Mini smartphones from Japan [video] | Hacker News Reader

Mini smartphones from Japan [video]

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The unihertz Jelly is smaller than these phones

https://www.unihertz.com/collections/jelly-series

Then there are some dumb phones which are even smaller. I think the Nokia 3310 is pretty tiny but the 4G version is only available in China.

The Jelly Max is so close to being a perfect phone for me. Unfortunately, a headphone jack is currently a hard requirement for me as I need one for my car audio. And a dongle isn't a viable solution, as they can be lost. So it's a no-go.

If car audio is your usecase, could you not just attach the dongle to the car audio cable? A couple zloties and it will never be lost.

The bigger issue with anything made by Unihertz is the zero updates ever.

I'm sorry, a zlotie?

A couple bucks, a few quid, etc. A small amount of money.

I have no idea how that happened. Autocorrect?

It is meant to be "zip ties"

> a dongle isn't a viable solution, as they can be lost

So can your phone... I don't see how this reasoning can be taken seriously.

How often are you losing dongles that this legitimately concerns you? And even if that were happening, why can't you replace it?

Isn't attaching a Bluetooth receiver to your car easier than rejecting a phone based on no headphone jack? At least my 2010 Toyota Prius still has the equivalent of a cigarette lighter, and I just bought a Bluetooth receiver that plugs into that.

Smartwatches with a SIM are smaller than the unihertz Jelly

Unihertz hardware and software are pretty crap, no warranty, no updates.

Likewise the HMD feature phones, the gimped and locked down s40+ OS is just so bad as to be almost unusable, simple things like in-line conversations for text messages, absolute dogshit UI and sound quality for mp3 playing and even calls.

It’s a shame boot2geko and KaiOS just kind of flopped because a proper open alternative would be cool.

Of course, these phones are never going to replace a conventional smartphone. They are really only where you care about size, you want to be contactable when out running etc.

People keep citing that as a small phone, but it's twice as thick as the average phone.

For many people what they want in a "small phone" is being able to reach the whole screen with their thumb without contorting their hand, in that case thickness doesn't matter as much.

I've been using a Unihertz Jelly (2?) for years. Some of the usual apps are a little tricky in such a small screen, where the keyboard takes up a large portion of visible space, but overall it's a great solution for someone who wants a small smartphone.

The battery kept getting worse after recharging, so I eventually replaced it with a new one -- and everything was back to normal.

Biggest issue with Unihertz devices is that manufacturer refuses to release source code, thus violating GPLv2 licence. It would be great to be able to run postmarketOS or Droidian on such small devices.

Those are also OEM from a Shenzhen company called Tinno Mobile. Rakuten doesn't make phones themselves.

1: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinno_Mobile

2: http://blogofmobile.com/article/133155

That Rakutan Mini is running Android 9, according to the screenshot in the video. That's an OS from 2018. It is no longer patched, and I wonder if there are issues with running modern apps on it?

Is not sold anymore, was a 2020 phone lineup.

The fact that it was America and not Japan that came up with something like the iPhone and started the smartphone boom makes me certain about parallel universes.

Japan LITERALLY [could have] HAD smartphones before smartphones: The Nintendo DS and the PlayStation Portable! IF ONLY they had phone functionality! Or better internet support and messaging/social apps out of the box.

Millions of people all over the world had a DS or PSP. If only they could have also used them as phones…

WHY WHY WHY

They had their own phone culture prior to the iPhone, with mobile phones having features like tap to pay, streaming video, emoji, video calls, and so on, twenty years ago. They just weren't exported abroad.

Yeah they got burned. Sony stopped selling their Clie PalmOS phones/PDA's in the USA as they said Americans were too lazy to read the manual.

The innovation of the iPhone was the capacitive touch screen (a Japanese invention) coupled with an OS that was very easy to use (no manual reading required). And of course Apple's marketing genius.

Japanese PDAs were built by entirely separate business units within manufacturers, sometimes even legally distinct subsidiaries than phones, usually closer to the main holding companies and home electronics divisions. Sounds insane right?

> The Nintendo DS and the PlayStation Portable!

N900i and P900i(2004) were running XFree86 on Linux. NTT Docomo was moving Linux based phones in orders of 10m for couple years on half a dozen model by the time iPhone launched.

But there were waaaay too many stakeholders with little focus on customer facing values and too much obsession with self punishment involved in those businesses. Using OpenGL for UI was considered irresponsible, indulgent, lustful, lacking in restraint, associated with those kinds of emotions. That and Apple's relentless anticompetitive pursuit burned down Japanese phone industry into ashes.

What was missing was user interface, and the environment that would allow user interface software to develop without getting shut down as a gross offense to the whole society.

Nowadays it wouldn't be so controversial to put a dialer in PSP OS. Back then it was so obviously blasphemous that it would have kept me as a kid awake during nights. How on Earth have life in Japan gotten so simple and reasonable and streamlined these days? Hardly anyone on social media is complaining about highly nuanced local district stitching pattern requirements for kids' school desk wipes anymore.

Sorry to be a negative Nancy but this video just shows a regular sized phone and an iPhone 12 mini sized phone. Not very interesting.

Only checked the 2nd:

iPhone 12 mini: 131.5 x 64.2 x 7.4 mm 135 g

Rakuten mini: 106.20 x 53.40 x 8.60 mm 79 g

Not true: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45477054

The phones haven’t been sold for years, either, so not much we can expect. There’s no small phone revival or phenomenon from Japan

Those phones are still _huge_ compared to the original iPhone.

The iPhone 4 was perfect at 115mm * 59mm and weighing just 137 grams.

The 13 mini was the last bearable iPhone at 132mm * 64mm and 135 grams.

Newer phones are simply too large and clumsy, and difficult to handle with one hand even for me as a grown man with fairly large hands. I don't want a tablet sized phone, I want a fully functioning phone that doesn't feel like a brick in my pocket.

iPhone Fold rumored 121mm * 84mm, but weight is likely 2X mini, https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/rumoured-iphone-fold-si...

That sounds like it'll still be too big. When it comes to phone screens nowadays, it is the width, not the height, which is the problem. It's physically impossible for me to use my phone (Nokia XR20) one handed, as my thumb isn't long enough to reach the far edge of the screen. So if the new iPhone is getting wider, odds are it'll be too big to fit in the hand even if the height is similar to the iPhone 4.

The other day I checked gsmarena for any smartphones with a width of 68mm or less (like my Xperia 5 V or previous Galaxy S8) that came out this year.

Here's the single search result that appeared:

https://www.gsmarena.com/cubot_kingkong_mini_4-14099.php

Its CPU is comparable to that of my old S8, but the GPU is considerably worse.

This size category actually extends to 70mm, as there are no other vaguely mainstream phones smaller than the Galaxy S25 clocking in at 70.5mm.

You have small hands, the modern phones are made for MKBHD reviews

The iPhone 4 was peak industrial design.

iPhone 4 was a beautiful piece of hardware, but it felt indulgent. Just too heavy (it’s still my second favorite iPhone design). The iPhone 5 and 5S were a better compromise in terms of performance and design per gram. I contend they were the peak of utilitarian industrial design. Plus lightning port, and touchid on the 5S. Maybe the finest example of the “naked robotic core” that you stuff in the case of your choice.

Extended the life of my 13 mini by going to Apple store the other day and replacing its battery. Perfect phone again.

Still using my 12 mini. Hope to get to retirement with it then either go phoneless or find something very small for talk and text.

And it should be getting iOS support for around three more years, given that iOS 26 still supports the iPhone 11.

Same! I want a small and not too expensive phone for typing and using on the go, fits in my hand and in my pocket.

And a (small) tablet for drawing and videos, it has less constraints in term of size, and can live in my bag.

2010 Motorola Defy (107mm x 59mm, 118g, IP67).

I loved the hardware, but it had some awful "value-added" Motoblur software atop Android that seemed to put Motorola in the loop on Internet communications, where it didn't belong.

And unfortunately the Defy was locked down against alternate firmware. So I got a Samsung i897 Captivate (122.4mm x 64.2mm, 118g), and found a nice alternate firmware Android fork for it.

Currently, after various phones that didn't work as well, or that were creepily invasive (e.g., iPhones, vendor Android), I'm currently using GrapheneOS Android firmware, with Pixel 7 hardware.

Plus a case sufficient to let it likely survive a drop. The result is a bit of a brick, which beats up my trousers pocket, looks dumb, and sometimes causes chafing. I've started experimenting with not carrying a phone at all again, and it's a bit of a relief, though occasionally I miss a photo.

(But it's not the same as walking phone-less before. Everyone and their dog has now set up networked surveillance cameras, feeding centralized data fusion of the current regime. So you're arguably being tracked even more now, phone-less, than when you used to walk around enjoying the benefits of your earlier phone.)

I really liked my Moto Razr-i from 2012 that was similar size to your Samsung. Wikipedia says 122.43 mm × 60.71 mm × 8.38 mm at 126 g.

The Rakuten Mini in the video is 106.2 x 53.4 x 8.6 mm at 79 grams with a 3.6” screen, so much smaller and lighter than the iPhone 4. The Rakuten Hand (also in the video) is 138 x 63 x 9.5 mm at 129 grams with a 5.1” screen, a bit taller and thicker but also narrower and lighter than the iPhone mini.

Unfortunately, the hardware, software, and interoperability of those Rakuten phones is too limited and outdated.

I wonder why the youtuber went for the ultra close-up framing. It does kind of make sense since faces look even smaller on a credit card sized phone.

i always tell the phone sellers in like to buy there phones if they provide a longer thunb with the phone. I realy like the option of a bigger screen as i am old and my eye are bad, but the need to use both hands to use a mobile device makes it not so usefull i think

I've got a 6.5" S20 and tiny baby hands(I actually have a medical thing that specifically kept my thumb small as well) and I get by just fine, so I've always wondered when people complained about not being able to reach.

I shift my grip around the phone quite a bit, and since getting one of those magnetic charging nipples I've been using that as an extra grip point, but I've never felt really inconvenienced handling my phone.

I wonder if the disappearance of small phones is merely to justify a higher price (now around ~$1000). Now that everyone in the world has a smartphone, the only way to increase sales revenue is to sell them more smartphone per smartphone.

On an unrelated note, I found this "small phone" kickstarter project: https://www.ikkoaudio.com/products/mind-one-phone

But what is really preventing me from buying one of these is lack of AOSP support. I want to run GrapheneOS or CalyxOS or postmarketOS, so if it can't do that it's off the table for me. I wish there was a way to sponsor the reverse engineering of a single phone's drivers.

no, they're just unpopular because more people use a phone as their main device, and so want a larger screen

A lot of sites and apps don't support small screens. I've seen notifications on major apps where the "OK" button was beyond the screen boundaries on my older small phone. No way to proceed.

yeah lol, I was carrying an original iphone se up until this year and would often encounter apps where buttons where straight up out of reach bc nobody bothered to test it...

That is fine, but it makes no sense that manufacturers are entirely unwilling to serve that market. People who need very large or very small clothes can still get clothes in their size, even though they are a minority. They might have to pay more, but the niche is filled by someone. We should see the same thing with smartphones, but for some reason we don't.

Clothes are way cheaper and don’t need as much infrastructure/“parts” to create and distribute.

I too want a small phone but my guess is research shows the market is too small to justify. Or they’re just getting bad info and maybe someday a company will figure it out lol

The clothes comparison doesn't make a lot of sense. People who wear extra small sizes don't choose to buy a large, unless they're willing to spend a lot of money to modify it. The question is whether you're willing to buy clothes at your own size, not what size to get.

I think the problem is last time someone really tried was the iPhone mini, which launched during the peak COVID lockdown era when a lot of people were using their phones at home on the couch rather than carrying them out in the world.

A little earlier or a little later and they might have been a bigger hit. There's likely room in the market for one or two small phones if they're otherwise-competitive.

> I wonder if the disappearance of small phones is merely to justify a higher price (now around ~$1000)

Cheap phones are getting bigger and bigger too.

Economies of scale, maybe.

Literally. ;)

Isn't it just that shiniest phones sell fastest? Embiggening the screen that will be flashing at stores achieves that goal quickest and bestest. I thought that's why every consumer products eventually gets glitter powders in the plastics.

It amuses me to think about a modern smart TV as a really big smartphone. It would be a small tweak to add a 5G cellular modem, touch layer for the screen, and (more?) camera modules. They already have WiFi, speakers, microphones, and processors capable of running the bloated media apps and driving the screen with full motion video.

Then, you can really think about the core electronic guts, the screen, and the overall packaging and the price range of these products...

That thing is short, but it's as wide (72mm) as a Pixel 10.

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