick" is that they transitioned to heavier materials (stainless steel instead of aluminum) and because the corners are now squared. rounding corners often has the effect of making things seem thinner as well as usually making things more pleasant to hold. I agree with you that these users probably don't want a thicker iphone, but I would bet if you focused on perceived bulkiness in the industrial design, you could sneek in a slightly larger battery and still give the impression of a less bulky device.

> one of the reasons newer iphones "feel like a brick" is that they transitioned to heavier materials (stainless steel instead of aluminum)

What do you mean by newer iPhones? They use stainless steel since 2017 in the models X, XS (Max), 11 Pro (Max), 12 Pro (Max) and 13 Pro (Max), so it's nothing new.

Your anecdote vs my anecdote here, but I have never, not even one time, heard someone complain about the thickness or weight of an iPhone. I highly doubt the average user would even notice let alone care if you made the device a bit thicker.

Which iPhone did they have?

This would probably be a dealbreaker for a lot of people. Unihertz makes small android phones that are on the thicker side, and I've been hesitant to buy one because of their girth (despite there not being any alternative small android phones on the market).

There’s “thicker” and there’s “thick”.

The iphone 13 is 7.65mm. The Unihertz Jelly is 16.5.

Apple hasn’t made a phone thicker than 10mm since the 3GS, and that was 12.3 (up from the original 2G’s 11.6 because of the rounded plastic back vs flat aluminum).

> So, by all accounts, the iPhone mini has been an extremely slow seller.

Well, it's up against the iPhone SE, which has the same size, same weight and the same processor. [1]

[1] https://www.apple.com/uk/iphone/compare/?modelList=iphone13m...

Not the same size, the comparisons are misleading as both those phones look small compared to the 13 max. The SE has a form factor that matches many Android phones, small-phoners (like me) want to go smaller than that if possible.

https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Apple-iPhone-12-mini,...

I had the previous SE from years back and it's still my preferred size, the current mini is significantly bigger than it.

As an aside, I had to switch to the 12 mini as the old SE started becoming unusable due to its age. I did switch to a Pixel 4a temporarily but that was too big for what I wanted and traded it in as soon as I could.

Similarly, the F150 is the best selling vehicle in the US. #2 is the Silverado, and #3 is the Dodge Ram.

Clearly, this whole 'sedan' concept is a failed form factor, every manufacturer should only make pickup trucks. Why shoot for less than the #1 market spot?

Ford has phased out sedans[0] for the US market and are instead chasing higher margin trucks and SUVs. The exception is the Mustang.

0: https://www.motorbiscuit.com/ford-exec-says-this-is-why-it-s...

Isn't that sort of what Ford decided (except they also still make SUVs)? AFAIK, they stopped making sedans for most markets.

Side note, It is just RAM now and not Dodge Ram. RAM is a brand under Stellantis just like Dodge, Citroën, or JEEP.

Funnily, cars suffer from this same exact issue, but worse! Just like expanding phone screen size leads to suboptimal software on small screen sizes that devs don't target any more... expanding car size leads to safety compromises for sedans. If my 2000s Civic gets T-boned by a 2022 F150, I'll probably die, simply because the 2022 F150 will crush my car like a tank rolling over a tin can. When I try to drive around in my sedan at night, I'm constantly blinded because truck manufacturers don't account for low seat heights any more with beam cutoffs.

Who would buy a sedan any more when you're screwed over this way? With phones and vehicles, we're stuck in this prisoner's dilemma situation where larger sizes lead to less desirability of small sizes, and the cycle repeats over and over again.

Same thing happens with public transit/car usage -- as more people use cars, public transit thins out, deals with more traffic on the roads, and becomes scarier because there are fewer "normal" people on public transit to make you feel safe from crime.

Curious if there's an research on how to escape from this kind of death spiral -- my suspicion is that the only real way out is regulation, because otherwise there's no way to overcome the self-reinforcing impact of these decisions.

I don't know. I'm one of these people who wants a smaller phone. Not tiny but definitely wanted a smaller one. I know a couple of people who feel the same, bought an iPhone mini, and when I was looking for my last phone came across reviews specifically targeting this issue.

I don't use iPhones so don't really know very much, but my instinct is that it falls into this bundling fallacy about product characteristics (there might be another term for it; I don't know). It goes something like this:

Companies X, Y, and Z all market products with unusual characteristic A. But there's all sorts of other things about it that make it undesirable or less desirable, so the consumer is faced with trade-offs. In the context of choosing between desirable characteristic A, but also undesirable characteristics B and C, they choose another product because the cost of B and C is greater than the benefit of A.

But then the companies all conclude "no one wants A" because they half-assed the product, not realizing that it wasn't A that was the problem, it was the B and C they released it with.

I see this all the time. With clothing for example, they'll make a garment out of really nice material A, but then release it with this weird design that doesn't really appeal to anyone except a stereotype. With tech I've noticed that they don't really make it available at all sometimes. So there might be product X, but you can't really find it anywhere. With a phone, hypothetically, it might be "my phone broke this morning and I need one ASAP and all the brick and mortar shops around me only carry these specific things and not the iPhone mini."

Anyway, I don't know the iPhone mini from anything, but the bundling fallacy is so prevalent in these situations I'm skeptical. I know I faced this a bit when buying my last Android phone: the next smaller down, which I preferred based on size, and which wasn't even "small", wasn't that much smaller but also had other downsides.

Sometimes I almost feel like companies sometimes intentionally sabotage experimental products just not to deal with the headache of supporting more options in their supply chain.

Also, sometimes there are things that don't sell to a huge market, but do sell, and have a very devoted following. Smaller phones might be like that. In my experience sometimes these "devoted markets" sometimes expand into larger ones later (for example, everyone realizes 3 years from now they can't fit their phones in their pockets anymore and that it doesn't matter if they have a nice big phone to move their fingers around on if they have no place to put it).

> Sometimes I almost feel like companies sometimes intentionally sabotage experimental products just not to deal with the headache of supporting more options in their supply chain.

Except companies like Samsung throw out dozens of new models per year, which all differentiate only marginally, and none of them gets a SFF while maintaining higher quality of features (i.e. no cheap phone with 720 display and such).

Sometimes they get it right, like with the Samsung A40 from 2019, only to not pursue the sales for a true successor. Heck, me and a lot of my friends and relatives bought an A40 because of its size and fantastic display.

If you hadn't included the link to Macrumors, I'd have guess that the mini sells poorly because the iPhone SE is available and much cheaper. Personally I really surprised that the SE doesn't sell more.

Anecdotally, I wanted a Mini, but the lack of top-end cameras being available made me hesitant. I ended up buying a SE, since the neither phone was exactly what I wanted, but the SE was so much cheaper.

it's a sort of selection bias, it's only because of a niche unmet need that people take to their blogs to complain - so the only people clamoring are the one not getting what they want

same way the universe is perfectly made for us because if it wasn't we wouldn't be here, ya'know ?

- Sent from my iPhone 13 mini

I agree with you 100% I am knocking on 50 years of age, but I have the eyes of an 80 year old! I'd LOVE to be able to use a 9" tablet as my primary phone.

I have a plethora of screens available to me, including a PC as my primary computing device; but when I'm on the go I need a _larger_ screen not a smaller one.

> So, by all accounts, the iPhone mini has been an extremely slow seller.

This narrative is cited a lot, and fueled rumors that Apple would kill the mini for iPhone 13. They didn't. So clearly it's profitable enough for them even though it's a comparatively low-volume product.

I think the issue with small form factor on Android is whether too many apps will have broken UI on such a small screen. Software support has been the issue with other innovative android phones, such as the LG Wing and even the original Samsung Fold.

> fueled rumors that Apple would kill the mini for iPhone 13. They didn't.

Apple plans pretty far ahead and moves slowly. When a phone goes on sale (like the iPhone 12 mini) the successor is already pretty far along in the pipeline, and I think it's unlikely they would cancel the successor based on a few weeks of sales data. They would at least wait until after christmas, at which point the 13 mini was probably already almost ready, at which point it probably doesn't make sense to cancel it anymore.

So if Apple nixes a product because it lacks demand, I would expect that to be after two years of sales. The decision might have been made already after the first year of iPhone 12 mini, but the decision would not affect the iPhone 13 lineup, only the iPhone 14 lineup.

You could see this slow product cycle when Apple failed to jump on the big phone trend. When the iPhone 5 came out, they underestimated the market for huge phones, and it took them two years to course correct and jump on the phablet bandwagon with the 6/6+. (And they had a phantastic quarter when they did since everyone has been waiting for a big iPhone for two years)

I have the 13 Mini. Multiple people have asked me what it was and then commented that they wish they knew about it when they got their current phone.

I think sales are probably limited significantly by the marketing plan of both Apple and the carriers that sell phones - I'm sure that the larger phones are more profitable.

Agreed. I love my 12 Mini, and my SE's before that. I'm also anti-case so the phone looks extra small compared to most. Fun to have someone take our photo with the phone, cause they always ask how ancient it is and are shocked to hear it is newer than the phone they have! Non-existent marketing doesn't help

When I bought the 13 Mini, it wasn’t even an option on their /iphone landing page. I only saw it when I clicked into the store.

Edit: Yup, it’s nowhere to be seen on apple.com homepage. They don’t push it at all.

Apple never releases a "pro" mini -- with the same camera/processor as the larger variants. Thinking back, the iPhone 5s was near the perfect size for my pockets.

These days I find myself leaving my phone more and more, only taking it when I probably need a camera.

I buy the best camera an iPhone will give me. If that same camera in the Pro Max was in the Mini I would have bough that.

The iPhone 5 was the perfect size, and I miss that form factor. But The camera is what sells me the device.

It's hard to tell from the colors, but if you take the 8, the two SE models, the 12 & 13 minis that's closer to 15%. Those models are are about the same size.

SUVs and trucks getting bigger over the time is a direct result of regulation: https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/10/how-cafe-killed-co...

I like to use the story of one of my parents. Big tall guy, never used technology, big fingers and always complained buttons were too small etc etc.

Now the guy loves his big iPad and his iPhone that he wouldn't go any size smaller because he'd struggle to see what's on the screen. The only challenge he has now is he likes the bigger phone, but struggles to keep it in his pockets when working, when you add in a protective cover.

People don't often know what they want, they're just driven by what they've had and whether they think it has worked for them, which most people can justify their own decision.

I do think however, that there will become a point where phones simply are too big. I'm just not sure how far off we are from that.

Worth point out; per the chart on the linked article it seems like the iPhone 12 Mini sold about as well as the iPhone 13 Mini, if I'm reading the colors correctly.

> I know that’s simplistic and a little condescending, but then look at SUV and truck sales.

I knew the response sounded American, then this clarified it. I’d like to see the sale of phone sizes by country.

This is the problem with mobile stuff. It's always "one size fits all" and "fuck you if it doesn't work for you, too bad." I'm so tired of it I've just given up on normal smartphones. There's really nothing they add to your life when you look closely. I have a flip phone running "kai OS" now (which is actually pretty neat but I don't bother with a data plan) and a Linux PDA. I don't miss owning a smartphone at all, they're terrible.

From looking at other sites, the SE greatly outsells the mini (22M in 2020, projected 30M in 2022). It is typically Apple's #2 seller. If you add that in with the mini numbers, then it tells a different story.

Also, during the pandemic, faceid didn't work in public. People looking for a small phone had to choose between a more expensive model with more cameras and cheaper phone with working biometric authentication.

That skews all sorts of market share stats. Anyway, annual sales by model (the SEs are usually released at a different time of year) would make for a more meaningful comparison than calendar Q1 sales starting after Christmas and ending a few weeks after the SE launch.

Shameless plug for the Jelly 2. https://www.unihertz.com/products/jelly-2

It's not a "flagship" but it is fully featured - nothing spared - and half the size of my palm. The screen is just small enough to be too annoying to do anything really distracting on. I have gotten NOTHING but compliments on it since I started using it a month ago (on a reco I picked up here).

> It's not a "flagship" but it is fully featured - nothing spared - and half the size of my palm

How does it compare to the palm phone PVG100, usually available for 1/3 of the price? (new but in OEM box)

It seems much thicker.

Also, which network are you using?

https://www.unihertz.com/blogs/news/about-at-t-usage-in-the-...

> Recently, AT&T released a whitelist of smartphone brands that will continue to work on their network after February 2022. Unfortunately, Unihertz products are not among them.

I hope someone sues AT&T for its discriminative policy.

Verizon. Not familiar with PVG100, looks interesting though. Thanks for the tip

> Verizon

Then just get a PVG100, it supports all the features as it was made for this network!

Oh man, that thing is _adorable_ and the price is certainly right.

(Unfortunately I am personally looking for something in between this and today's "phablets".)

Unihertz has some other phones in different sizes, like the ruggedized Atom L/XL with a 4" screen.

> The screen is just small enough to be too annoying to do anything really distracting on

I'm a happy user of Jelly 2 for a half year now and I bought it for this single reason. It's fully featured so you can do anything, but the screen is so small that you do it only when there's a real need, so I'm not wasting time staring at the phone for no real reason.

Cons: My co-workers make fun of me :)

Edit: formatting

They're just Jelly

I can imagine there will often be comments along the line of „What’s that, a phone for ants?“

Do you have any issues with apps and layouts misbehaving because of the small screen? Being annoying to type on is a feature, but is it basically impossible?

Sometimes websites with big popups fuck with you, but then again we ought to be avoiding those websites anyway. I haven't noticed any issues with apps.

Typing is much easier than you would think. With swipe typing it's almost at par.

Cool. What about typing passwords, codes, numbers? I'd wager without social media those would be the most common things I'd type

Lastpass mostly prevents needing to manually enter login info, even though the automatic activation only works 70% of the time.

I save everything in Google, which helps me autofill passwords, credit cards, addresses, emails, etc.. ducks

I have one too, and I was suprised by how "not bad" it is for this. I can reach each key with my thumb, so I get muscle memory for each letter. The only issue I have is hitting W instead of E, as E is super common and it's far from the lower right corner.

I also use bitwarden for passwords, so the main thing I type without swype is the passphrase for bitwarden, and proper names that autocorrect will then proceed to change to the wrong thing afterwards anyways (just like a big android phone).

I have one too. The main issue I have is some dialogs will need scrolling to see all options (FairEmail is the worst offender of the apps I use).

I have a Unihertz Titan Pocket (physical keyboard). I'm planning to get the new slim model when it comes out.

These are top of the line phones, but they're very solid. Unihertz is making some good devices.

The Titan Pocket looks amazing but I'm a bit unsure about the company's track record regarding android updates. Do you get regular security updates?

How long does the battery last? Does the phone feel thick in your pocket? (From the photos, it looks like the device is about the same width and height as a 2020 iPhone SE but significantly thicker.)

Battery last _very long_. Probably 2+ days on a full charge. I don't actually know. It last so long that I don't really have to worry about it.

Size profile is basically the same as an old school Blackberry. No problems with it.

One concern with a very small phone is that it necessarily has a very small battery. If you can charge frequently, or you only use the phone for an occasional text message it may be OK for you, but if you're checking it every few minutes and active on social media you'll likely not be happy with it.

With regular use the battery lasts about as long as the iPhone 13 Pro, that is to say, slightly less than a full day. But the point of this phone is that ideally you are using it less.

Why not use the third dimension and make it thicker to fit a decent battery?

Thicker would not be an issue for me (up to a point). Especially on a very small phone. Would probably make it easier to hold.

I didn't find this to be true with the XZ1 Compact, and it in fact consistently outlasted everyone else's phones despite similar use profiles.

I'm still using one, and the battery still lasts 2+ days between charges. All these people saying we can't have a compact phone with decent battery life, a headphone jack and an SD card slot are either uninformed or weirdly disingenuous.

That's good to know. My impression was based on other comments I had read (in particular about the Unihertz Jelly) and it seeming to make sense intuitively.

<3 this is awesome! It even has NFC! So you can use Google Pay with it? WiFi calling? Looks like the perfect Google Fi and international travel phone too with all the bands it supports.

Thanks for posting that. At first glance, it looks like one of those $20 burner phones from 7-Eleven, but looking more closely, it seems much better than that.

Love the idea of the IR remote. I miss that from my PalmPilot.

Is it waterproof? A small phone like this would be ideal for working out or hiking. But between sweat and rain, I'd want it to be waterproof for those scenarios.

Haven't tested it. It has a headphone jack so probably not waterproof

Thanks. You're probably right. After my comment, I found the rest of their lineup, and it looks like the one that would suit my needs is the Atom: https://www.unihertz.com/products/atom

I think I might actually get this. How well does this work with Google Fi?

So years and years ago, when my main phone was a Nokia N900, I would occasionally walk into phone stores and see what was out there out of sheer curiosity. One day I saw an HTC Wildfire S, and I fell in love with the form factor right away. Unfortunately, I never bought it because I had my N900 and it was just too damn useful to justify giving it up for a cheap Android phone, and to this day I regret not buying one. It was so small and so cute and I wanted it, and now even if I do buy a used one on eBay it'll just be a glorified brick because it doesn't have LTE and no apps will run on its ancient version of Android. This is the closest thing I've ever seen to the HTC Wildfire S since... I think I actually will buy it, at least as a backup device.

I have a unihertz Atom XL.

Pros:

- Battery lasts for 3 days with my usage (browsing when not at my desk, whatsapp, a handful of calls, android auto)

- Rugged / waterproof (IP68)

- Fits nicely in your hand

- 48 MP camera - not as good as Pixels, but good

- Good dual SIM setup

Cons:

- Thick; probably mostly due to the battery. Doesn't bother me, but if you wear skinny jeans and carry your phone in your front pocket it'll be noticeable

- Just got Android 11

- The built in walkie talkie is something of a gimmick since it chews up battery in standby/monitor mode. I thought it would be a useful backup since we live in the sticks w/o reliable phone signal. Get the Atom L instead

I had the Atom until AT&T said it wasn't compatible with their 5G forced switch over. Now I have the cheapest android they offer until I can find something else.

I had an original Jelly but battery life was miserable.

You could also switch to T-mobile or Verizon. Though you probably already thought of that.

Yeah, in my area T-Mobile isn't. And Verizon is amazing but triple what I'm paying now.

Don't know if you checked recently but Verizon was always way more expensive here as well but about a year or so ago we noticed they had started offering must more competitive pricing for families/individuals.

I used to have Verizon so I get emails and flyers touting plans starting at $90/month (but only for the first year).

Except I'm on AT&T pay-as-you-go for $30/month so I don't even look anymore.

Check MVNOs out, if you want Verizon service without Verizon pricing. US Mobile and Red Pocket are two that I'd suggest.

I love my Jelly 2. The only thing that it skimped on was the camera. The primary camera is worse than my Moto G5 was. It's adequate for my primary usage of "taking pictures of things I need to remember (serial numbers, receipts &c)" but nearly useless as a general purpose photography tool.

A good camera is the literal sole reason I still have an iPhone as an option alongside my Jelly 2

+1 for the jelly 2. It works perfectly for everything I "need" a smart phone for.

Just be aware the the Wifi often drops and battery life is 1.5 days at best. But again, makes it really easy to not do anything distracting on it lol

I also have a Jelly 2, I really like it and I used it as my main phone for a month.

The reason I switched back to my Samsung Galaxy is because I changed job and will need to use it for work, and frankly the Jelly is just too small to be efficient.

It is otherwise an amazing little phone.

Can you release the kernel sources? Thanks.

love it. looks like a phone you can throw across the room

This looks great. I left my Pixel 2 for a Nokia flip phone running KaiOS for half of 2021, but the OS was underwhelming, with broken WebDav syncing that required me to manually import contacts and forgo my calendar.

I then upgraded to an iPhone SE, but miss Android apps like Termux, PDANet, and MiXplorer. iOS lacks compelling alternatives: A-Shell, iOS-Socks-Proxy (running in A-Shell), and Apple Files + Readdle's Documents are decent, but don't measure up to the aforementioned Android apps.

All that makes the Jelly 2 an attractive choice. It ticks the essential smartphone boxes but discourages excessive use (doom scrolling, Instagram, TikTok, Hacker News, etc).

The Galaxy S10e is my current phone, and I'm not sure what I will do when it stops receiving security updates. It's basically perfect. It still has an SD card slot. It still has a headphone jack. It has wireless charging. It's reasonably sized. And it had flagship-for-the-time specs (albeit slightly less than the mainline S10 or S10+). Samsung doesn't make anything comparable to this anymore.

The only drawback is that the battery life has gotten worse since I originally bought it. But if I could easily swap that out, I would keep it for another five years.

EDIT: Oh, and the fingerprint scanner on the power button seems to work way more reliably, IMO, than the embedded fingerprint scanners under the touchscreens.

Using the same phone. The glass on the back is a bit broken after I dropped it for like the 100th time, and the battery life is somewhat mediocre, but otherwise it is the best thing I have ever used.

The S22 (standard version) has slightly bigger screen but is quite similar in size, so that is probably what I will use next.

I did exactly what you're describing. I like the S22 but it is a little bigger than my ideal size. My only minor nitpick is with the fingerprint reader being under the screen instead of embedded in the power button (which I loved about the s10e since holding it naturally would unlock the screen). Samsung should just make something like an S22e or 23e.

If you have a bit of patience, install LineageOS. Samsung phones have a big following in this domain - as of today (May/2022), even the Galaxy S3 (Neo) is supported (!).

I'm not saying it's trivial (it's not hard, but has a large enough amount of small actions to execute), but it's definitely worth doubling (or more) the phone duration.

The FamousProducer™ of my phone supported it for 3 years. This is terrible. LineageOS allows me to use it now - over 3 years after the end of support. Screw FamousProducer™.

IIRC, LineageOS support for US Samsung devices with Snapdragon CPUs has always been very limited. Rooting them is difficult, if not impossible, and I seem to remember that doing so blows some kind of fuse in the device itself which then irreparably caps the battery on the device to like 80%.

Given that the S10e's battery life is already waning, I'm not sure I want to do that. But yes! If there were a safe way to do so, I would gladly run LOS on the phone for ten years.

Ouch. I wasn't aware of that. I think I've rooted in the past the S2 and S3, but it was long ago.

Another brand that seems to be well supported (although not as extensively, timewise, as Samsung) is Google. LineageOS still supports the Pixel 1.

> FamousProducer™

Why be so coy about this? Naming and shaming should serve as a warning to those who might buy one expecting long term support, or as a spur to action towards LineageOS for those who many have been or are about to be blindsided by the support window expiring.

You're correct. The reason is not to attribute industry common practices to a specific company, but it makes sense also to expose it :) The producer is Google. I think (not sure) that they support their phones for 3 years.

The previous security update window guarantee for Pixels from Google was 3 years. With the 6 series (I believe they confirmed this includes the 6a) they extended that to 5 years.

My real problem isn't the previous 3 year window but that it counts from the first day they sell it, not the last. I bought my current phone, a Pixel 3a, late in its cycle for cheaper, early in 2020. It's now basically at the end of its updates because the guarantee counts 3 years starting from the release date in mid-2019, not from when I bought it.

5 years is obviously preferable but I'd like them to have also shifted it to be based on when they stop selling them new.

3 years for the older ones but at least 5 years for newer devices: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en#z...

LineageOS will probably support it forever, given they still release for S4.

Some of the proprietary Samsung stuff (voice calls, camera) can be problematic. Other than that it's amazing.

Using a refurbished Galaxy S7. It works just fine, is small enough and has a physical home button which I love. We don't need new phones. Please stop buying new phones, buy refurbished ones and prioritize easy to repair friendly hardware.

The issue with refurbished ones is guaranteeing quality.

If you buy from Amazon Renewed, for example, you have no idea exactly what you'll get. You could get a pristine unit without a scratch on it with a battery that has barely 10 cycles, or you could get a well worn (with plenty of micro scratches and minor nicks) with a battery that's been cycled 500+ times. It's kind of a crap-shoot when it comes to buying refurbished.

As someone who takes pride in keeping my phones absolutely perfect and even micro-scratch free, it's too much of a risk.

I bought mine on backmarket, they act as a middleman. You buy from a repair with a minimum six months guarantee or beyond. If it stops working, you can send it to repair. Batteries are guaranted to be at least 70% original capacity or have been replaced. There are different grades from scratched to pristine. Not sure they operate in your country though. Getting a former flagship phone for 150 euros with a CPU just as good or equivalent to a new phone of the same price seems worth it to me. Plus it's nice not to have to worry about that expensive thing in your pocket.

I'll see your Galaxy S10e and raise you a Galaxy S7. Just the right size for me and still going strong, in spite of the fact it was second hand already, when I bought it off eBay about 4 or 5 years ago.

I really don't know why people think they need a new phone every year. I've had 2 in the past decade. Both bought cheaply second hand [previous one am HTC One M8] and I got years of use out of each. In fact the One M8 is still working fine, apart from the degraded battery life.

Yeah, I'm still using an S7, similarly purchased second hand. Hardware is great. Have recently installed LightROM on it to get a more up to date Android, and it works really well. I tried the latest LineageOS for a brief spell, and it performed beautifully except that voice calls had the robot-voice issue that plagues Samsung phones (thanks proprietary drivers!)

i m stuck with S10 too (+ it has headphone jack)

Disable animations and it s not really slow.

I've had a very similar experience with my Galaxy S10. I got the battery swapped a few months ago for a very reasonable ₹2000 ($~30) at a Samsung service centre. Now my battery life is back to what it used to be. I'm confident I'll keep using this for at least two more years.

There's absolutely no replacement for this phone right now. Flagship specs, amazing camera, decent battery, SD card, headphone jack, 1440p screen. There's nothing like it.

PS: the in screen fingerprint sensor was quite horrible initially, but updates over the years have made it quite similar to a regular sensor.

A problem is that even within the niche of small phones, not everybody has the same wishes.

Compared to your ideal specifications, my wishes are: support for microSD card storage; battery that easily and reliably lasts a full day with moderate phone usage; fingerprint sensor, not necessarily on the power button; camera decent, not necessarily great (I don't care that much about low light performance, for example).

I'm tempted to sign up even with the specifications as you list them though. Missing microSD card support could be the major dealbreaker. Or alternatively some other user-friendly reliable method of getting lots of files from my PC to the phone's storage, but so far I haven't found any. Early Android versions supporter USB mass storage and that worked pretty well, but the transfer method implemented on newer versions is very slow and never works reliably for me.

> Missing microSD card support could be the major dealbreaker

And for the other guy a 3.5mm jack and for a third a physical off switch and look at that we have too many dealbreaker features for the form factor.

Power users tend to have more dealbreakers than the average consumer. Anecdotally, it seems power users prefer smaller phones. This might be what kills the small phone factor.

The Moto G (2013) had a microSD slot, a 3.5" port and all of it in a 4.5" form factor.

Why can't we just get an updated version of that?

I started with one of those, and every two-three years I upgrade to the most recently available one.

Over time the MotoG phones have been getting larger - to the extent that now the one I have doesn't fit in my sporran, if I go out wearing a kilt.

I love this. I propose we henceforth judge all phones by the sporran test.

It didn't have an SD card slot of any kind!

Wikipedia says it did, at least on the LTE model.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moto_G_(1st_generation)

Edit: ah found another source as well about it being on the LTE model https://www.phonearena.com/phones/Motorola-Moto-G-LTE_id8655

I believe the bit about power users is the HN effect at work, the main customers for small phones are people with small hands and/or pockets, who are disproportionally women.

Women are also overrepresented in the Really Big Phone market, and wield them two-handed.

They also trend heavily iPhone in the US market, but that leaves plenty of alpha for the manufacturer who serves the actual market for small-form-factor Android phones.

I agree with this. Power users are a tiny market compared to “people who can’t reasonably fit a modern phone in their pocket.”

But if you have to keep your phone in a purse anyways, why not just get a big one?

So mostly the people in that market who still care are the ones who can’t or don’t want to carry a purse, which is also a smaller market. (I’m in this market though, so i am sad)

Not everyone wants a phone that they have to operate two-handed -- particularly those with small hands to begin with.

The evidence suggests that most folks do, though.

I don't, to be clear--I'm on your side here. My iPhone 11 is way too big, I just needed a new phone during that spot where the SE was long in the tooth. But people genuinely seem to like dinner plates as phones.

Again, i think the phenomenon here is similar: if you can’t even get a phone you can operate one handed properly, you may as well get a bigger screen anyways.

I’m not saying that this is people’s preferred choice, I’m saying it’s a logical decision given the choices available that seems counterintuitive from first principles (and assuming a market with real choices).

And it's been a long time since any available phone could be operated one handed by most users. An iPhone Mini isn't really one-handable either.

I am the small-phone-lover this article is addressing, and I did sign up to their list - I have an Xperia XZ1 Compact and no plans to upgrade because there's nothing to upgrade it to - but my biggest complaint about the Compact is that it's too big already. I'm a not-quite-six-foot man and I can't reach to buttons in the corners one handed. So why bother? It seems that my preference is not entirely rational after all.

This. I would be willing to bet 99.9% of the human population do not have fingers long enough to operate the iphone 13 mini completely onehanded, i.e. reach all 4 corners of the screen without letting the phone slip.

The actual market for a truly one handle-able phone is enormous. It's just not possible to fit modern phone functions into a package that small though.

Who will pay flagship prices for a phone with 3 hours of battery life?

Even the SE is rough, and my hands aren’t particularly small.

As a non-power-user, I mostly keep my phone in the pocket, where I’d like it to be small.

I’d almost go for a dumb phone, almost... but then I need emails, maps and WhatsApp.

I don’t need 50 filters, 3 cameras, razor-thin (yet somehow enormous) body, more Storage than my laptop, etc etc...

Yeah, I really wanted to ditch owning a phone at all when my last one broke but I realised that too many services require having some sort of authenticator or phone for two factor authentication. Banks literally require having a mobile phone as they will require you to authenticate transactions through their app. So I'm still chained to the damn thing.

> As a non-power-user, I mostly keep my phone in the pocket, where I’d like it to be small.

> I’d almost go for a dumb phone

But nobody makes a small dumb phone either! I'd be ok with a dumb phone, if it is small.

Android manufacturers besides Samsung already don’t make any money. The last thing they are going to do is go after an even smaller niche.

I disagree. I bet many average consumers would want a small phone for work, travel, etc.

IMHO vendors try not to sell small flagship phones so you have to buy a foldable phone, which is way more expensive.

> I bet many average consumers would want a small phone for work, travel, etc.

They neither say they do nor buy those which are available.

Maybe they'd like a smaller phone for a limited set of situations (though there’s no evidence of that) but they’re not going to buy two phones, so that’s not relevant.

It's like asking a single-issue voter their preference on other subjects.

I definitely want a smaller phone but I don't know that I'd call myself a power user given that I use my phone less now than I have in the past 5 years - but it has been a total replacement for things like photography.

No, just do all three of those things. Add a couple millimeters to the thickness.

You shouldn't be downvoted. It's exactly the problem. My main factors are: Replaceable battery, headphone jack, LineageOS (or other custom rom) support. If those are matched the smaller the better - I loved my HP Veer, which I admit did not meet these requirements - but without them size is not the main factor.

Those additional requirements further splinter the market.

But what's the point in buying a small phone if it does not meet these standards, which are all about longevity? Then it will just be unusable in ~2 years. Which would make it no better than the otherwise perfect small phone I already have at home, the Veer.

>Or alternatively some other user-friendly reliable method of getting lots of files from my PC to the phone's storage, but so far I haven't found any.

SyncThing, sftp from a termux shell, or primitive ftpd.

> Early Android versions supporter USB mass storage and that worked pretty well, but the transfer method implemented on newer versions is very slow and never works reliably for me.

Have you tried both connecting your phone to your computer via USB and connecting your phone to a USB stick?

Connecting my phone to a USB stick is not something I have tried yet. I wasn't even aware that that's supposed to work.Thanks, I'll give that a try.

> Early Android versions supporter USB mass storage and that worked pretty well, but the transfer method implemented on newer versions is very slow and never works reliably for me.

Sounds like you haven't been using ADB. Normally, like you've seen, getting files on or off a modern Android handset is a terrible experience. Considering I only do bulk transfers from my own PC, I just apt install adb, then adb push $files $destination. Highly recommend - it's one of the few ways Android is still dramatically better for techy users.

You want a small phone. But you want one with better battery life and you want an Android?

Between the inefficiency of non Apple ARM chipsets and the inefficiency of Android, that’s not likely to happen.

> that’s not likely to happen.

Why not? It has happened before.

My Xperia XZ1 Compact:

- runs Android (I'm on Android 10, but might upgrade)

- measures about 14cm diagonally and 8-9mm thick

- uses around 10-15% charge per day of light use (without Google services)

- has a standard headphone jack

- has stereo speakers

- has decent front and back cameras, with no bump

- has a microSD slot

- has a USB type C port

- has a fingerprint sensor (I disabled mine)

- is water-tight and dust-tight (IP68)

- supports VoLTE

- supports WiFi calling

My previous phone was similar, and a bit slimmer. The one before that didn't get such good battery life, but its physical keyboard, swappable battery, and even smaller size made up for having to charge more often.

Obviously, these devices are not common, but they are made from time to time. I'm looking at hardware right now that proves there is no technical barrier. I don't see any reason to dissuade people from asking for a new model.

It’s also a phone that was first announced in 2016, by a company that has lost money for the past 5 years and is basically retreating from the global market.

https://www.androidheadlines.com/2019/05/sony-mobile-strateg...

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of its mobile phone strategy.

And it last a long time not using any services that make Android what it is to most users (ie using Google service) is not a mass market selling point.

You seem to be arguing in bad faith.

Being a few years old does not make my example less valid. (Arguably the opposite, given that it still works well today.) The point is that it meets GP's needs.

Sony's poor marketing strategy was not caused by one phone model, nor is it a requirement for small phones in general.

You could easily adjust the numbers I quoted to estimate battery life with Google services running. Assume half, or a third, if you like. It would still meet GP's needs.

A phone that is a few years old doesn’t have the energy/battery requirements that new phones have because of a more memory hungry operating system that requires a beefier cheapest, more memory hungry cellular chipsets (5G), Google Services, etc.

And if a company can’t sell a phone profitable, it’s not a viable product.

And he admits that he hardly ever uses it.

And that phone will probably not work at all soon in the US if it doesn’t support VoLTE.

And what if none of what you are claiming is true?

Well it’s definitely true for his phone.

I use Total Commander to transfer files. It has plugins for many different kinds of transfer, but I mainly use SMB for computers on my lan and sometimes sftp for others.

> user-friendly reliable method of getting lots of files from my PC to the phone's storage

Have you tried KDE Connect? (Hint: It's not only for KDE desktop users.)

https://kdeconnect.kde.org/

I maintain this chart of small Android phones:

https://www.productchart.com/smartphones/small_android_phone...

You can filter by specs to see how close you can get to your dream phone. There are quite a few available on the market that match the 5.5" screen size of the iPhone 13 Mini. Even by the big manufacturers like Samsung and Google. Like the Pixel 3. Which was introduced 4 years ago though.

In general, phones have been becoming larger and larger over the years. So this chart has been becoming more and more sparse over time.

But recently, the voices demanding small phones seem to become louder and more frequent.

I am curious to see if it will reverse the trend.

At some point, I will probably make a graph that shows the change in average screensize over time.

No Jelly2?

Good point! Will add it.

Missing Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact - the most recent (and apparently last) small phone that Sony made.

Thanks, will add it.

Sony Xperia XZ1 is on there, but not the Xperia XZ1 Compact?

Louder, but not more numerous.

Only two countries in the world, apparently

I have given up: the iphone mini (which I own) is gargantuan.

There are a few glimmers of hope around the edges. Palm was interesting but too small (the primary problem was the battery, not the screen size). Unihertz is doing some interesting stuff in the small phone arena, but their stuff is either too small and thick (the jelly) or too big (titan). Their styling is also a bit funky in a 90's tech vibe sort of way that I'm not a huge fan of.

What I want is an iphone 4-sized phone that I can keep in my pocket w/o noticing and that provides the basics of smart phones. Even better if it could be an e-ink screen so I don't have to charge it very often.

I have accepted that I am a market of one.

I'm with you! The litephone 2 is the closest we've gotten but at our market-size the software stability will likely be lacking.

a market of two, then

i have a litephone for my kids and it's too minimalistic, I'd still like maps, etc

if we could combine the styling of the palm, but a bit bigger and with much better battery w/ and e-ink display and decent battery life, I'd be in heaven

market of three

The litephone is too basic and the HiSense A5 etc do not work on US networks.

I looked at building a 5.2" e-ink phone for the US market and did some fun mock-ups, but it would be a huge undertaking with my limited hardware background. Smaller phones just have fundamental limits due to battery size that are difficult to work around, and Android has basically no e-ink support as it's such a niche type of display for a phone.

surely at some point a viable e-ink phone will be released in the US

surely :|

I like the idea of the litephone except it's the opposite of what I use a phone for. I don't care much about phone calls, they're mostly useless except that my doorbell is hooked up to my phone (which is of course set to silent lol) and sometimes I need to talk to banks or recruiters. I want maps, chat apps, email, lyft, a browser, etc. but also to disable 99% of notifications 99% of the time.

Right now I still use my Palm Phone (PVG100) and I'm bummed that it looks like they won't release another one. Gonna use it until it's impossible for it to function in the modern world.

I miss the iPhone 5. That was a great size and shape. Same width as the 4, just a bit longer of course.

The "1st gen" SE is the same size as the 5, still available from e.g. Amazon for $100–$200, and runs the current iOS very well if a little slowly.

I ran those for many years but unfortunately the batteries are old and seem to only last a year these days

Why not go to an Apple Store, and buy a new battery?

running with 1st gen se since fall 2018: battery is still at 95%

replacement kit from ifixit is available thou

I pulled a 5 out of my draw and was pleasantly surprised at the size and feel, but then I actually went to use it and it was quite bad. I wasn’t able to comfortably two hand the phone to type which meant my typing speed was massively reduced.

Personally I mostly use my phone two handed so even the pro max is usable even though I can’t reach all areas with one hand.

I wanted this and it didn't exist, so now I use an iPhone 13 mini. I'll likely replace the battery on this a few times since rumor has it the mini model won't be continued. It's too bad that Apple is running entirely on the sales numbers of the mini itself for that decision, as since getting an iPhone 13 mini I've bought 3 of the newest model of macbook pro for members of my family, started using Apple TV+ and Apple Music, and bought myself some Airpods pro. Apple brought me into their ecosystem with this device so from my perspective it seems like it could be worthwhile for them to continue making it.

I've been looking at new phones since my Xperia Compact (XZ1) started having some issues, and iPhone seems to be the only choice. I just wish it had usb-c. By the way, did you consider to go with 12 instead of 13?

I had the 12 mini and then paid a few bucks to upgrade to the 13 mini during a promotion at a local shop. The 13 mini battery life is better which I really appreciate since my phone is my GPS device when I'm in the backcountry without a charger.

I'd give the iPhone 13 Mini a weak-recommend for small phone lovers coming from Android. It is truly the only option for small phones. (Well, small-ish. I actually find it a bit larger than I'd like, but it's acceptable.) But, iOS is a really significant downgrade from Android. It's usable, I've lived with mine for months, but I'm really hoping I can switch back to Android in the future. I've even considered just reselling the iPhone at a loss so I can switch back sooner, but it's hard because there are also no good Android options, so I haven't... yet.

I also got a 13 Mini. It's a nice phone, but it feels very dense, especially with the magsafe case. I'm not sold on the experience coming from Android, but it seems like it's a case of learning workarounds.

In hindsight, I realised that I was coming from an Android phone a few generations back (Pixel 2) which I considered to be a reasonable size. Pixels have gotten about 10 mm longer over time. However now we have wall to wall screens, it's quite a difference. The iPhone Pro is the same form factor as a Pixel 2, for example, but is all screen. 6" seems doable for Android, but that's a lower bound.

I think what we all want is a Pixel 2 without the bezel. There are lots of phones with smaller OLED displays, but none without the bezel.

Use it without the case. The iPhone 13 mini aluminum coating is very, very scratch resistant.

exact same user story for me!

I think we will see the small phone format returning down the road under the SE brand instead. So a year or two from now a new SE that looks like today's 13 mini.

While the rumors themselves are usually pretty accurate, the interpretations and conversations around them remain pretty wild and emotional. Low sales numbers probably proved that the mini isn't the format that needs a refresh every single year and the 13 mini was unique because the 12 mini had a few weak points that needed addressing.

I think Apple has lately really had it's sh*t together when it comes to strategy and timing lately. They knew years ahead of time that the interest in the small format (in which you can reach across the entire screen with your thumb) would return as soon as everyone got used to and bored with big screens.

I wonder how much of the limited sales of the iPhone mini could be attributed to the branding? What if Apple were to drop the mini and make this the base iPhone, with the other models being Plus, Pro, Max? Margins may be poorer with Mini, so it likely won’t happen, but I feel mini sales could be much higher if they wanted them to be.

Yeah you can imagine two purposes for the mini:

1. Cheaper iPhone

2. You don’t want to carry a big iPhone and you have a Mac/iPad nearby anyway for anything complicated so a big phone is unnecessary.

The second case should motivate wanting eg their ‘pro’ cameras in the small phone but the first case motivates making it cheap and low-margin. You can also imagine a world where apple markets a mini phone as also being an optional companion to a bigger phone, but they already have the watch for that.

But they could have both things in two separate models.

Wasn't the 11 pro the size of the mini / SE? I don't remember whether there was an 11 mini, but it seems to me that 11 pro / SE were exactly that, and the current minis / se are the size of the 7/8/se/11 pro.

I the time I couldn't justify buying a new phone, but I remember late last year, when I figured I could start looking, I was possibly contemplating getting the 13 pro, for the camera. But when I saw how huge it was, I immediately abandoned the idea.

first gen SE is smallest, and both it and the 2nd/3rd gen SE are smaller than the 11 pro (though the latter is closer, only 0.2" smaller in both length and width).

The iphone 12 mini and 13 mini are both smaller than the 2nd/3rd gen SE but larger than the 1st gen SE.

The 2nd/3rd gen SE is the same size as the iphone 8.

I used a first-gen SE up until last year and thought it was great. I know it was super old, but it being really small was one of the biggest selling points of it for me.

> 1. Cheaper iPhone

> 2. You don’t want to carry a big iPhone

If you add those two up, you get "Middle school kids".

Though the apple watch with its own SIM has solved some of the "contact device without instagram" needs that parents want with their kids.

Sounds like you've answered your own question. Margins are lower, why would they want to sell more of those compared to the regular iphones?

So increase the price?

As a criminal defense attorney, I will never own a FaceID device. Ever. I owned an iPhone 7, then an iPhone 8, then an iPhone SE 2020, then another iPhone SE 2020. I may upgrade to the iPhone SE 2022.

Cost is not an issue for me. I don't buy the iPhone SE because I'm cheap. I buy the iPhone SE because it is, on balance, hands down the best phone Apple makes right now for people who value convenience, portability, and security.

I tried the iPhone Mini when I broke my first iPhone SE while hiking. I don't trust FaceID to work when I want it to (masks, glasses vs contacts, etc. tripped it up). I don't trust FaceID not to work when I don't want it to. I ended up returning it and going back to the SE.

I don't think I'm alone.

I stuck with the 12 mini, vs going to another SE (had SE for years). I miss the Touch ID. A lot. Having to look at something, then swipe up, then ... do other stuff to get back to the home screen, instead of literally just putting my thumb on a button the pressing it... it's so much more convenience. Of course, you can just turn off the face stuff altogether, but you lose some security (and IIRC, some of payment stuff won't work?)

I have bought the iPhone SE 2022 mainly because it has TouchID. Being cheaper is just icing on the cake.

Just curious what impact / relevance does being a criminal defense attorney have on using a device with FaceID?

IANAL. But from what i gather you cant be compelled to enter a passcode or forces to unlock phone with a fingerprint. There is no clear such protections for face.

More or less. In my jurisdiction you can be compelled to give up biometrics, which has been expanded to include biometric unlocking. However, it requires a separate authorization, which in many cases will take long enough for the paperwork for TouchID to time out, and passcodes cannot be compelled (again, in my jurisdiction). There is no such protection for directing you to look at your phone.

For clients under investigation who have FaceID or similar unlocking for phones or computers, we always recommend they disable it and just use a passcode until the investigation is complete.

Like you advise your clients, no matter what the law says, you can't be compelled to unlock your phone with FaceID if you don't set up FaceID on your phone. I don't understand why this would prevent you from buying one.

Very interesting - what is there specifically about being a criminal defence attorney that makes you district FaceID? Data sharing issues? Securing personal / work data?

I’m not disagreeing, I’m very wary of these mechanisms, just curious about your thought process.

IANAL, but you might be compelled to give up a fingerprint, face or other biometric access options; you cannot be compelled to give up a passphrase or something stored in your mind.

Not OP but from various laws around the world Police can generally use something physical to unlock your device - your face, your thumb - but they cannot get you to put in your password or pass code without a warrant.

Granted this kind of breaks down at borders where they have special laws, but for inside various countries it still holds.

You don't have to enable FaceID, though.

And in various places around the world, police use rubber hose decryption…

Well yeah, if you're on the street in Russia and the police in full military gear ask you to unlock your phone, I'd like to say I would resist and decline but I doubt it.

> In a 2014 case out of a Virginia state court that seems to have set off the current debate, police obtained a search warrant to search a suspect’s home and to seize various items, including his smartphone that had TouchID enabled.

> The judge in that case drew a bright line: Under the Fifth Amendment, police could not force the suspect to communicate his passcode, but they could force him to use his fingerprint to unlock the device. The reason?

> Providing a fingerprint was “non-testimonial,” because it did not require the suspect to produce anything from his own mind. On the other hand, to give up your personal passcode is classically testimonial, since it comes from your head.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-te...

Which is why Apple put in a kill switch for Face ID (or Touch ID), if you hold down the power button (or power and volume down for newer iPhones) until the “Slide to Power Off” screen appears, the next unlock will require your passcode.

Additionally, just because a phone has Face ID doesn’t mean you’re obligated to configure it.

Because we all know that police always operate within the law and would never lie about coercing a suspect to unlock their phone.

Or, if they really wanted the phone unlocked, they could just follow the suspect and tackle him while he is using it.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/12/uk-police-unlock...

Just an idea in case they kill touchid options: if you get an apple watch you can keep your phone unlocked when nearby and just disable faceid.

They have also recently improved FaceID to work with masks on, so the situation has improved since you tested the mini.

Can you not... disable FaceID?

You can set any iPhone to use a passcode every time, disable TouchID, FaceID, whatever.

Yes you can disable FaceID unlock. I only use it for not very important apps but just unlock my phone with a passcode. You can also set the time for how long to wait until your phone requires the passcode again, and you can set that so that when you lock, the passcode is needed immediately after.

FaceID can be disabled. Reliably. Not sure I see what the issue is here.

You can also quickly, discreetly, and temporarily disable it, for instance if you are stopped by police. So this just isn't a real issue.

> Margins may be poorer with Mini,

But they don't necessarily have to be. We've never had an option where, for the same price, you could choose screen sizes. There's a sizable portion of people for whom larger phones are simply difficult to use. Would I have paid an extra $50 for my iPhone 12 mini? Yep, because I was buying based on the size, not the price.

This is so weird compared to 20 years ago, where the smaller the phone was, the more expensive it was. The big bulky phones were a sign that you couldn't afford the smaller one. A few friends joke that I couldn't afford a 'real' phone when I pull out my 12 mini, which... is nuts because I bought it outright, and a couple of them worry about 'when can I upgrade? oh, let me check how many more payments I have on this current model'.

That's not a totally fair comparison, because before smartphones there was no inherent advantage to a phone being larger. You got exactly the same features either way, so miniature was premium. Now the big screen is the premium feature.

Keep a base and make the Mini another premium option. It's not always that a smaller device is weaker but that it required sophisticated engineering to get everything that compact.

I'd pick a name that suggests that it's a lifestyle thing rather than being spartan.

I miss my old Moto G1. Light and with a small form factor, and at the same time it was one of the first phones that were cheap but not low quality.

It made a breakthrough in a market where you either had an expensive Samsung or you dealt with cheap phones with very bad specs. This was ages ago, fortunately today there are more phones that are cheap but with acceptable specs.

Moto G1 had the perfect form factor, plus also the "rubber" like back which I really loved. I have no idea why glas surfaces on the back are a thing, I always have to use a phone cover as else it would slip my hands. The rubber the Moto G1 allowed for a safe and firm grip, that every phone should have on the back.

+1, the MotoG had the perfect form factor. I'd love for a 2022 phone with a sub 5" screen.

I'm not sure how similar it was, but when I saw this post my first thought was the original Moto X. Even today, I think I might rate that as my favorite phone of all time. Perfect size, flagship-ish specs, grippy texture without a case, etc. Then of course the next generation made it huge.

This is why I'm not moving on from my Pixel 4a. If it ever dies, I'll go on eBay or wherever and buy a new one. I don't even care if it goes EOL and stops receiving security updates.

TBH if I do end up replacing it with something else, it doesn't have to be stock Android or even a powerful device. I'm okay with replacing my 4a with some cheap ultra-budget shanzhai phone as long as it's small and it works with T-Mobile US's LTE network.

Also the iPhone Mini itself isn't an option—not only do I not want to be part of Apple's ecosystem, but I have sensory issues and can't handle metal phones. I need a plastic phone. And no, a case isn't an option because a case would just make the phone too wide for me to hold.

For me the more problematic aspect of the 4a is the updates it’s receiving make it so much slower. For instance at this point opening the camera takes around 3s, and the shutter button lags 2s as well.

Going back yo the previous OS would fix that, but it was also buggy and missing proper support for the new gesture navigation. I love the phone but it also makes me hate Google so much.

TBH I don't use gesture navigation so that doesn't matter to me. I just hate Android 12 because it forced ugly gray backgrounds on me. I miss being able to see the active application under my notification shade and to see my wallpaper behind the app switcher.

At this point I think I'm just done with Google's Android and I think I'm ready to try one of those Chinese forks with a super-colorful iOS-like UX.

Huh?

My 4a is works perfectly so far.

Interesting. I thought that was the battery, but status seemed to be ok.

I’ll try to see if there’s some setting killing it.

This is not my experience - my Pixel 4a takes < 1s to go from tapping on the Camera icon to seeing a camera image on screen. No shutter lag either.

There’s something wrong with your phone. Try resetting it maybe?

I went from Pixel 4a (first Android I've ever had) to Pixel 6. It's been about 3 months with the 6, I still have the 4a and I think I'm going to switch back. It's just too big, and the in-screen fingerprint reader isn't as good.

So basically the Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact[0], then. Unfortunately this phone is approaching four years out of date. I owned it (still do, technically; I just gave it to a relative) and it was by and large the best smartphone I ever had. Even 4 years after purchase, the battery still lasts for 5+ hours of screen-on-time, the front-firing speakers are extremely powerful, and there are no noticeable slowdowns. It experienced some water damage early on, so the screen likes to randomly spazz out on occasion; there is also no headphone jack (this was when Sony attempted to follow the trend, to tremendous backlash).

Addendum: I daresay many of the demographic here at Hacker News likes phones similar to that of /r/Android: headphone jack, notchless rectangular display, SD card slot, notification LED, not-too-crazy design, and there's literally only one company doing all this: Sony.

[0]: https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=9082&idPhone2...

I actually ended up going out and buying an iPhone mini today because of this thread. An upgrade from the 12 Pro.

I love it. It's SO much lighter, and small enough that I can reach the entire screen one-handed, so no longer do I need to awkwardly try to find a place to put down whatever I'm carrying in my other hand just so I can text or interact comfortably.

It is kinda old (2019), but Samsung S10e is imho _the_ small (android) phone.

5.8" 1080x2280 AMOLED display, with a tiny hole punch front camera; Snapdragon 855, 6/8gm RAM, 128/256gb of storage (with support for microsd card); two rear cameras (wide and ultrawide) with great image quality(imho); ip68; gorilla glass 5; 3.5mm jack; usb type c; wireless charging + reverse wireless charging; fingerprint on power button (side mounted); ~4hours SOT (3100mAh); it comes with samsung's bloated os but you can put custom rom (i checked support for /e/ os and its supported, but i belive there are other options); ~400 euros

I'm going to be upset when I'll have to replace my S10e with something larger and without a headphone jack.

Samsung's UI has come a long way, now I actually prefer OneUI over stock Android.

I just wish s10e has replaceable battery... (even tho that would prob ruin ip68 and design :) )

It's not impossible to replace the battery - https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Samsung+Galaxy+S10e+Battery+Rep... - it's just a bit of a pain.

And, yeah, it probably does compromise the waterproofing.

Yeah, I just replaced mine a couple weeks ago. It wasn't hard, but it wasn't easy either.

I had to replace my phone because of the AT&T 3g shutdown and the fact that no company is going to pay AT&T to approve their old phone models. I got a S10E for pretty much the same reason: small, SD card, headphone jack, and resolution at least 1080x1920.

I tried searching for a modern phone that still has all this and there's nothing. The best I could find is a current Motorola phone; most of them still have jacks and SD cards and some have reasonable resolution, but they're all large size. Some of them also support the FM radio chip if you want that.

I got an iPhone Mini hoping to be able to use it with one hand, but it wasn't small enough to do that (and I don't have small hands), so I returned it. I figured if I'm going to need a PopSocket anyway, I may as well have more screen space too

I'm not surprised the Mini has been underperforming. I think it's in an awkward valley where it's not small enough for that to be an advantage, it's only small enough for it to be a disadvantage

My thoughts exactly. I am 6'4" and I have an iPhone 13 mini and even I think it's too big for my taste.

I simply need something that I can use comfortably with a single hand, small enough to call it compact and hide in my pocket.

I totally get the appeal of a bigger screen though. I can appreciate it for what it achieves: bigger screen means easy to read, good for watching media, playing games and easier to type on it. But for my use case, I want to AVOID making it that easy to do all of those things while still getting benefits of a smartphone, let alone an iPhone.

That's why I am really bummed that iPhone mini is going away. I don't think I'll switch to Android, because I have a lot of apple devices and the ecosystem integration is quite valuable for me.

> 4 hours Screen On Time (SOT)

> Unlockable bootloader

> NFC

You could’ve kept things simple and attracted a larger audience by just saying you want a smaller phone.

This reads like an over passionate CS freshman…….

“Dude wouldnt it b cool if it ran Arch Linux”

I’ve rarely heard net positive reviews for phones from no name Chinese brands like One Plus or whatever that thing is.

There just needs to be a smaller modern phone, that’s all. No TTL connectors, no OCAML based user environment.

I promise there are enough frustrated kids and adults in the planet to sign a strictly smaller modern phone petition.

Unfortunately the Smartphone world is pretty dominantly Apple, Google and Samsung.

Hopefully the petition will raise notice, but we all know companies rarely operate this way.

Unlockable bootloader is criterium number 0 for me, even when recommending phones to people who will never want to change firmware. I would be happy if manufacturers stated this in phone specs.

If this thread proves anything it’s that there is huge demand for customizable phone designs. Currently, there is total reliance on economies of scale to make standardized SKUs affordable.

Imagine if you could figure out a way of manufacturing a phone with design on demand… imagine a configurator website where you adjusted sliders and tickboxes. Headphone jack here, screen size slider all the way to the left, battery size all the way to the right, pick your color, oops you can’t have IP68 because you selected the pop-out camera…

Like variable fonts, but for hardware.

Frankly I’ve no idea how you would do it.

But that’s the level of innovation required to unlock this market.

> If this thread proves anything it’s that there is huge demand for customizable phone designs.

I think it just proves what we already know -- there is a vocal minority (but strong emphasis on minority) who would like a customizable phone. The market largely doesn't seem to care. And it may even actively discriminate against customizable phones by ensuring they had no resale value. The more custom you want it, the fewer people who want to buy that particular device.

You really only get to have one obscure requirement. If you want a small phone, the mini exists. If you want a phone with a headphone Jack, those exist. Once you start stacking up two, three or four odd requirements, you’ll never get what you want.

The problem with targeting small markets is almost everyone in the group wants absolutely everything the way they expect. There isn’t a “small phone market” there is a “small android phone with removable sd card and 3 cameras” market and a “small android phone with one camera but a replaceable battery at $400” market.

And then it just becomes literally impossible to make work so we have mass market products only.

It’s not even close to possible. Phones are likely the most advanced items in human history. So far beyond anything else you’d interact with. It’s only possible through hundreds of thousands of people working on mass production and research.

You could make customisable phones but they wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as mass market phones.

Totally agree! I'm still on the Pixel 4a, starting to look at an upgrade but I don't think there is one. Luckily I don't demand too much from my phone, but making better pictures would be nice.

Zenfone 8 https://www.asus.com/Mobile/Phones/ZenFone/Zenfone-8/

LineageOS supported https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/sake/

There's an issue with ZenFone 8 often referred to as "ram dump" which Asus hasn't addressed, and caused many phones to brick suddenly: https://zentalk.asus.com/en/discussion/comment/208476/

I've got an iPhone 13 Mini. I brought it, because I suspect that it will be the last small-format phone Apple makes. I figure it's good for a couple of years.

I have a lot of Apple gear (I develop Apple native apps). I tend to use the Mini phone, and the Mini iPad, the most. The rest of the stuff sits around, until it's testing/screenshot time.

Using the Pixel 4a. Basically the perfect form factor and size. I'd upgrade every 2-3 years to a new version of the same phone with minor updates like the chipset etc.

Dreading the day I'll have to start searching for a replacement :(

The Pixel 3a (my current phone) has a 5.6" screen, the 4a has a 5.8" screen and the Pixel 5 has a 6" screen. However, they're all approximately the same physical size, it's just the bezels that got smaller.

The 4a is actually a smidge smaller than the 3a. Much easier to handle, IMO, though not quite ideal.

Your point about bezels getting smaller is very true for the phones you mentioned. But you also left out the Pixel 4a 5G, the Pixel 5a, the Pixel 6, the Pixel 6 Pro, and the Pixel 6a. Which all ballooned massively in physical size relative to their predecessors.

Same... Used the Pixel 2 before that. Probably will buy a spare 4a on ebay soon.

I jokingly tell my friends that i want to start a phone company.

It'll just sell one phone.

aPhone.

It's, a phone.

Not aPhone 1, aPhone 2. That's not minimalist.

Just aPhone, 2022 edition. And so on.

It's aPhone for people who like regular sized phones. 5.8" display max, 3-4ths of the way to flagship specs, a $500 ish price tag.

Pair it with near stock Android with minor adjustments only, and i really think the aPhone could be a hit and help build a (not a billion-dollar) multi-million dollar company.

So the aPhone 2022 then?

There are 120 Android phones with 4G that are 5.8" or smaller, since 2019. Of those, the best are probably the Cat S62 Pro, Pixel 4 or 3, Fairphone 3+, and Samsung Galaxy S10e. https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?nYearMin=2018&fDisplay...

Palm released a tiny Android phone in 2018, but the performance was crap so it didn't sell. Smaller phone means smaller battery and fewer cutting edge components, unless you fab everything yourself, making it more expensive. The tradeoffs don't work unless you're the richest company in the world.

> The tradeoffs don't work unless you're the richest company in the world.

More accurately, I think that would be "unless you sell the most phones in the world." A niche iPhone still sells more phones than Google.

I bought my kids the first iPhone SE back in 2016 and they're still using it due to its size. I also think it's the perfect size and would love to have a Pixel phone with the same dimensions. I currently use the Pixel 5.

There's the "lightphone."[1] Stuck at "pre-order" since 2019.

There's this little Android smartphone from Shenzhen.[2] $104 in quantity 2, $74 in quantity 1000. You can get it from Amazon for about twice as much.

[1] https://www.thelightphone.com/

[2] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Small-Cellphone-3-0-I...

Current phone: Samsung S10e (5.8" AMOLED, 142mm/5.6" long) and previous: Motorola Moto X 1st gen from 2013 (4.7" AMOLED, 129mm/5.09" long). Very happy with them. Both being flagship models (powerful CPU), the only drawback is shorter battery life than other phones.

I loved the original Moto X! It was one of the first true smart phones my wife and I purchased, and almost the best. It's a great balance of features and practicality that I wish a premium (or near-premium) phone would return. If there are any comparable current models, please let me know.

Hardware - Not premium, but a great combination of rugged, good looking, and practical. It was a pleasure to hold (and still was last time I pulled it out), with the soft, grippy, rubber back and "just right" size. Removeable battery was a plus.

Software - Lots of nice little touches by Motorola. I wish Google integrated more of them when they bought Motorola, like the "double flick" to turn on the flashlight. One of the first with lock screen notifications in white.

I am currently using a Pixel 4a, which in my opinion is the latest useable Pixel.

Since we are basically doing market research, here is my take ;)

It is kind of sorted by relevance as it is in the order in which it came to my mind.

Here is what I need from a new phone:

  - height between 145mm and 150mm
  - width between 70mm and 75mm
  - thickness up to 15mm, I honestly don't care
  - storage atleast 128GB, expandable if possible
  - 3.5mm heaphone jack
  - USB-C 3 (at least 5Gbps)
  - fingerprint (in-display, or front bezel, back is also acceptable)
  - stock Android
  - hardware security features of the Pixel Line (Secure Element, Hardware attestation, everything that would make the GrapheneOS people want that phone)
  - "enough" RAM, maybe 6-8GB
  - recent SOC but *not* a power hungry flagship, I want the efficiency king
  - battery for two days of messengers and phone calls (no games, no social media crap)
  - no glas where it doesn't need to be
  - current wifi and bluetooth

This is what is nice to have:

  - small top bezel for camera, ear piece, sensors
  - small bottom bezel to better reach the on display controls
  - fingerprint resistent, non slippery and light casing (maybe aluminium frame with tpu around)
  - easy to replace battery (doesn't need to be hot swappable, but no glue, not burried under the mainboard or next to *flimsy* ribbon cables)
  - IPXX rating
  - camera on Pixel 5 level

I really liked my Xperia XZ2C, until the touch screen started glitching out. I'd love to hear if anyone has a solution for this common problem (touch becomes unresponsive, or goes wild, and is fixed temporarily by locking the screen or squeezing the screen).

I'm glad the author mentioned weight, as I think it should be added to the list of requirements. The iPhone6 is 129 g and feels light, the iPhone13 mini is 141 g, my XZ2C is 168 g and is heavy enough I think it causes wrist pain, while the Pixel 5a is 183 g!

Might be a grounding issue, solved by separating the screen and the battery.

https://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_xz2_compact-reviews-908...

"U must open the case and Put some sticker behind the lcd.ghost touch happen cause have contact between lcd and battery. Grounding issue"

I'm willing to try it.

I just signed up for his mailing list and put this down for my comments:

I really want a microSD slot. Shared with the second SIM is OK, but please don't exclude it entirely. And/or more internal storage.

I'm on a Pixel 2 and am generally satisfied with the size of that phone, but I could live with smaller. My biggest problems are that 1) google screwed me with a non-unlockable bootloader when I sent it in for repair, so the software is slowly rotting and 2) I keep running out of storage. Other than that, the phone is basically fine.

From the reviews I've read, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 likes to draw way too much power and then thermally throttle - so probably not a great choice for a small phone (with both a smaller battery and less surface area to dissipate heat.) But, this phone probably won't ship this year, so maybe they'll have something better out by the time it does.

I wouldn't put "Hole punch front camera" on my "desired" list, but eh, it's not a dealbreaker for me either. I'd rather have a little bit of top and bottom bezel with decent front-firing speakers, and then stick the camera in the top bezel. Kind of like the current Xperias, only shorter.

Headphone jack would also be nice to have, but also not a dealbreaker for me.

Oh, and video output over USB-C would be another nice to have. I think it comes built-in with most recent Snapdragons, but Google seems to go out of their way to disable the feature...

From what I've seen, the tiny Palm Phone (from TCL) didn't do very well, but there's still some inventory on Amazon: https://palm.com/pages/product.

There's also the Cyrcle Phone (https://www.cyrclephone.com/) which doesn't seem to be for sale anymore after its Kickstarter and Indie Go Go campaigns.

There are tons on ebay for good prices!

> From what I've seen, the tiny Palm Phone (from TCL) didn't do very well, but there's still some inventory on Amazon: https://palm.com/pages/product.

The battery is the main issue, about 2h of use or 1 day if in power saving mode with every optimization applied.

It's still good enough as a travel phone, turned on only when I need to call.

The Cyrcle Phone doesn't look small at all, just in a different shape. Also from the video shots it looked like the UI wasn't very well adapted to it's screen shape.

> For Apple, 10m phones is peanuts. But for an independent company 10m units per year would be spectacular. If Apple kills the Mini, those people will need a new home.

Hm, I’d suspect most of the customers are more attached to the Apple iPhone than the form. I’m one, but, I could be wrong!

Agree. Some folks want small phones, but generally iphone users want... an iphone.

I have an iPhone 13 Mini. If no equivalent exists when I go to replace it, then I'll buy iPhone Pro Giant Ass Max and shove it the man bag.

But I'll carry a MacBook as my phone before I'll go back to Android, no matter how small they make 'em.

As an iPhone user, I've wanted to use an iPhone Mini ever since they came out. It was hard to compromise on the camera, coming from a Pro device, but I finally made the switch when the iPhone 13 Mini debuted.

Within 24 hours however, I was back at the Apple Store returning it. What was the issue? Nothing wrong with the device at all - it was everything I hoped it would be! Unfortunately, the issue was with the apps instead.

Developers have gotten so used to everyone being on bigger devices. Since the Mini _lowered_ the standard size of a device (and represented such a small audience), I found that most of my apps had various UI bugs as they were written to target a regular iPhone dimension or larger. In some cases, apps were unusable due to the UI bugs.

As an iOS engineer, I can also speak to the development side of things. At the various places that I've worked, I can't say that any testing was ever specifically done on a device smaller than the smallest _regular_ iPhone (like an iPhone XS). Even our team of QAs had all kinds of devices that they'd use and we had automated UI testing, but an iPhone Mini was consistently overlooked.

Maybe the device will be better in the future, but until then, the apps just aren't ready.

Granted this is my experience with iPhones and iOS apps. Android could very well be in a different place. I expect less out of the app development on that platform, however, developers are also more attuned to targeting smaller screen sizes, given how many Android devices exist, so it could indeed be a better experience if you find a device that you like.

Interesting, can you give an example of such apps "not really working" on iP Mini? I'm asking because my wife uses 12 Mini and she never told a word about it. I'm also using it from time to time in few apps and everything looks ok.

I don't recall having UI trouble with a single app since getting a 13 Mini some months ago, nor have I heard such from my spouse. Would you have any examples?

But for me and my house, pry that Mini from our cold, dead hands.

The article person might want one, but people don't. That's why the iPhone Mini doesn't sell and is being axed.

5% sold were Mini. But I guess let’s axe it if it cuts into profit just a bit.

It is a business, though, and if 5% of sales cost disproportionately more than 5% to produce, market, support, and all those things, then it’s fair to say “it doesn’t sell” and axe it.

And together with the SE devices?

About 6, maybe 7%.

Sadly yes, if the Mini means additional costs and only captures users which'd have bought your phone anyway it's just overhead.

Sad to say but ruthless supply chain and product range efficiency is one of the pillars of Apple's return.

I wouldn’t call 10 m a year „doesn’t sell“. It might not sell like the bigger ones but there’s definitely a market for it

Clearly not enough to warrant a production line, otherwise there would be some offerings for it from some Android maker.

Clearly? Are you sure?

Paraphrasing Contact: First rule in cell phone building: why build small when you can build twice as big at twice the price?

I mean it's not like this has been a sudden shift, phones have been getting gradually larger over the years. I seriously doubt manufacturers would be using more materials to make a smaller amount of larger phones instead of more smaller ones if the larger versions didn't sell that much more.

Sure, I just meant that maybe smaller phones are profitable, just less profitable than bigger ones, so companies incentivize the latest.

I've given up. My plan is buying a dumbphone until Pine is usable by me.

Or is it that marketing has been telling customers that bigger is better for the past decade? I wouldn't give too much credit to an average consumer.

There is no marketing. Bigger is just better. I got the regular sized iPhone and every time I pick up the pro max it feels good. It’s visually more striking, it’s nicer to use. It’s just a little harder to hold but with two hands is still fine.

It will return in a couple years as the new SE.

Speak for yourself.

If you are on HN, you likely use a computer a lot. But 15 years ago, a switch occurred, and nowaday, there are way more people using a phone that don't have a computer at home, or use it rarely.

This means for the vast majority of people today, and hence customers, the phone IS the computer. It's the entry point for everything.

They consume content, shop and even work on that.

But phones have terrible ergonomics. Their productivity sucks.

One of the reason is the limited screen space.

For someone using a phone, mostly as a communication device, while doing important things on a computer, a small phone makes sense. I'm this kind of person. My phone is too big for my taste. Anything complicated, I reach for my laptop: it's more efficient. Phones are terrible at multitasking, and constraint myself to 2 finger typings, tabs that open in several steps and a viewport of the size of 2 credit cards?

But we are not the target.

For the target, a big screen is the mandatory crunch they need because they watch a lot videos, do banking, read pdf and even type work stuff on their phone. This tiny, constrained square they have to make do with for everything.

It makes small screen a hard sell. The iphone mini was not a great success if we compare it to other phones, despite everybody claiming we would all love it.

Don't have much to add here but I desperately feel the need to +1 this in case any manufacturers are paying attention. Every phone I bought was google's latest flagship since the G1 came out, including the most recent pixel 6 (non pro). I absolutely hate the size of it and went back to my pixel 4. I really am disappointed that google is forcing me to shop around more, and that apparently there aren't any great options.

I've been using my iPhone SE since 2016 and man do I wish there was something to switch to by now. I don't think I can stand PWM on newer OLED iPhones (that includes 12/13 mini) and I will dearly miss the headphone jack. If there were a modern (un-Googled) Android phone like the 1st-gen iPhone SE, I'd be ready to spend $800 on it, I don't even care about cameras, fingerprint sensors, or NFC.

"You think you do, but you don't."

I LOVED my iPhone 4 & iPhone 5 back in the day. I thought they were just perfect. I could reach all the keys, they fit in any pants, and they were just my favorite era of phones ever. Metal edges, glass front and back, no stupid camera bump -- perfection. For the time they existed, there was nothing to improve on those phones.

But I pretty much hate my iPhone Mini. And it has almost nothing to do with the phone -- it's basically an improved version of the iPhone 4, except now it's got a stupid camera bump. And I would still love the form factor, but like... so many things just don't fit right.

Apps just haven't been tested to work on it, especially if you tweak your default font sizes at all, and it's just a sub-optimal experience in almost every way. My fingers fit, but now websites are built with bigger fonts and need bigger screens. I passionately hate "viewport wobble" and you see it all the freakin' time on the iPhone Mini.

Book an Uber? The buttons are off screen, or weird places. Sure that's the app's fault -- and frankly a lot of apps need to do better for responsive design in order to better improve accessibility (especially for elderly users!) but that's a bigger fight than I want to get into when I pick up a phone and just want it to work.

So I don't know, like if I had a magic wand and could just zap every website, every app into compliance with the slightly smaller screen... sure it'd be great. But I don't, and that makes for a frustrating user experience that, frankly, ruins the iPhone Mini for me.

My iPhone 4 was the best phone I ever had. Hands down. Loved it, emotional memories of it are still very fond. Wish I could find that again, really do.

It's funny to read some young person reiterating the desirable properties of small phones, completely oblivious to how smaller was universally better in cellphones phones before the smartphone era.

http://www.mobilephonehistory.co.uk/nokia/nokia.php

The peak of that was the amazing Panasonic GD55: https://www.gsmarena.com/panasonic_gd55-372.php

You still get a sad pang when you pull some old coat or backpack out of the closet and rest your eyes on the tiny cell phone pocket, that is of no use today.

Currently there are ZERO premium Android phones with <6” displays. No amount of money can buy one right now.

I truly do not understand why people refuse to buy flagship phones from a couple of years ago because they're "outdated" but then endorse some new phone with a garbage SoC that gets less performance. Buy an Xperia XZ2 Compact.

Check out Unihertz, they have a variety of unloved formats including small form factor and physical keyboards.

https://www.unihertz.com/collections/smartphones/products/je...

“4 hour screen on time”

That seems crazy low. I have an iPhone Mini (and would switch back to Android when I replace it if they have a mini quality phone and Apple doesn’t) and my battery lasts “all day.” I’m not sure how it works out in terms of screen on time, but it’s got to be at least 6 hours a day. Probably more.

Battery settings probably shows your screen on time? In independent reviews, the iPhone mini (12 & 13) seemed to get closer to 5 hours screen on time.

6 hours or more _per day_ sounds absolutely insane though, you must be overestimating that unless you use your phone as a GPS to commute or some similar use case that requires it on in the background.

> 6 hours or more _per day_ sounds absolutely insane though, you must be overestimating that unless you use your phone as a GPS to commute or some similar use case that requires it on in the background.

Interesting. I do use my phone a lot: slack/email regularly throughout the day, twitter addiction, videos in the background while doing other stuff, and reading; but you might be right that I'm overestimating it. (Screen Time says about 7 hours, I have no idea what that counts though)

Regardless, if the consensus in reviews is about 5 hours asking for 4 isn't crazy, especially since (IIRC) iPhones tend to do better than Android in battery life.

My wife just bought the iPhone mini for all of these reasons, but she is definitely in a minority.

The main use cases for smart phones are texting, email, social media Twitter/Facebook/Whatsapp/etc., general computing (banking etc.), games, video.

All of these use cases are made better by a larger screen size.

The phone companies haven't even bothered to ask people what they actually want. They just take a wild guess, they make a bad phone and it sells bad, then they claim "see, people don't want small phones". That is just ignorant behavior on their side.

No, we don't want ugly or clumsy phones. We don't want overpriced phones. We don't want brittle phones that can't stand a fall. We don't want phones with weak batteries that won't last a day. We don't want lousy cameras. We don't want laggy and buggy phones. We don't want good phones that are only available in other parts of the world where we can't buy them (Sony is making small phones...but only in Japan).

The companies should ASK the consumers what they NEED. But they don't.

They look at sales figures for the phones they are selling. That tells them way more than asking people.

<10% of iPhones sold are <6". That's the ball game.

Without a 3.5mm headphone jack, I would have to carry wireless earbuds, which would defeat the purpose.

With a 3.5mm jack you would have to carry wired earbuds, which would defeat the purpose...?

You just need a small adapter cable (1-2inch long) as on the iPhone, which is a fraction of your headphone.

You can get very very good audio with something like the UTWS5 and then you can use top end IEMs.

The thing I never understood about the headphone jack and its disappearance: it doesn't need to be a jack. It need only be three contact points. You could have it on the outside rim of a phone and have a magnetic sheath hold the headphone pin to it. But I suppose it's not just about getting rid of the jack itself but also any DAC component? (But, isn't it doing that anyway for the speaker?)

We have (had?) that. It's called USB-C Audio Accessory Mode.

DAC is still there. Current iPhones can still use wired headphones, via the Lightning/headphone jack adapter. That adapter was included free in the box for a while. Now it's $9 or something.

The adapter includes/is a DAC. The Lightning port is fully digital and cannot carry analog audio.

The amplifier used for headphones is very different than what is used to drive a speaker. It's a totally different component. Also, remember, it's doing much more than just pumping audio out. Modern 3.5mm jacks on phones are 4 pin, generally, and you have to do the following (or, at least most of it):

* Detect if something is plugged in

* Detect if the thing plugged in is a 3 pin (stereo speakers), or 4 pin (stereo speakers, plus microphone)

* Detect what type of 4 pin configuration is connected (there are 2 standards, CTIA and OMTP)

* Detect button presses from attached headphones (volume up/down, pause/play)

* Detect the type of headphones connected (do I want to use the high impedance driver, or the low impedance driver)

And obviously: play stereo audio and record mono audio.

There's also some lesser used features that are sometimes supported over 3.5mm:

* Video output (!!)

* Antenna input, for use for FM radio

* Stereo audio input

* Optical out (not through 3.5mm TRRS, but it is at the end of the 3.5mm jack... Apple used to use these in their macbook pros)

The amplifier used for headphones is very different than what is used to drive a speaker. It's a totally different component.

It generally isn't, no. Looking at a teardown of the iPhone 5 for example (just the first phone I thought to check) there is a single Cirrus Logic class D amplifier chip that handles both the speaker and headphone outputs. I don't know of and cannot find any phones that have a dedicated amplifier chip for the headphone output although I'm sure one exists somewhere.

Headphone drivers are generally built directly into the audio CODEC because they don't tend to be very large whereas the amplifiers used to drive a speaker tend to be standalone because they drive significantly more power than what you drive headphones with.

In any more modern system, you use a different component or subsystem for each. iPhone 5 is a pretty old example and speaker technology has come a LONG way in phones. These days, you're driving watts of power into your phone speakers, any headphones driven with that much power wouldn't last very long.

Even very high end headphone amplifiers (external, chunky ones) tend to be rated for around 1W max. Typical is much lower, in the 100mW or less range. Either way, you aren't listening at that high of power unless you want hearing damage.

Wow, is sub 6" considered small nowadays?

What have we done

My comment exactly. We've really defined "small" up! I'm still running my 1st get iPhone SE, because I've yet to see a phone that can replace it. With a 4 inch screen, I can just barely use it one-handed.

Thankfully, much of this is because of edge-to-edge display technology allowing for larger screens in the same size chassis. My Pixel 4a with a 5.8" screen has the same 69mm width as my old Nexus 5 with a 4.95" screen, and it's considerably less wide than my Nexus 5X or Moto X4 with their 5.2" screens (especially the X4, that thing was way too wide and was intensely uncomfortable to hold... I actually had to get a case for that one, and I was miserable the entire time I owned it).

Some of it is. But phone chassis have slowly creeped up since 2012 or so, a few mm per year, to the point where there really aren't any phones in the small category any more. IMO the Nexus 5 is larger than I'd like -- something the size of the Nexus 5 screen is closer to ideal. I've been using the iPhone SE 2016 for years now, hoping for a worthy successor, and the situation has only gotten worse for many years running now. The Pixel 4a was the last phone that came even close to meeting my requirements (one-handable, fingerprint sensor, headphone jack), and it's going to run out of security updates next year.

So we better define a maximum phone width instead of a maximum diagonal display size. The aspect ratio changed from 16:9 to 19:9 or longer over the years, but the “extra” display area is the space that was occupied by hardware (sensor) keys for navigation, which you still had to tap … That leads to longer diagonal sizes per se.

So phones are not really getting longer in aspect ratio (except for some VERY long Sony phones), and they got more display area because of less thick edges. Naturally the mathematical diagonal size is larger, but that is a moot measurement compared with older phones with their 16:9 displays.

I am comfortable with everything less than 70mm width, and because the aspect ratio is kind of settled on 16:9 + navigation keys (or 19:9 complete display), the length is naturally restricted to ~150mm or less.

My A40 has 5.9" but still only 142 to 69mm in size. It does not feel like a 6" thing from 2017, and the reason is its small width and weight. Unfortunately, most new phones have width from 75+mm and weights of 190g or more.

I too looked for a small phone and left disappointed. I think there are two or three notable factors.

1. Bigger chassis allows a bigger battery, longer up-time. This is probably the biggest issue.

2. Having gotten used to a 6+" for a while, the small ones appear almost too small. Books are on average bigger than that for a good reason.

3. Very naively speaking, bigger looks better and thus more expensive. Users are therefore more willing to spend more money, whereas a smaller phone will look disproportionately expensive and, as per the first point, now less powerful.

Sony was the last one other than apple to try that, as far as I can tell.

However, cheaper smartphones still exist in that space, they just don't come with newer hardware.

This is something I've been wishing for a while - some kind of initiative to help make a small Android device available. So I'm happy to see this, especially when it's backed by someone with influence in the industry.

The author's motivations don't see that strong, though. I mean, if Apple improved the notification system and the file management, would this project exist? Or is it that unlikely to happen in a few years?

Anyway, I really hope the project works. I really do. And I'm willing to contribute the way I can.

I've been trying to make the switch to Android for years, but couldn't find a decent device, despite few attempts over the years.

There is Palm. It looks a bit like the first iPhone, but the size of a credit card.

https://palm.com/pages/product

Regretfully, it filled with a lot of carrier spyware (originally Verizon) that eats the battery in the background. If cleaned up, the battery life gets much better (up to two days). But, after a month or so, for me the phone for some reason factory-reset itself. Not sure, if it was an update or initiated by the carrier or a hardware glitch or something else.

Nice, clean looking, unlocked, very inexpensive hardware (<$100 refurbished), but very poor android build.

I used an Atom for a while, which had a ridiculously small 2.4" screen. One thing I realized is that the smaller you make the screen, the thicker you have to make the device in order to provide space for the battery. While a smaller screen does use less battery, it's not enough that you can avoid increasing thickness.

I know that's a bit more extreme than the <6" mentioned in the article, but I think it still holds that when making a flagship packed with good cameras, battery life, and CPU, it's much easier to make a sexy looking large phone than a small phone.

I'd much rather have a smaller thicker phone than a larger thinner one. The fetish for making electronic devices ever thinner is another one that passes me by. In my book 'thinner = more fragile"

And, when it comes to 'pocketability' I find pockets generally trend to expand depth-wise to accommodate thicker items. I've yet to find a garment with pockets that expand length- or width-wise to accommodate larger items

unfortunately the best option I can see is supporting Lineage OS development on the XZ2 Compact at the moment. Seems to be no market for smaller phones at all (Apple are even ditching the mini for 14 iirc, Jelly has never made it anywhere near me to try). Beyond that, the Xperia Ace 3 is an okay size (slightly bigger than iPhone Mini) and maybe if it does well there will be more smaller options?

I've a 12 mini now because I thought the original SE was losing support last year, I def regret not sticking with the SE for another year instead, for me the 12 mini is unreasonably big.

I have to say, I do like the form factor of the iPhone Mini. Not enough to buy one, because my aging eyes prefer a larger screen now, but it really does feel nice in your hand. Just fits, no stretching, a perfect fit.

The problem, of course, is much like brown manual diesel station wagons, it's a small but vocal niche and there may not be enough actual buyers to justify it. Apple's sales figures are large enough that it may very well 'big enough' for them, but is that true for any individual Android manufacturer?

After years of lurking, I wrote a post over on /r/android on this... in 2019. By then the small phone minority had been loud and vocal for some years already.

Based on the responses and trends observed since then, I don't think this is ever going to happen.

Tech savvy users for tech savvy products are gone. It is now a consumerism and popularity driven market, small phones simply don't have the bling factor to sell.

Even if this was not the case, logically, if you have only one mobile computing device, you would be better of getting a big one so you that you can do more with it. Read more e-mail, watch more content, play more games, take better pictures (bigger phones tend to have more space for more options).

And for us die hard small phone folks, well, all of us need a phone, right? And since all of our phones stop getting updates after a few years (iPhone notwithstanding), we will complain loudly about the lack of small phones... and then buy a big phone anyway.

The best we can hope for is for manufacturers to make a loss leading mini line. Like Sony, Samsung, and Google used to do.

Now that they do not, I own an iPhone 13 mini, and I hope to use it with battery replacements for at least 4 years.

I put my money where my mouth is for the longest time. My phone history: iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, Sony Z1 compact, Sony Z3 Compact, Sony Z5 Compact, Sony XZ1 Compact (good golly gosh what a fantastic phone that was), Pixel 3, iPhone 13 Mini. But our market is too small.

RIP small phones.

I would so buy a modernised Xperia Mini Pro, it was such an amazing phone/format. Recent camera/screen etc and maybe a bit thinner and it'd be so perfect.

> Now that they do not, I own an iPhone 13 mini, and I hope to use it with battery replacements for at least 4 years.

I own an iPhone 12 Mini, and if it ever breaks in the future I plan to buy the iPhone 13 Mini, even though by that time it will be on the brink of being obsolete. And if that also ever breaks I will buy another 13 Mini again if they still sell it. No matter what.

One theory for the iPhone mini's lack of success is people currently equate an expensive phone as a somewhat larger device (but not huge). The iPhone mini looks a bit like an old iPhone 5 from a distance. Paying a premium for something that looks like what everyone already has two or three of in their junk drawer is a tough trade-off for many people. The longer battery life then becomes the rational anchor.

In any case, I certainly hope they make a smaller devices again in 4-6 years.

I'm still using a Pixel 5 with Android 11, so far so good. I used to be a hardcore Android fan, but I don't really like where it's going, at this point I'm almost rooting for a USB-C iPhone SE.

(edit) Regarding the specifications:

  - don't care for 5G, 4G has better range and better power efficiency
  - don't care for a second rear camera, invest more into the first
  - 4h SOT seems like a pretty low target, the Pixel 5 can probably do 8h easily

I have an iPhone 12 mini. I switched to iPhone with the XR and felt it was too big. My old Pixel 2 feels larger than the 12 mini with it's 5" screen versus the 12 mini's 5.4", and that's because it physically is overall larger.

When the iPhone 12 lineup was announced, the main talking point about the mini among reviewers and whatnot was how poor battery life will be. To be honest, once I disabled the 5G (I'm not anti-5G, I just don't need it most of the time), battery life is fine. In fact, it's pretty phenomenal for the specs if you've had any lengthy history with smartphones (my first LTE phone either needed multiple charges per day, or I carried spare batteries).

It's pretty easy to build an echo chamber that agrees smaller phones are preferred and make it appear as though there's a decent amount of us, but the simple fact is, people like us are in the minority, and it shows in the iPhone sales. That's why there's not going to be an iPhone 14 mini, and why the mini design is probably going to be the next SE. And if you even look at the SE sales numbers, they're still not great against other iPhone models.

On top of that, this audience, specifically, are probably not going to be upgrading every generation, so there's going to be gaps where we don't feed the machine/sales numbers to make it look better. I will not buy an iPhone 13 mini. I will not buy an iPhone 14. I probably will not even buy the next SE even if it's an iPhone 13 mini with a newer SoC. So long as my 12 mini keeps going, it'll continue to serve me. So I fail to contribute to the sales numbers to make it look better.

>> It's pretty easy to build an echo chamber that agrees smaller phones are preferred and make it appear as though there's a decent amount of us, but the simple fact is, people like us are in the minority, and it shows in the iPhone sales.

I'm not sure about that. This could be due to the marketing/positioning i.e. Apple first switched to producing bigger phones (with more features/power) which caused people to buy these bigger phones (there were no smaller & newer phones).

After some complaints, Apple produced a smaller version of their phone but they market it as one with less features (smaller battery, smaller processor, etc).

If Apple devoted resources to producing smaller sized phones with comparable features as the Pro, the statistics might be different. To be clear, a larger phone will always have some edge but the minis should not be clearly designed as a step down version phone

> After some complaints, Apple produced a smaller version of their phone but they market it as one with less features (smaller battery, smaller processor, etc).

iPhone 12 and 13 minis are the same hardware with smaller screen and battery than their iPhone 12 and 13 (non-pro) counterparts. Are you referring to the SE or something? Even the SE has been getting upgraded processors with previous generation screens, cameras, etc.

The minis have been flagship specs in smaller packages. If the smaller battery thing was to be a knock on Apple for making it inferior, how do you suppose you fit a full size iPhone 13 battery into that mini frame with all the other internal hardware the same?

I love my iPhone 12 Mini, and I was really disappointed when I found out the mini line is likely being dropped with the next generation (It's almost certain)

Being very honest, I think the original iPhone was the right size - through the iPhone 4. I appreciate that people wanted larger screens, and larger screens accommodate larger batteries, but I think the 3.5" screen of the early iPhones made for a great size.

Oh well.

Interestingly, the iPhone 4 is physically not much smaller than the iPhone 12 mini, but has a significant screen size bump. I was curious about this because my old Droid Eris had a 3.2" screen and I was curious how it physically measured up overall. It was slightly smaller than the iPhone 4. The idea that I have something, now, that is not that much bigger, but with so much more screen is super interesting because I had wanted to go back down to something small like that, and this is likely as close as I'll realistically get, and it's not that bad!

My suspicion is, based on various bits of info I've seen, iPhone 14 won't see a mini and the next SE will be based on the current mini. They have been upgrading the SoC in the SE but not the camera nor the screen, and I bet they want to get that bumped up to something more modern. So this form factor/size may not be all that lost. Here's hoping, anyway.

I jumped at getting the iPhone 13 mini immediately and haven’t looked back. I remember having an iPhone 5 and how much I loved the formfactor for the same reasons OP mentions.

Sure the battery sucks and the phone locks up from too many things happening sometimes, but those are perfectly fine trade offs for a phone that fits into my life and isn’t my life.

When I bought my 13 mini I also bought the new iPad mini to have a larger device for content consumption and the combo is lovely

That's a shame - I heard the 13 Mini had acceptable battery life. And for someone that doesn't make their phone their life that's especially surprising.

I don't make my phone my life, and the 12 Mini has enough battery for me. I charge it every other day, but I have to admit it feels it holds less charge than my old iPhone 8.

I only use it for Whatsapp, bathroom break HN and a few calls a week. Everything else I do from my PC. Also, performance is great for me, I'm not planning on running games or k8s on my mobile.

EDIT: looks like you're talking about the 13 mini, I got the 12 mini, which IIRC has similar battery life complaints. Not sure if it got worse with the latest iteration.

Word on the street (and physical evidence of the larger battery in the 13 Mini) is a strong consensus that the 13 mini has better battery life than the 12 mini.

I've never heard anyone complain about the performance of the 13 mini before, maybe there's something funky going on with the OP's phone.

I've had my 13 Mini since they dropped. My battery is fine, always lasts the day with overnight charging. I'm constantly playing podcasts, talking on Signal, and have the dynamic weather service running.

It's not THAT bad, it just depends on usage. Lately I have been using my phone a lot more, and just spending an hour or two endlessly scrolling in the morning it goes from fully charged to maybe 50%. If it is on standby most of the day, it will last most of the day.

That being said, I also play golf and use a Golf GPS tracker, Pokemon Go, and social media most of the day. Coming from an iPhone 11 Pro which had incredible battery life, it is a major change. BUT, the lower battery life is manageable. I have external battery packs, I prepare for these types of things. I can make it last when I need it to.

battery life is good on the mini for me, as for locking up, not sure why you would see that, it's got the same chipset as the non-mini iphone 13

Haha I play Pokemon Go, battery life is like 6 hours TOPs. I charge it periodically throughout the day, just hover between 20-80 percent.

---

Locking up, I think it comes from moving from my old iPhone 11 Pro to the non-pro variant. I felt a little spoiled with the Pro model.

Fairly sure battery estimation is rubbish. I've seen huge amounts of battery life between 20% and 0%.

I own a Samsung A3 2017 that measures 66x135mm (4.7" screen). It is even smaller than iPhone 12 mini. It is really hard nowadays to find such a small phone.

There is technically a mini-sized Android phone [0]; I've been using it for about 6 months [1].

[0] https://palm.com/pages/product [1] https://jacobhenryrussell.medium.com/six-months-with-a-tiny-...

I have one of these too. I used it for a few months and aside from the battery life, I loved it. I wish the bootloader would’ve been open for custom roms that could’ve taken advantage of it better, but it’s been in a drawer ever since.

I still wish it had a future.

Switched to iPhone 13 pro (not even the max) from the pixel 3. It just seems so big but the clutch feature for me is the battery life. I like not having to think about it, although that's probably going to change as I get into the 3rd year of ownership.

I thought I maybe made a mistake but then saw a Pixel 6 pro, it's EVEN BIGGER. I do kind of regret getting a pro, but I'm not mad enough about it to swap for a mini.

Pixel 5 is good, I got a 6 and returned it because it was massive. Hoping they return to this this form factor & add the rear fingerprint sensor back.

>>Cameras must be as good as Pixel 5 -- must have great low light performance >>2 rear cameras (regular and wide angle)

Upgrade that to as good as Samsung S22 Ultra w/10x Optical zoom; also great macro capability, so make that 3 cameras.

>> 128/256gb Storage Fine, but I'd also like to see removable storage

>>4 hours Screen On Time (SOT) I'm looking more for 6h - I'd rather have a thicker/heavier device and longer battery

While I like my smaller Samsung GS8, I'm upgrading to the S22U and not the smaller S22 specifically for the camera and bigger battery (and the fact that the GS8 is no longer supported with upgrades). I'm not sure how I'll like larger form factor, but I'm sure I'll love the larger screen too, so trade-offs.

EDIT: Basically, I want a full set of top-of-the-line flagship features in a small form factor.

It used to be that smaller was extra, as it required more engineering, not smaller is cheaper like kiddie-plate food portions. I suppose we'll have to wait until the foldable formats become more unbreakable/reliable and they upgrade all the features to top-of-the-line.

The Rakuten Hand 5G ( https://network.mobile.rakuten.co.jp/product/smartphone/raku... ) sounds like it fits the bill at 138 × 63 × 9.5mm vs iPhone 13 mini's 131.5 × 64.2 × 7.65mm, though it's only available in Japan from Rakuten Mobile.

Rakuten also previously released a tiny Rakuten Mini with 3.6 inch screen https://network.mobile.rakuten.co.jp/product/smartphone/raku...

Sharp also makes a lot of interesting phones: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/05/japans-sharp-aquos-r...

Plus, Xperia Compact series is from Sony.

That made me wonder: - Why does it seem like Japanese manufacturers are the only ones making "different" phones? - Many other threads are talking about the lack of components and lack of component manufacturer interest, but if so, how did the Japanese manufacturers did it? - What is special about the Japanese market that allows these phones to survive? - What difficulty would there be for let's say Rakuten to sell their phones internationally just like Sony did?

A few points of relevant observation: - Japanese consumer electronics manufacturers have a habit of keeping their best products only to Japan - such as DSLRs. - There is a strong customer base for mini devices in Japan. GPD pocket laptops are in regular stores.

More local small models: Balmuda phone, mode1 GRIP.

For Sharp, they are also OLED/Camera CMOS manufacturer so maybe it's easier to make custom one (and it's one of a purpose to have own factory).

Japan mobile careers buy much amount of devices at launch from manufacturer, that helps for constant sales. Even if sales for customers is bad, it's already sold for career.

The galaxy xcover 5 is really good https://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_xcover_5-ampp-10718.ph... 5.3 screen, full rectangular screen (no notch or hole), replaceable battery and dual sim. It is unfortunately Samsung, so it has their bloat. But that isn't too bad.

You know what I want? I want the manufacturers to stop doing damn slim and thin phones and just give me a Motorola Milestone 1 type of phone, made of metal, not thin and packed with a giant battery, and a physical keyboard, I'm sick of "thinnest phone ev4r" being a slogan to promote a phone. Give me that and I'll be the first in line to buy it.

No OLED please. I suffer from PWM sensitivity. Couldn't use the iPhone 13 Mini because of this. https://www.notebookcheck.net/PWM-Ranking-Notebooks-Smartpho...

I was dragged kicking and screaming from my iPhone SE 2016 as apps don't work on it anymore and it would shut down when it reached peak performance capacity. I used the Pixel 4A and have switched to the iPhone SE 2022. I get wrist tendon cramp from stretching to type and pinky strain from the weight on both phones.

I also loved the Xperia Compact line as it had pro features such as noise-cancelling wired earphones and NFC. My phone history: iPhone 4, Xperia V, Xperia Z1 Compact, Xperia Z5 Compact, iPhone SE 2016, iPhone 13 Mini, Pixel 4A, iPhone SE 2022.

I like the language of wants, but it might be good to reference the industrial design of iPhone mini, but with the caveat that plastic is okay. The pixel a-series I think has a nice plastic. As did Xperia. Pre-pixel, my Moto X (2013) was knocked out of my hand by the dog while sitting on the front steps so many times, but never broke the body or screen (literally hit and bounced off every step on the way down, no case). This could be key to a case-less small phone. And rugged and case-less could be a big feature.

I would also say, a small phone is a great opportunity to add whatever features are necessary to offload usage to a watch (Bt,BtLE), car, smart home (UWB), smart glasses, ear buds. This seemed to be the way Essential was going. I would love the ability to hear my texts, either in ear buds or smart home, and hold my phones power button like a walky talky to dictate responses, almost like Android Auto. (Maybe even a knurled physical dictation button on the rail right next to where the gboard microphone soft button is located). And have UWB smart appliances know I was approaching and 1-factor authenticate me. All this to say, don't skimp on the innards which can help the device grow with accessories. I think accessories are really where a manufacturer can win. Where your phone just becomes a remote so all your other devices know it's you.

And when you are looking at the phone and using it, it needs to be weighted (battery down?) at the bottom so it balances in the hand better, a la Palm Pre (I so wish I had bought one instead of waiting for a second generation). No more pop-sockets!

I also suspect that narrower is more important than shorter. And thicker is better for battery and the bend test. Remember when Pixel 1 had an angle to its back? Imagine a phone that can lay firmly on a flat surface on slight angle, just enough to go into portrait or landscape mode, and not wobble. And if the speaker were on the back, it could use the flat surface to reflect the sound back at the viewer. (I think rog or another had an angled phone back that looked like broken glass).

Has anybody tried the $32 SOYES XS11 or $70 or UNIWA XS11

It's a 2.5 inch 3G Android phone. http://www.cwell-hk.com/products/SOYES_XS11.aspx

Lots of small Android phones are in the recommended section on cwell-hk in the $40 range.

Those look lovely.

Now can I have one with Android 11 and a halfway decent camera?

> Android 6.0 Operation System

They're kidding, right?

China/HK is wild

I wouldn't recommend them. Almost every single one is using a very old version of android.

Which is surprisingly usable, but there are some apps that don't work.

I also wouldn't actually log into anything unless you're ok being pwned. No security patches, plus sketchy cheap as dirt chips running it.

You can also not type on it. Maybe a sentence, but it'll take you 3x as long if not more trying to correct typos. If you do any text based communication, you're going to have a bad time.

Overall, not worth it.

Right, but can they be hacked to run vanilla upgraded software?

Never tried, not knowledgeable enough in the area. But I wouldn't hold my breath on it. And I still wouldn't trust the chips on the board.

There's definitely been cases of spyware locked onto chips in clever ways. Not good for 2FA.

Unfortunately, the lack of LTE makes it unusable in the US.

The newer, 3.0 inch XS12 from the same manufacturer has 4G LTE and Android 9.0. It's in the $80 range.

http://www.cwell-hk.com/products/SOYES_XS12.aspx

Seems like we just need a modernized XS12 with the correct frequencies

> 3G

Considering how much USA cell companies are trying to kill 3G, and the fact that 4G/LTE has been around for over a decade now... I'm not sure this makes sense for anybody any more.

I search long for something like this, and I just bought the Asus Zenfone 8. It's also supported by LingeageOS.

> Also, personally, after 6 months of iOS I am itching to get back to Android. Why? The notification system SUCKS on iOS compared to Android. It’s impossible to move files between apps. Hard to get any work done on it. Beautiful hardware though!

I felt this so hard! Switched to iOS a few months ago after 14 years of Android (OG G1 user) due to privacy concerns and the lack of a small phone on Android.

iOS applications are almost universally better than their Android counterparts, but when it comes to the OS itself Android is light years ahead of iOS in terms of usability, convenience, and features. The iOS keyboard is such a steaming pile of bull dung compared to Android, and then there's call screening, notification actions, copy history, inter-application shareability, webview->browser state sharing, etc...

My opinion is that the demand for small phones will be satisfied by foldable phones.

I see that option more viable and effective.

I actually really want a smaller screen, though. I have smaller hands and I want to be able to reach across it one-handed without having to precariously adjust my grip.

The zflip/razr foldables have smaller screens.

Nah. A foldable is just an excuse to charge a consumer more money. It has features people don't need.

Meh, unfortunately the most important smart phone app is the web browser, and what the browser has to do is dictated mostly by site operators, and web sites have an expansionist hunger for more and more cpu power and screen space. So phones have to keep getting bigger batteries even as the electronics get more efficient, because the work loads get heavier faster than the electronics can keep up with. Once you have such a big battery, you may as well also have a big screen, especially since you need it anyway to keep the web sites readable without a magnifying glass.

It is a vicious circle. I blame the rise of non-removable batteries and the transformation of javascript from a scripting extension into a full fat application framework. It would be great if more sites had public API's.

I absolutely agree with size. I'm long time Samsung A5 2017 user because Lineage OS compatibility and size.

However I'm refuse to pay more than 200 USD for phone. It is device that could be easily broken, lost or stolen. I also do not need super specs. I mean... It is ridiculous how basic purpose of phone (calls, messages, emails, contacts...) shifted to machine that has betters specs than laptops. Of course quite a lot o people simply switch from laptop to high end phone, but what about those who need reliable phone for basic communication and don't want to pay for features that don't actually need (I never used front camera, NFC, big screen for gaming, etc.)?

Maybe I'm old fashioned but for me: • phone = communication, calendar, notes, GPS • pictures = camera • gaming, work = desktop

I was the owner of a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini. It was the smallest phone I ever used. Fast, nice UI, fully featured, decent camera. The only downside was the horrible battery life. But I loved it, it was just so small. I miss the trend of making all electronic smaller and smaller.

I was a Sony Xperia Compact aficionado until the latest gen was impossible to buy due to the chip shortage.

Which model were you trying to buy?

The Sony Xperia 5 iii

It was really expensive and was impossible to get at launch. The optical zoom was a nice touch but I didn't really care for the weird aspect they have.

What I really want is both, a larger phone (for me happens to be iPhone) for "most of the time" and a smaller phone for occasional use. I want them to have the same phone number and keep data in sync, basically like two extensions of the same line. However, I'm not willing to pay my carrier a premium/additional monthly cost just to have two phones that cannot be used simultaneously.

Much of this is able to be done with wifi, but not via the cellular networks (without additional costs).

In other words, there is no ideal one-size-fits-all option, and I'd be willing to pay for additional hardware to give me choice of what to carry at any given time, but I do not want to pay Verizon just for the privilege of having a 2nd SIM provisioned (and I do not want to swap SIMs).

Foldables.

Im still on an iphone SE (same shell as 5s) and waiting for another iphone this small. The mini is still too big!

I mean, I was a big fan of the nokia 8210, the iphone nano (the long one) and the razr when it first came out.

I dont watch tv/films on my phone because Im not insane, give me a smaller one!

I have a hunch a lot of people are not upgrading because there are no new phones under 6 inch now.

This resonates with me (I'm an iPhone user).

Never been a fan of the large phones which was why I held on to my iPhone 6S for a very long time (compared to how frequently folks upgrade) before finally upgrading to an iPhone 12 mini (when I ran out of space on the 6S).

I owned the iPhone 12 mini and thought it was a great phone - I was able to one hand it quite easy and the hardware specs were more than sufficient. My partner now uses it but she would prefer a slightly larger screen I think. I moved to a Pixel 5 and think it is currently one of the best smaller phones - For most stuff I can one hand this phone too, and in some ways the ergonomics of the Pixel are better. For instance the back side finger print scanner unlock is the best I've ever used. I used to want to keep my aux port, but the bluetooth audio industry has really stepped up in recent years - I still just use my airpod pros and probably will continue too

I'd like a smaller phone too, but with a bigger battery.

If I browse the web in the, I cannot use my phone to buy my train ticket as you have to show the QR code and 4G is killing the battery really quickly.

My current phone is a one plus 5T and the new phone could have 3cm less in height and 1 in width while being 4 time thicker. Ideally I'd like addon battery to come back, you remember those nokia 3310 with the added huge battery? I want that. Now I have an external battery, but I need a cable and it's not that practical.

As a more general comment, I'd like "design" to be less important. I don't care if my phone is a dumb cube like shape. I want function.

Yes please. Before I switched to the iPhone, I was using the Xiaomi Mi A1, which ticked a lot of the boxes for me (stock Android!) while also having a great bang-for-buck value; but I’d still have preferred it in a smaller form factor.

The best Android phones I've had were Nexus 5 and Nexus 5X. I thought the 5X were a little bit bigger than I prefer, but over all a great device. After that I went through a bunch of different phones, first a cheapo Motorola at 5.7" (smallest I could find without complete garbage specs) and then a Samsung A10 at 6". They were both impractically big, despite having quite large hands.

The only way I could find to have a smaller screen was to switch over to iOS. Currently I have an iPhone SE (iPhone 8) at 4.7" which is lovely, but I would have preferred to stay with Android as it's the only Apple device I currently own.

I really wanted Apple to create an iPhone Mini. I had been holding on to my iPhone 6S for years, hoping Apple phones would shrink again. So I was super excited when the Mini came. Once it came out, I was rather unhappy that there was no Pro version. I really, really wanted the cool Pro camera in a phone that's a substantial investment. I'd have been happy to pay more, but the Mini's price was high enough that lacking crossing the excitement line for the camera made me see too little value to invest. So I ended up buying the super cheap, new SE instead.

I now wonder if the camera I want isn't possible in the size I want.

> are easy to use one-handed without dropping

Not necessarily.

I bought an iPhone Mini expecting that it'd be comfortable to use in a single hand like my previous Xperia phone of exactly the same width.

Unfortunately, it is not the case: the iPhone screen is very close to the bottom edge, and to switch apps you need to move your thumb to the very edge and then swipe up, which is rather uncomfortable (or requires holding your phone very low, in which case, you can't reach the top of the screen without changing your grasp). Similarly, the keyboard is rather low and uncomfortable to use from the otherwise most natural single-handed grasp.

$700 seems a bit optimistic unless the scale gets really big. Anyways, I'm in!

Absolutely agree, but I think we are in the smaller size of the pie. I had for many years a Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini (4.3' 124mm), super small phone that I loved, then I switched to a Xiaomi Redmi 4 Pro (5.0' 141mm), reasonably small but bigger then S4 and still usable with one hand without risks. Then I switched to a Xiaomi Mi 9T for the huge body-display ratio and I always feel it's too big (6.39' 156mm) and sometimes I need 2 hands, and I've pretty big hands... Nowdays you can't find any good android phone around ~140mm in size, that I think is the perfect size.

I also used an S4 Mini for a long time (more than five years), but its size and very small weight came at the price of not having the Full HD display of its big brother S4. It didn’t even have a 720p display! Also the battery was much too weak.

Still I searched the whole year 2019 for a replacement and finally settled on the Samsung A40, which has a FullHD(+) display, reasonably good battery, all features I wanted and is still lighter than other phones of same size.

You are right, around 140mm length would be fine, and then an equivalent weight of 140 to 150g. I cannot stand these bricks with their 180, 200g of weight, no matter the display size. These are just not usable for me.

My Samsung Galaxy S3 turns 10 next month and it is still in daily use as a second phone. The biggest reasons it is still working are the changeable battery, the sdcard and wireless charging.

It consumed something like one battery per year, the integrated memory of 16GB are barely enough, but with a 64GB sdcard it worked fine so far. However, the mirco-usb connector became unstable years ago, but the wireless charging has very little wear and works fine.

I think an updated version (new processor, new camera, more RAM, modern network capabilities) should be able to check most, if not all, of the requirements from the website.

I like the idea, I'll fill out your form later today.

Feedback on the website:

On the graphic at the bottom where you overlay different models of phone:

1. I think the red/green/blue borders would benefit from more contrast. It's hard for my eyes to distinguish.

2. I think you should add a deck of cards to the graphic. It would provide a frame of reference for scale.

... P.S. I just noticed the "Extrapolating from past models, the Pixel 10 will be roughly the size of California" below the graphic. If the purpose of the graphic was purely to accompany that joke, then I guess ignore my suggestions.

Although, a deck of cards may contribute to the joke. Hmmm

I'd like a small premium Android phone too.

I was thinking about my previous phones the other day, and I really miss some of the more innovative ones from HTC. I think the Startrek was my favorite - a Windows Mobile flip phone with a "dumb phone" keypad. The myTouch 3g might be next - Android with physical buttons and a trackball(!)

Phones have gotten faster, but they keep getting bigger, the battery life is rarely more than a day's worth of use, and the "premium" ones keep getting more expensive - while simultaneously loosing features like expandable storage and the headphone jack.

Oh yes please. I am seeking out smallest phones available that I can get without compromising functionality, and they are still too big for my taste. I already have a tablet. I want a small device that I could comfortably stuff into any pocket and not fear it'd jump out. I want it not to occupy too much space. I don't need it to be enough to fit a full size newspaper - I've got a huge 3-display setup for that in my office where I can read anything as big as I want. I remember fondly the old Motorola Razr that was small, light and functional.

Maybe in a few years you'll be able to have something like Project Sandcastle for the iPhone Mini.

https://projectsandcastle.org/

One of my first Android phones was an Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini Pro. It was great except the low resolution display and camera and bad touchscreen. I will buy a similar phone with new Android version.

I use the iPhone SE (Gen 2) and appreciate the size not the battery life. From a connectivity standpoint even the Apple Watch is sufficient (for me!) in a world where I have my iPad / Laptop / Desktop to choose from depending on the content and with the the M1 laptop even App Store games; where I want to play them is a matter of ultimate convince and choice these days.

It seems like the mini didn't sell well and that is unfortunate, hopefully we can still have enough range of size choice within the iPhone eco system moving forward.

I won't be using/recommending Android as long as it says:

> This app you need wants access to all your files and photos.

It's ridiculous that it's all or nothing and you cannot have more control than that.

It depends on the app. Some apps (like Telegram) request it that way. Other apps (like GroupMe) can somehow tap into your photos reel without requesting the full superhuge blanket permission like that. I could be wrong but as I recall that's my experience.

> It depends on the app.

Yes. The problem is that apps have this power. As a user, I should be able to restrict access to certain folders, regardless of what the app requested.

And I want IPad Mini-sized Android tablet, but for some reason all compact tablets have terrible performance, and because of this you have to use a large phone to watch videos or play games.

> Extrapolating from past models, the Pixel 10 will be roughly the size of California

+1 just for the chuckle I got out of this! For some reason I found that unreasonably amusing :D

More seriously, though, I would love for this to succeed and would absolutely be a customer. Personally, the IP86 water resistance is important due to being outdoors (cycling, running, hiking) a lot. However I understand that may not fit within the budget (I would pay extra for it though).

Best of luck!

I've just got the galaxy s10e, a phone released 3 years ago, for this reason. The new s22 is also only slightly bigger than it. Samsung seems to now have this form factor as the baseline of their line up, with the top one added extra things that don't matter such as bigger, higher display frame rates and curved edges (whoever came up with this stupid trend needs to go to jail, but it's good that Samsung thinks that's a "feature", so it sells normal screens at a discount)

Users don't "want" gigantic bliddy phones. Marketers give extravagant presentations to justify their positions, claiming that users want big phones. Then the engineering team is instructed to design big phones. Then only big phones are available. If it doesn't fit in your pocket, at least make it comfortable to hold in your lap. Now marketing has "data" that appears to indicate that people want even bigger phones. Repeat, until the form factor beggars the moon.

How about even smaller? :D

https://www.techradar.com/reviews/unihertz-atom-xl-rugged-sm...

I used to have a Sony Xperia X Compact and when its SIM slot stopped working, I went looking for a new phone and there was nothing of that size. I got the Ulefone Armor X7 Pro which was basically the same phone with a worse camera, less shovelware, and built to last. Still fits in my pocket, more or less.

I recently saw an android phone (I can't remember the name of it) that folded in half (how the screen doesn't crack in half after being folded and unfolded hundreds of times is beyond me). When it is folded in half it is quite narrow, but when unfolded it looks to be the size of a mini tablet. After seeing that I couldn't help but wonder why Apple didn't create a similar thing (patents I presume). It is like the best of both worlds, both a phone and a tablet all in one.

iPhone SE 2020 was a reason I switched from the Android. I have dedicated tools for my hobbies and I am using phone for messages, simple games, navigation and reading stuff mostly. These bases are covered by both sides, but only one had the form factor I was after. Now I'm considering iPad 6 Mini to be my next planner, bullet journal, occasional article reader and note taker. Having small form factor phones can certainly be an entry point to the device ecosystem for some people.

I recently discovered the one handed feature on my Note10+ that allows the shrinking of the screen to whatever size you want. Don't use it but might be useful to someone. https://www.samsung.com/africa_en/support/mobile-devices/how...

LineageOS used to have this feature, by swiping the navbar. Unfortunately, it was based on some hackery by HTC or Huawei and it's not feasible anymore.

It's the same on the note10, swipe down to activate.

IMO a lot of the visual appeal of smartphone apps, mainly social media, would go away with small screen. I remember using my HTC desire to read the web and if it wasn't text, it was not great.

BTW the best form factor phone I had was the Nexus 4, at 4.7". I would very much like that back, but without that slippery glass back, repairable, held together with screws, with replaceable battery, shipped with LineageOS or /e/. Yep, I'll keep dreaming.

Yes! Nexus 4 was a great phone.

I've had one for 2 years now. Love it and agree with all Eric's points except

> are easy to use one-handed without dropping

I find it very hard to use one handed and it keeps slipping through my fingers if I try to type on it one handed. Also my finger constantly partially block the rear camera when taking pictures. It probably has something to do with the size of my hands. Otherwise, I love how light it is and you barely notice it in your pocket when walking or biking.

Interesting to me how all the tech people here want an iPhone mini sized phone when its the least popular and even the low cost to entry iphone se, which is also lauded around these parts is “struggling” to find buyers:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/up-against-flashy-flagships-iphon...

Latest Motorola Razr foldable scratches that itch for me. I know it doesn't fit into the mid-price category, but I finally have my pocket space back again!

I used a Palm, a phone about the dimensions of a business card, 1 slammer-pog thick, and loved it. The battery life was dismal, I had to disable most of the software which ran in the background, the camera was crap, but I loved that phone. Then my stupid provider implemented a list of approved devices and now I'm schlepping around a big piece of garbage with a cracked screen. I want my small phone back, so bad.

I've had the iPhone Mini since launch and it's basically the perfect phone. I use it without a case and it hasn't gotten any scratches. Camera is excellent, video is solid, processor/RAM is never fully utilized, battery life is very good, if feels amazing to be able to use with just one hand, it's relatively light, and the screen color/brightness/resolution is excellent.

Please make an android phone the size of the old iPhone SE. I want out of the Apple ecosystem but there are no phones this size on android I can find.

For me, the people who want smaller phones are the textbook example of a vocal minority. I've read so many Hacker News and r/apple threads about how people love and miss phones you can use with one hand. And then every few years a phone manufacturer will try it, and it won't sell at all.

I almost think people with small phones just underestimate how much they'd be able to adjust to a larger phone.

> I almost think people with small phones just underestimate how much they'd be able to adjust to a larger phone.

I switched from a large Android device to an iPhone Mini because I preferred the size. Before the switch, I had used pretty much only larger phones.

So, at least for me as a data point, your assumption is wildly wrong.

This is good to know. It could also be that people with large phones underestimate how much they'd be able to adjust to smaller phones.

I am in the same bucket, recently switched to an iPhone mini.

I did make a ruckus about small phones not existing. I have found 1-2 supporters of the idea within the dozens of people I complained to. Based on my small sample size I'd say 3-5% of the market would be willing to buy a small phone. A much smaller percentage would be actively looking for a small phone. I think those are optimistic numbers (sadly).

Can it be lightweight (<100g) and wide (16/10 or wider) as well? Pretty please?

edit: also buttons, like back, home, menu and search? edit2: like my ~ZTE v970 [1], but capable of newer https standards. Even teddit refuses to serve me content :D

1: https://www.gsmarena.com/zte_grand_x_v970-reviews-4597.php

The Sony Xperia Z5 Compact was my previous phone that I'd had from 2015 until mid last year. It was close to perfect. Waterproof, headphone socket, SD slot. If a new version of that were released with less of a screen border than the original I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

Thickness could stay the same too, I'd like the additional runtime rather than everything needing to be wafer-thin.

Droid Mini was a great smaller phone, a bit ahead of its time in features but locked bootloader doomed it for 3rd party life extension (cyanogenmod, lineageos)

https://www.gsmarena.com/motorola_droid_mini-5603.php

Dang can't believe it's a decade old, I still have a few sitting in a box unused.

my dream would be a small linux phone (probably a couple years down the line once the software is a bit more stable), but I would settle for a small android phone as a primary device, to stay a bit more realistic in terms of market share. while we're sharing pipe dreams, i would love a physical keyboard like the n900 as well. i used my nexus 5 for 7 years or so, when i replaced it i didn't even realize there no longer were any phones of that size at all.

I don't even need premium, i just want anything at all. I really do hate my current phone, i can't even type on it properly with one hand, it's too big. I may begrudgingly end up replacing it with an iphone, the only reason I haven't yet is that it's locked down and I would miss f-droid, and the linux compatibility sucks. but of course android has its own problems (namely google trying to squeeze as much data as possible out of you, and making it as hard as they can to turn off the various settings related to that buried in different setting sub-menus)

https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-pinephone-pro-keyboard-...

I got one, and I love it! But it's not really a phone at that point

Which criteria does the Asus Zenphone 8 fail?

I just bought one with more-or-less the same wishlist, and threw Lineage on it, and it's perfect for me.

The lack of less-than-5-inches android phones also disappointed me. My first and second android phones come with 4.7 and 5.0 inches display respectively. And then, when I have to upgrade to my current phone which is 6.4 inches, I feel like my hands are a little too small for it and I have to constantly use 2 hands to hold it so it won't drop.

For a phone that is not intended for heavy use (cramped screen, average screen-on time), 8GB of RAM seems like a pricey choice.

Also, stock Android can be a mixed blessing. My guess this is mostly used as synonymous to "no bloatware". But stock Android doesn't necessarily translate to a better user experience, or to software updates for a longer time.

I would buy this if it was dual SIM (nano+eSIM) but honestly iPhone 13 mini is still too big for my taste. No wider than iPhone 4 would be ideal for me. Fine if it's thicker to fit a decent battery.

I'm currently using a Pixel 3a with multiple cracks in the screen. Willing to drop a lot of money on a phone but there isn't a single phone I want.

Funny thing is that I still use my Samsung Note 3 (8 years old and kicking, with Android 11) and what was considered ridiculously large phone when I got it (people were laughing at me) is now the smallest one around. It was interesting to observe this gradual shift in perception, especially among those who were laughing at me back than :)

I hear ya! My previous phone was a Note 4. My current phone is still a Note 8. I thought that was a big jump in size! Phones today are even bigger, and I'm done going up in size.

This thread is making me miss the original Motorola Droid. It was the perfect pocket size phone with a slide out physical keyboard. I hated the day I upgraded away because the storage was too small to keep up with app sizes. Give me that same phone with modernized internal specs and a decent camera. I'd buy it again in a heartbeat.

> Cameras must be as good as Pixel 5

I know that you think you are setting an attainable bar, But that is not the case. Most phones you can buy today would not deliver this. A lot of it has to do with computational photography (code Google will not license to you) and per-device tuning done at the factory (details of which Google will not give you)

...and I want an iPhone that's comfortable to use with a single small hand. Even the Mini is too big and certain tasks are either extremely uncomfortable (rotating the phone whilst balancing it atop a couple fingers so I can reach a corner, for instance), or just require both hands which sometimes is incredibly inconvenient.

Our house wants small phones, we had Pixel 4a and 3(both size are small) and converted the rest three to iphone mini and iphone SE. over many years it does seem andriod phone has shorter life span and iphone lasts longer, which is one more reason we converted two andriod phones to iphones, in addition to the screen size reason.

Battery size is a lot of what's driving the escalation of phones. Phones keep getting bigger, with bigger batteries, but usable time stays about constant. I'd love a renewed emphasis on lower power / longer battery life without having to make the thing so big it doesn't fit in my hand comfortably.

I'd love a small Android phone, with one caveat: A built-in stylus. I'm stuck with the huge Samsung Note series, or the Samsung S22 which is no smaller.

I've used external stylii and my fingers too, but absolutely nothing comes close to the experience of just sliding out the stylus which is always there and using it.

+1, I switched to iPhone 12 mini from a OnePlus3. But, I’m not going back anymore. Let’s hope when this thing gives out in 5 years my watch can do all of this.

I always thought iPhone would be restrictive. But I have my selfhosted apps and my wireguard (but ffs let me tunnel my hotspot connected clients through the vpn Apple!).

I have a question: how do you cope with on-screen keyboard, when screen is small? I'd like to have a phone which doesn't take too much space in a pocket, but I found that below 5.5" I have too much struggle typing. Should we ask for a physical kbd (say N900 style) if we want a new phone anyway?

I use MessagEase, which is just fantastic for quick and accurate typing.

I have a 3" inch jelly2 and typing, while often annoying for something like urls, is overall ok. For regular texting text to speech works pretty well and the slide to type feature is pretty solid too.

But to be fair I bought it to spend less time on my phone, and the annoyances that it does have make the choice easy lol

Swipe typing.

This is the way

I used 9x4 Thai keyboard layout on my 3.7" Nexus One. I mastered it and reached 40wpm without autocorrect/suggestions. After upgrading to 4.7" Nexus 4 I found that the screen is too big and I'd have to use swipe keyboard. I don't think I ever reached 40wpm again.

Then again, that was when in high school. Maybe my fingers grew bigger.

I have a somewhat larger phone, but I just don't type much on my phone. I only really use it for communication of logistics with people if I'm not home, or typing in addresses to navigate to, etc. Otherwise I wait until I have access to a real keyboard.

Due to my aversion of taking my electronics over international borders, I went on vacation a few years ago with a flip phone (LTE still), and found that T9 was too inconvenient for even basic logistics, so got a secondary Android phone after that.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Sony-Xperia-Ace-3-Compact-smar... This but it's gimped by low-end specs

I like smaller size phones as well. I've considered the recent Moto Razr models. But I can't get over the fear of mechanical failure due to the hinge and folding screen. I'd much rather have a viable mainline linux phone even at a larger size, but that's for another thread.

I'm still running the Sony Xperia Compact Z1. Have upgraded it twice with an iPhone 7 and a OnePlus. Gave both away away to people who enjoyed them WAY and WAY more than I did.

Think I'm going to carry my Z1 till it literally stops working. So far, I can still do 1 to 1.5 days with my battery easily.

I hate giant phones too, that's why I got a Samsumng Galaxy Xcover 5. The 4 was even smaller but is too slow for today's apps.

https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_xcover_5-10718.php

I think sony xperia 5 iii is the closest you can get, may be a tad big 6.1", but it has everything flagship snapdragon, stockish android, 5G, 8/128 GB, NFC, 3 rear cameras, IP68, Fingerprint sensor on power button, big 4500mah battery with added on goodies like sd card, 3.5mm jack

I've been using my original pixel 2 since the day it came out. Still works like a charm. Fast, battery is good, small and the camera is great. I've been looking at getting an iPhone mini but what I get for the price doesn't seem to be that much better than what I have now.

The Nexus 5X was the perfect size phone in my opinion. I'm content with the Pixel 4a at the moment, but it is clearly too tall to use with one hand for me. I have to shimmy it up and down to reach the top and bottom. Which I suspect is the problem with almost every phone these days.

I went from iPhone 13 mini, to iPhone SE 2020 and was way happier. That screen was too big and no home button sucks. I yesterday just bought an iPhone SE 1 (shape of the iPhone 5s) (the smallest/oldest phone AT&T will support because of 3g removal). Excited to try it out

Here you go. https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-announces-galaxy-xco...

So do I. So I just bought an iPhone Mini after about 10 years of using Android phones. The hardware is better, notifications took some getting used to, but it's fine. Phones are an appliance.

I think Android phones just don't have the power efficiency to be small anymore. End of an era.

With small defined as sub-6" I can almost recommend my Nokia 3.4. (I measure about 3/16" over.) I remember finding it a surprisingly tall/narrow ratio when I first got it though, so maybe it's suitable depending on what bothers you over 6".

I just made the switch from Android to iPhone, entirely because I wanted a small phone that still has a good camera and good battery life. If iPhone discontinues the mini or there's a small Android phone on the market that meets my needs, I'd switch back happily.

Got an Asus Zenfone 8 and it's the best decision I could make. It has great specs and it's so convenient. The only downside is the camera which isn8as good as the camera you get in iphone or Galaxy devices, it's fairly good but not outstanding.

I want an iPhone Mini 14, but that's gone too now. I'm going to have to trade up my Mini 12 for a Mini 13, and the repair it until its impossible to repair further, as this is the perfect phone and is basically the last of it's kind now.

I'd love a smart phone that... - is android - is small - has a headphone jack - has a great camera(on the back) - has a removable SD card - has a removable battery Currently, my next phone will be a Sony as it checks more boxes than any other phone.

For me the pixel 4a kind of filled this niche for a while. The 6a seems significantly bigger.

The Samsung Flip seems like it can solve the problems descibed in the post. Large enough screen when you open it, small enough to fit nicely in your pocket when closed. Of course it's a bit think when it's closes, but we are getting there.

I'd like a small phone, big battery (I don't mind a bulge) or changeable * excellent dac * headphone jack * FM dab+ * ir * I would say: partner with Ricoh / Pentax for camera and with Onkyo for audio. Fujitsu as manufacturer.

“Price: $700-800 (again, we have no alternatives so we should be willing to pay a bit more!)”

Yeah, not going to happen - people in general are NOT going to pay more for a smaller phone. Even the iPhone mini is cheaper than the full size models.

I'm not paying more than $300 for any phone, small or big. My ideal size was the Xperia X Compact, but a little bit thinner and with no bezels. Or the phone I got after that one, a Samsung A40 but 1 inch shorter.

I think it's possible, if marketed correctly. I'd 100% pay more for a smaller phone, I'm desperate at this point. Imagine a campaign advertising a phone that doesn't get in the way when you work out at the gym, or go for a bike ride, or when you're doing yardwork. A phone that you can use on the subway, or while walking around. A phone that doesn't constantly suck you into Facebook or TikTok or whatever social media you use.

Still using my Pixel 3 (still holds a full charge for around 15 hours of use) and simply can't imagine going for anything bigger.

My only option will be to go for the Pixel 6a once it comes out this summer (I only want stock OS, and "LTS")

Umm.. there are literally 100s of small Android phones:

https://www.productchart.com/smartphones/small_android_phone...

Set the size slider to max 5 (6 is not small), set the date slider to min 2020 and there's.. One. From a manufacturer I've never heard of.

There actually are more than one (gsmarena is better for this search), but not many and as far as I can tell none with wide availability or much hope of getting security updates etc far into the future. The best option at the moment seems to be ebaying an old phone that's supported by Lineage and hoping it doesn't die.

I used to love small phones since I started having short sightedness problems.

Cheaper, lighter, easy to carry on, … was mostly what I cared about phones until I realized that my sight is getting worst and how important to me is to have bigger fonts.

Today i just saw this video about small phones. The only bad thing is that the camera is pretty bad :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUCULGEmgTo

“Sub 6 inches”

Isn’t 6” about the size of an iPhonex/XR/11 which is a huge slab of a phone?

Yes, very strange. GSMarena lists it as 6.1 inch, and its length of 150mm (5.9") might be acceptable, but the width (76mm / 3") is large.

Comparing with my Samsung A40 (5.9" diagonally), the latter is much smaller, and also lighter: https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=9320&idPhone2...

Edit: Both smartphones have the same display aspect ratio, but the XR seems to have thicker edges. The screen-to-body-ratio is only 79%, compared to 85.5% on the A40. So it must be wider and higher.

Me too! AT&T kicked my xperia mini off their network for no good reason. I bought a pixel 4a which was the smallest compatible thing I could find. I also bought a Chinese 4g smartwatch hoping I can use that as a phone.

t-mobile did the same thing to my z1 compact, but i bought a used xz1 compact and they allowed it.

update: AT&T won't let the Pixel 4a on either! Time to switch networks.

I moved to iOS recently, partly to get an iPhone mini.

It's wonderful to have a small phone.

iPhone convert for the small form factor here, too. I had Android since the Galaxy S1, but in 2018 switched to the iPhone 8 as there was just no decent SFF android device. I considered the Pixel 3a, and I am glad that I didn't go for it as it dropped out of support and no longer receives security updates, while I'm today still on my fully supported and updated iPhone 8. Next phone will be one of the iPhone SE series.

I guess the author doesn't consider SD slots and headphone jacks premium.

Man this website took me back. Something about the layout and design reminds me of websites that sold you shit in the oughties, like the ones some dude would set up hawking his supplement line or whatever.

How about a premium greater-than €1000 phone of any size that does not have unremovable cruft on it? Doesn't badger you every week or so with self-serving notifications and advertising. Hmm, Samsung?

I am using an iPhone SE only because of its size. Android devices are huge, the top factor is its battery life - to have a good battery (as Android consumes more battery) they need to keep its size big.

I still use my HTC HD2 (12 years old) because I could not find a small phone. It is now on its 5th battery and still working flawlessy. The caveat is: I only have 5 apps and because there are no more.

It's not going to happen.

The only people who like small form factor phones are tall men.

Every other demographic still needs two hands for a 5" phone and thus opts for more screen real-estate almost all of the time.

5" is still too big though. The iPhone SE screen is a fine size at 4.7"

iPhone 8/se is the same size as a mini isn't it? Just smaller screen. Personally 5" screen size is one hand usable for me. It's. Little stretch for one corner but otherwise it's fine.

I've just resided myself at this point. Sticking with a bigger phone. Currently enjoying 3 day battery life off one charge with my mid range Samsung.

> Every other demographic still needs two hands for a 5" phone...

Sorry to sound snarky, but make it smaller then. 4" sounds good to me.

I'd like a small phone, big battery (I don't mind clunky/brick) or changeable * excellent dac * headphone jack * FM dab+ * ir * for camera: join up with Ricoh / Pentax *

I'd add a headphone jack to "must have". And I don't like these bezel-less displays. Just give me a more modern HTC Desire S. Or a first-gen iPhone SE that runs Android.

And now you've made such a niche product that you and a few HNers want it, and that's about it.

I believe that there is a non-negligible number of people for whom their phone is a bit more than a communication device, and most of the things they do online, they do on a computer.

I don't understand the appeal of these notched/hole-punched/rounded screens on phones. They solve no real problems. They are a gimmick.

I'm suspecting developers of phone that that they don't want to downgrade resolution of whole display because of marketing but making higher DPI phones is more than expensive.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who hates big smartphones. Not b/c of small hands, but b/c I hate carrying plasma TV in my pocket. btw, let's go below 5"

I love the size of my iPhone mini, and I've had multiple friends use my phone, and want to also shift into the smaller size; most didn't even know the mini was a thing.

I'm still using the Pixel 4, I'm happy with it. I tried the Pixel 6 but it's just too gigantic, and the camera strip sticks out too much, so I went back to the 4

My favorite statements from this post...

> ...An Android phone (with Beeper for iMessage) might be an adequate alternative...

...and...

> ...Extrapolating from past models, the Pixel 10 will be roughly the size of California

Isn't the PinePhone 6"? https://www.pine64.org/pinephonepro/

6" is iPhone 13 territory - iPhone 13 Mini is 5.4"

I think the iPhone 5 was the perfect size. I still have mine though it doesn’t work anymore since I dropped it ages ago.

Still hoping a phone even smaller than the iPhone 12 mini is released

I've replaced the battery twice on my Sony Xperia Z5 Compact and have flashed a custom AOSP build, and I will continue to keep it alive as long as humanly possible.

iPhone 12 mini user here: after almost 2 years I decided to not buy a new mini again. The battery life is the biggest factor on my decision. I want a phone that lasts one day at least on full use, the mini once you start doing GPS the battery dies almost in two hours. The screen is good for messagging, some Twitter browsing, etc. After that it becomes painful. I'm buying the next model on the standard size, no need to go for the max options.

The iPhone 13 Mini has amazing battery life. It outlasts the standard size iPhone 12.

What is so wrong about the pixel 4a?

Nobody's going to pimp up CPU and Camera specs every year on a phone people claim is to just take calls and leave in their pocket.

The problem with the iPhone Mini was that it was not a Pro and this not all the cameras, etc.

It would have sold like hot cakes! I would have paid extra for a smaller iPhone Pro.

The Atom XL fits the bill, doesn't it? Or do you want bleeding edge specs & chipset?

I like the general idea and wish that there were more small phones available.

https://palm.com/pages/product

The small Android phone already exists.

Android™ Security Patch Level: September 2020

I have the same issue, I have big hands and going from a pixel 2 to a pixel 6 has been a nightmare. I can't use the pixel 6 with a single handle.

Are you sure you cannot buy such a phone from Aliexpress? They have all shapes and sizes of random stuff... they surely have a small Android phone.

99% chance this is just going to be a whiteboxed phone of similar origin.

Like this one? https://palm.com/pages/product

I have old eyes - I want need and have a Giant sized phone.

My wife just purchased an new iPhone SE2. I truly cannot use the phone the screen is too little for me.

I have been using Pixel 4a. Check all the boxes. Just that the last Security Updates will be untill August 2023.

- Just need a newer version to this series.

Maybe its just me but the Pixel 5 is the perfect size.

I don't find the iPhone mini being any better in terms of size. They are both usable with one hand.

I bought one of the first mainstream Phablets, the Samsung Galaxy Note 1 and everyone laughed at me. Now people all own larger devices.

Its too bad the iPhone Mini is already dead as a size. I love small phones as well, but the market as a whole seems to shun our kind.

For me, must have: - Wireless Charging

Nice to Have: - Higher refresh rate screen!

Just because we're small doesn't mean we need to have worse feature sets!

I got an iPhone mini, and I can tell you that it is truly a wonderful experience. A small premium android would be a great idea.

You are the man erohead ! For me beside the size, main feature would be batery follow by camera and connectivity (5g, nfc, wifi)

One interesting feature on my Samsung Galaxy S9 is "one-handed mode", which shrinks the screen area to about the size of the iPhone Mini screen, leaving black bars along one side and the top. It's interesting that they're aware of the issue and have a software solution (along with similar features like the camera shutter button that can be dragged around to a more convenient location to tap).

One-handed mode is decent when holding the phone parallel to the ground supported by your hand, but still doesn't cut it for holding the phone up since you'll need to grip the entire phone body anyways.

I moved from Pixel/GrapheneOS to iPhone 13 mini. Would go Pixel in a heartbeat if I could get the size of iPhone mini.

So… there are tons of small Chinese Android phones. Why not get one of them, wipe it clean, and install whatever you want?

Are there really? It's not just the size, but also the weight: cheaper components have larger weight. At least for me that is a dealbreaker.

Then you want the display to be small but of high resolution (and quality!), so 1080 pixels in width is necessary to have at least 320 to 350 dpi. My Samsung A40, which I bought for 220€ in 2019. has 440dpi (with 1080 pixels width), and this is marvellous because I cannot see single pixels anymore.

Third reason is the processor. There are still enough cheap ones built-in, that cause stutter and pauses.

I don't want just a small phone, I want a nice and reasonably-priced small phone. It was sold for less than 250€, so even in smaller batches it should be possible to reach a 500€ mark.

It's an option only if you don't want a good camera, don't need it to be fast, don't care that screen scratches, etc..

"This means that Apple may decide to kill the Mini." -> according to the rumors, it already has for the 14+

Small enough is nice but I desperately need an iPhone like battery Android. Battery issue on Android is ridiculous.

Closest is the Sony Xperia 5 or 10 series I think... My wife loves hers and I'm going to be getting one next.

I just bought an Xperia 5 a few minutes ago for these exact reasons. Hope it is as good as reviews make it sound once it gets here!

How much larger is the Sony Xperia 5 III ?

Fellow small phone fan. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of the smaller OnePlus phones designed for kids.

I want a smaller iPhone Mini.

The small screen discourages me from wasting too much time on it and using it only when needed.

Add there 2 USB type C >= 3.1 with displayport/hdmi Alt mode, unlocked bootloader and I'm in

I'm holding onto my XZ2C tight until some manufacturer wakes up and starts producing compacts again.

I was holding onto my XZ1C. Two months ago, I bought Samsung S22: it is bigger, but acceptably so, and there seems to be no smaller option in the foreseeable future, anyway.

When Android went big, I went iPhone.

What happens when iPhone goes big? It's only a matter of time due to sales.

I'll still pick the least shitty smallest one that I can get.

So, how much would we be willing to pay for an Android distribution that runs on the iPhone mini?

What's wrong with Samsung S22? It is 6.1 inches (author mentions 6' but I find this close enough), cameras are great and while not stock Android the OneUI stuff is not annoying for me at least. Plus it does have some of the other ideal/nice to have, although not a perfect fit.

I have to admit the S22 is one of the smallest high end Android phones that caught my eye.

I don't get the desire for a small phone personally. Very happy with the S22 Ultra.

I agree, it's the reason this year I switched to iPhone even if I clearly prefer Android :(

you can pry the iphone SE from my cold, dead hands.

i've been in the anti-iphone group since the first iphone. frankly, android has (and more importantly android phones have) pissed me off more than apple and that's the primary reason of me being an iphone convert now.

I gave up and bought the iphone se 3 as soon as it shipped.

I finally have a small phone again, and I’m liking ios.

I like phones that fit into my pocket and allow me to sit down. I refuse to wear a belt clip.

Smallest I got from Samsung is Galaxy A52 which is ridiculous. Please make it more compact.

I want a thicker (longer battery life), mini-sized iPhone-like actual Linux phone.

Sub 6 inches, why not sub 5? Six inches is about 28% larger than a Samsung A3 from 2017.

So do I. My hands are small for current phone sizes. I need to use both hands to type.

I want a phone that doesn't put billions of R&D into twelve fucking cameras

I find even the iPhone 12 mini way too large. The iPhone 4 form factor was perfect.

Happy Samsung s10e reporting :)

Pixel 6a, Xiaomi 12, Sony Xperia 10 IV. Won't get any smaller. https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?&idPhone2=11285&idPhon...

S22 is a bit smaller, still, but in the same class.

You can get a little smaller. Asus Zenfone 8 has a 5.9" screen.

Samsung A40 had a nice 5.9 screen with full HD+ resolution. Sold for under 250€. Unfortunately Samsung only releases such a phone once every five years. The successors were bigger, more expensive and less powerful.

That's 2cm on my current phone (XZ1 compact) which also has relatively big bezel and it's right at the limit of being able to be controlled with one hand.

Searching something like this for months. I ended up having an Asus Zenfone 8.

A prudent business will respond to what people do rather than what people say.

ZenFone 8 is passable and less than 6", but still too big for me.

Aw, to be young again. Ocular myopathy is a thing, unfortunately.

+ hardware camera power switch and/or physical lens cover

I want a notch-less phone. Where did they all go after 2019?

If you like the punch-hole design, then there are quite a few options.

how about expandable storage and headphone jack while we're at it? We can keep more phones out of the landfill and hone back production of newer stuff.

Samsung S10e

Already there and has probably every spec that's listed

Is there such a thing as a stock Android OS these days?

You want a Pixel 5 or 6a. Set smallest width to 432dp from developer settings. Check the result with mydevice.io to see 2.5x pixel ratio. You got a iPhone Max resolution for the size of a Mini.

I just gave up and bought an iphone, good luck all

I want an iPhone mini sized iPhone pro :/

Same. Please Apple!

I want an iPhone Mini Pro. Please Apple do it!

There must be no notch or punch hole camera.

I want an Apple Watch-sized Android phone.

stop whining and be the change you want to see in the world. source some parts from China and make it yourself.

Galaxy S7, the last usable Samsung phone.

> small

> 5.4"

Yeah, the ship well and truly has sailed on this.

Have a headphone jack and I'm in.

Your dream Android phone is an iPhone

Can’t wait for a mini android phone

The Razer 5G from Motorola is small

Because you want to modify it. Right? Tell me about all of your planned modifications. So many changes. So custom. So freedom.

I just don't like Apple, what's the problem?

Port android to iphone hardware

And must be LCD (good ones)!

Shut up and take my money.

OP wants the Samsung s10e

iPhone Mini is still huge. I want 3.5" phone. That's it.

> Extrapolating from past models, the Pixel 10 will be roughly the size of California

Thanks for that

100% with box design!

Sony 5ii/iii

Finally, a phone aimed at me! GREATEST PHONE EVER. I told Eric we could do this and he went ahead and did this. He's a genius, not like me, I'm an ultra genius, but good guy - Donald Trump

Asus Zenfone 8.

Yes, yes, yes!

well, you have the foldable android

Xperia 5 III

I want a flagship Sidekick-style phone :(

Me too!

so pixel 5?

I wish they would release a modernized phone with a decent processor and camera in the form factor of a pixel 2.

How much compute does the average person even need from their phone these days? Aren't most people just browsing the internet and checking emails?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com