> all you get is smoother text and smoother pictures on a less than 5 inch screen.

I don't think smoother text (and pictures) is anything to be trivialized. I mean it actually looks much much nicer and (imho) comforting - I experience joy anytime I look at anything that's above the 100 or so ppi of average 1080p monitors.

People spend huge swaths of money on the looks of things that they'll hardly ever be looking at. Considering this, spending the money on a screen (i.e. something they'll litteraly be staring at for large periods of time) is actually a borderline-rational choice in comparision..