My cynical take is that small phones don't exist because they are not the product. Similar to vape pens the product is the addictive substance the device loads. In this case its apps and ads. A smaller screen probably negatively impacts KPIs on many levels, at Google/Apple/Meta/X and on down through the ecosystem.
I understand that Apple did not make enough money to make it worth their while to continue the iphone mini line. However, it does seem like there is a profitable business for someone there given how beloved it was/is.
I only traded out my iphone 12 mini just recently for an iphone 16 pro (likely the last apple product I will ever buy but thats another story) and aside from the camera it is basically the same. Just heavier, awkward to hold and slightly worse designed.
No major player wants a smaller screen because it has downstream impacts on the pipeline of addictive material and ad pixels they can stuff into ocular nerves.
GarnetFloride · 6h ago
What was so odd was how Apple fumbled the iPhone mini launch by launching the iPhone SE first. At that point there hadn't been a small phone for a few years, There was pent up demand. The SE came out and it was a big success, lots of people wanted ti because it was a small phone.
Then few months later they launched the mini expecting it to sell even more or something. Somehow they missed that everyone that wanted a small phone had just bought the SE, and it just wasn't long enough for them to be worth upgrading to the much better mini.
Had they waited for a year to pass the mini might have done much better because those who wanted a more powerful phone could find an excuse for an upgrade after a year, less then 6 months, not so much.
whilenot-dev · 2h ago
This is my take as well. I bought the SE 2nd gen because of its size, a longer support cycle, and granular app permissions on iOS. It was my first iPhone and has probably been my last when its time is due.
My phone isn't some entertainment device, it's a utility tool. I don't need it to be "smart", it should be useful on the go. The persona sketched by GP just isn't me: Messaging, maps, weather, 2FA, and calculator come first, email (read only) and news feed second, the camera is a third for documenting purposes (if even, I'd rather take my full frame). The easier it is to carry this thing around and the longer lasting its build quality, the better. Why would I pay almost double (USD 699 VS 399 on launch) for a less robust mini with sharper edges?!
If Apple were to continue the offer of rehashed designs from previous generations (preferably with rounder edges) for a SE line, limit its dimensions to never go beyond 140x67.5x8mm, and make it last for solid 5-year release cycles, then count me in as your most loyal customer. As it currently stands I'm looking out for a small sized phone from any manufacturer. I would even lower my expectations on support cycle and build quality quite a bit (if reasonable priced) before I'd give in on the size.
danieldk · 3h ago
I don't know. I think the SE was there there to generate services income (Apps, Apple Music, etc.) from people who wouldn't buy an iPhone otherwise. The design was intentionally very stale to avoid cannibalization of their flagships. I don't think a lot of people who bought flagship iPhones before would go to an SE. Imagine going from an iPhone X or XS to an SE, it's a big downgrade. People were not buying the SE because of the size, but because it was cheap (the iPhone 16e that is the cheaper model now, has the same size as the 16).
My wife, I, and several people I know had iPhone 12 or 13 Mini. Their battery life was pretty terrible and word soon got out it was. I think this was in the end what killed it for people who are normally buying Apple flagships and were considering a Mini. It was very hard to get through the day with a Mini.
Besides the abysmal battery life, I think the market for small phones is maybe simply not there. Samsung keeps around one smaller model (base S-series) and arguably the Z Flip is a smaller model (but persistent hardware issues). If there was a large demand for flagship-class small phones, I am sure some Android manufacturers would make them.
usrusr · 1h ago
They could have made the SE large but slow (instead of small and slow) and avoided all cannibalization future and present.
My hypothesis about the supposed non-existence of the small phone buyer is that they very much do exist (personally, haven't bought anything other than whatever was the smallest Xperia at the time in more than a decade), but that this group has little overlap with the group willing to buy for list price on release day. But the perception of success of a given phone is very much dominated by the latter, the long tail of buyers isn't really seen. Even if the release day premium over mid-lifecycle street price (in countries where price fixing is not allowed) goes to the retailer and is of very little interest to the manufacturer.
Manufacturers should just move compacts to a three year cycle and forget everything about hyper-optimizing desirability for the kind of buyer who spends too much time reading questionable review sites.
vidyesh · 3h ago
Your theory makes sense until it falls apart if you consider SE and Mini as the same category of small iPhones. If the only reason why Mini failed was bad launch time, then why haven't Apple launched anything small (SE or Mini) after 2022? Isn't 2024 or even 2025 the perfect time to launch an upgrade for SE or Mini? They now have enough data since the last launch of a small phone.
iPhone SE 1st gen 2016 (Discontinued 2018)
iPhone 12 Mini 2020 (Discontinued 2022)
iPhone SE 2nd gen 2020 (Discontinued 2022)
iPhone 13 Mini 2021 (Discontinued 2023)
iPhone SE 3rd gen 2022 (Discontinued 2025)
jorvi · 22m ago
The problem is that people who want a small phone prioritize the size.
Most of them don't care about the premium features of larger phones. So the Mini was a weird niche within a niche. Small phone with premium price and features.
The Mini and SE2 were virtually identical in physical size. For the 16e they should have used the iPhone 12/13 Mini body and the 13 Mini screen. Use the 15 Pro SoC with 8GB memory, and the 15 camera. Sell it for an SE price. Now you have fused the small phone and budget iPhone markets.
tinytoon · 3h ago
I can confirm, that Apple my misunderstood the market:
I was eager to buy a new iPhone because I just finished my masters degree and started a new job, had a bit of money and than the SE2 launched. My 5s or SE1 started to age and as an beginner app developer a current phone was important. I was so happy because I could not see my self using one of those bigger phones even though the SE2 was still bigger than my 5s/SE1. A few months later the mini was released and my initial reaction was "OMG this is THE perfect phone, but I just got a new one... i can not afford to buy another one".
2muchcoffeeman · 8h ago
You’re way too cynical and have let your cynicism cloud history.
The first phablets were probably the Galaxy Note line starting in 2011 which was met with some skepticism due to the size of them. These were well before the edge to edge screen days. So you had 5.7 inch screens with a bezel.
They were huge but I would routinely see small women pull these things out of their hand bags and press a device that obscured almost their whole face and start chatting.
Things steadily got bigger from there. The general population WANTED this.
okanat · 1h ago
Smaller phones has always been limited in performance, batter life, the app support and the camera quality. Camera is the most important factor and battery is the second.
General population doesn't buy phones every year and they don't want a nerfed phone when they have to pay 500-1000 $/€s. So they gravitate towards higher end ones.
Companies including Apple has always treated the small size as an entry to mid segment phone. The only exception I know is Sony z3 and z5 compact which suffered heat and battery swelling issues due to Qualcomm messing 810 series SoCs up.
Companies also want you to buy the most expensive phone. So they market the premium models and train their store personnel to sell more of the premium line. If they stop intentionally nerfing the smaller phones, I think there is a market there. However, it will still be smaller.
ChrisRR · 39m ago
At least the smaller battery is offset by the smaller screen
MengerSponge · 26m ago
It helps, but less than you'd think. The main board's power doesn't dramatically change, and because the full space under the screen isn't battery, reducing the screen size by 40% might cause the battery size to be reduced by 60%
wyre · 8h ago
The general population wants larger phones because they are addicted to their screens.
al_borland · 7h ago
Apple did a horrible job marketing the mini. I ran into a lot of people who saw my 12 mini and said they would prefer that size, but didn’t know it existed.
When I went to buy it, and the case, the employees at the Apple Store questioned me and tried to push me toward the normal iPhone. This is the first and only time I’ve ever felt Apple Store employees steering purchasing decisions. I had to go in there knowing what I wanted, and had to assert that it was what I wanted repeatedly.
Are people buying big phones because they are addicted to their screens, or are people addicted to their screens because of big phones?
danieldk · 2h ago
When I went to buy it, and the case, the employees at the Apple Store questioned me and tried to push me toward the normal iPhone.
Probably because they knew that customers would come back to complain about the abysmal battery life of the Mini? I had a 12 Mini, I loved that phone, but man was it hard to get through the day on a single charge.
hdgvhicv · 2h ago
My 12 mini is nearly 5 years old and still lasts the day unless I’m watching a movie etc on a train for a few hours or something.
ginko · 2h ago
I generally only charge my 13 mini every other day or so.
The only time I recently struggled getting through the day was when on vacation and constantly using google maps & translate. But that is with a 3 year old phone.
gargan · 2h ago
May I ask what your approximate screen on time is each day? You must be less addicted than the general population where its 4-6 hours a day
ginko · 1h ago
Hm, looks like ios won't show screen time unless reporting is enabled which I haven't done.
nunez · 7h ago
Yes, and people are using their phones for what they previously used TVs, laptops, music players and other dedicated devices for. It's a bit of a cycle.
There's also the accessibility factor. Many people become farsighted later in life. It's much easier to see things on a big phone, especially with increased zoom. (I see this all of the time when I fly.)
sayamqazi · 2h ago
I want larger monitors, laptops, tablets and phones because I can't f**ing see well. Book reading is a real strain on small screens.
knubie · 5h ago
The other problem is that more and more content now is designed for (or only tolerable on) larger phone screens. Go to any website these days on a smaller phone like an iPhone mini and more than 50% (being charitable here) of the screen will be taken up by garbage like ads, cookie banners, popups, etc.
It's a vicious cycle. Phone manufactures make the screen bigger, app and website developers realize they can cram more junk on the page, consumers demand larger screens as a result, return to step 1.
agosta · 4h ago
Ya'll see adds? I use Brave Browser on all my devices and haven't seen traditional ads in years. Even Youtube ads are blocked on Brave by default
knubie · 2h ago
Most people just use whatever the default browser is on their phone.
pclowes · 4h ago
Apple is putting ads as pop ups inside the wallet app now… every social media app is crammed with them too. Browser is the easy fix.
t0bia_s · 2h ago
Advertisers supports bigger screen for bigger space for their ads.
jittery41 · 8h ago
For most people the phone is their only computer. Who bring laptop to a friend group hangout anymore ? Only the techies.
bigstrat2003 · 7h ago
Who ever brought a laptop to a friend group hangout? I never have seen that happen myself.
volemo · 1h ago
I’m not sure if your comment is sarcastic, but in case it isn’t: my friend group had a get-together two days ago, three out of six had a laptop with them, and it even came in handy when I started talking about the problem I’m working on, somebody got interested and I was able to show the plots and calculations. Also we have PowerPoint Parties somewhat regularly, where most of us bring their computers to make last minute changes or simply have a known environment.
taraindara · 6h ago
Depends on you and your friends. My group does this regularly.
jchw · 7h ago
Well, do you think this is a good state of affairs? On one hand, phones are pretty accessible devices, on the other hand there are many aspects of phones that are objectively pretty terrible for consumers (talking about cost and difficulty of repair, walled garden ecosystems, and generally being geared towards consuming things and a lot less effective at producing them than laptops and desktops.)
(Tangential: of course I don't blame anyone for bringing their phone with them everywhere but if you're going to go to a friend group hangout, consider how annoying it is when you're trying to talk to someone and they're clearly checked out browsing some slop on Twitter or talking to someone else entirely. Take a damn break from the phone!)
spaceisballer · 6h ago
I just want a decently large screen because I have old eyes. A 6.1” phone works fine for me.
Nursie · 4h ago
I want larger phones because I am at that particular stage of middle age where I should probably start using reading glasses, but I'm also damned if I'm going to start carrying reading glasses everywhere with me.
Larger screen = easier life.
ako · 3h ago
I’m even older, walking around with reading glasses on my head all day. Had an iPhone 13 mini, miss the form factor, would prefer a mini as my next phone. But for most mobile use, on the couch, watching videos, etc, I use an iPad, not my phone. For me a large phone is mostly a tablet that’s too small.
Nursie · 3h ago
Yeah fair enough. At the moment the pro max is a sweet spot for me, but we'll see over time.
makeitdouble · 8h ago
Parent's take is not whether bigger phones shouldn't exist, it's why smaller phones stopped being produced, which is a fairly different angle.
> women
To note, the initial smartphones were already too big for he taste of many: a clamshell feature phone was almost a third of the size of the original iPhone. From that POV, going to a phone that is twice as big is less of a barrier, as they had to keep it in a bag/purse in the first place.
The return of foldables is also pretty well received in that regard.
ChrisMarshallNY · 6h ago
Just tonight, I saw a friend of mine, pull a new foldable Razr from her purse.
They are cool phones, but I do iOS. I still use a 13 Mini, and will continue to do so, for quite some time.
As to the point of this article, I seem to recall a couple of very small Android phones, some years ago (about credit-card sized). I guess they didn’t sell well.
dontlaugh · 3h ago
I do wish Apple would make one. The Samsung Z Flip almost follows the Apple design language, if only it ran iOS.
makeitdouble · 6h ago
> very small Android phones
IMHO this is just not viable in the current world.
I agree with line the article sets (5"4 for 1080p, almost the size of the Pixel 4a), as mainstream apps will properly work at that size. I still have a working 4a, and some banking apps are getting pretty cramped for instance. And many websites already need furious panning and zooming.
A credit card size phone would only work for people who basically hate their phones I think.
happymellon · 4h ago
> banking apps are getting pretty cramped
Completely agree. Although not even on "small phones", my S23 isn't small but the design of these apps has regressed so much that I barely see any useful information.
On my old WAP phone I could see bank balance and maybe the last transaction or two. Now half the screens taken up with upselling account levels, invest in shares, buy crypto, you've been pre-approved!
ChrisMarshallNY · 6h ago
I agree. I think the article about them was on Ars Technica, but I don’t really feel like looking for it.
I just refuse to accept that the first phablet I ever saw, the Galaxy Note, which covered the person's face and looked absolutely comical in their hands, was smaller than my current, very regular-sized phone.
2muchcoffeeman · 39m ago
How big is your phone? If it want for edge to edge screens, I’d have stuck with my iPhone SE longer.
sockbot · 1h ago
That's because it's not smaller, it has a larger front face area and volume.
stavros · 1h ago
It doesn't, my phone is a full cm longer.
darkwater · 3h ago
Yeah and I also remember how Apple fans said "this is ridiculous, nobody needs a screen that big that doesn't fit in your pocket easily", and here we are 15 years later mourning the iPhone Mini/SE.
pyman · 2h ago
10 years ago, if your phone was bigger than 5 inches, it looked ridiculous. You'd pull it out and people would look at you like you'd just escaped from a nut house
thekevan · 3h ago
The Samsung Galaxy Note (the first one) had a screen size of 5.3 inches.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 had a screen size of 5.5 inches. I had one and regularly had strangers ask me if that was really a phone. I had friends say, "Give me a call on your tablet" as a joke.
I loved it. Now my 6.1 inch iPhone feels on the small side.
_trampeltier · 3h ago
This. I'm also had several Note's. I even would like now also to have a bigger phone again. But it seems nobody does 8" or 9" phones.
prmoustache · 1h ago
> But it seems nobody does 8" or 9" phones.
They are called tablets, some come with a sim slot so they are essentially the same.
zanecodes · 7h ago
The Dell Streak (shoutout to the other 3 people who bought one) had a 5 inch screen in 2010, a notable jump from contemporary phones like the iPhone 4 which was still 3.5", and other Android devices like the HTC Droid series which were around 3.7" and slowly starting to creep upwards to differentiate themselves from the iPhone. I think the largest Android devices you could get at the time were still smaller than 4".
al_borland · 7h ago
I remember Dell showing this off at the All Thing D conference and Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal asked the Dell spokesperson to put it up to his head, and told him it looked like a waffle. To this days it’s all I think of when I see someone holding a massive phone up to the side of their head.
That thing could really stand out in a crowd. I was at a baseball stadium for a concert that year, and spotted someone with a Dell Streak as I was heading down to the field. In a sea of people that was the one phone I spotted. I stopped to ask the guy about it briefly.
overfeed · 5h ago
I remember Steve Jobs berating phablets as "the Hummer of phones" and dissing 7-inch Android tablets as too small, and disparagingly saying users would need to "file down their fingers" to use them - without considering how much smaller Apple users' fingers would need to be to use 3.5-inch iPhones.
I also remember the viral, doctored image showing the reachability of phone screens which "proved" that 3.5 inches was the "ideal" phone size.
gsich · 2h ago
>Things steadily got bigger from there. The general population WANTED this.
Easy to say if the only devices are big phones. There is no choice.
Marazan · 2h ago
It's amusing how people try an memory hole their negative reaction and pieces written about the Note. People's mocking web pages have disappeared. Arguments based on the size of the human hand completely forgotten. The very notion that a 5.7 inch screen is big an unwieldly is now met with disdain.
al_borland · 7h ago
This is the part that frustrates me. Apple keeps introducing software “solutions” for hardware problems. Reachability, Screen Time, Focus Modes, etc. A smaller phone naturally solves most of these problems. Small phones act as more of a utility device for when you’re away from a proper computer. This is all I want my phone to be. I really think they got it right the first time in 2007.
I ended up switching from a 13 mini (I had the 12 mini as well) to a 16 Pro. I was having a lot of battery life issues, and kept running into apps that clearly didn’t fully test with the smaller screen. I also really missed having a telephoto lens.
My phone usage went up; my laptop/desktop usage went down. I don’t like that. Compared to a normal computer, a phone is still worse in almost every way, other than mobility. It’s just now tolerable enough to put up with more of the time. I’m writing this on the phone, it would have been easier on a keyboard and mouse.
gargan · 1h ago
You could take the 13 mini to Apple and swap out the battery for a new one? That might solve some of the battery issues
oc1 · 4h ago
The 13 mini didn't solve any of these issues for me plus the worse battery life. I upgraded to 16 pro max. My laptop usage also went down from there. Total screen time probably stayed, but now i carry most of the time just a phone instead of phone and laptop. If you want something less addictive there is probably the apple watch but you still need the phone to configure
and now you're strapped to a device 24/7 just for the sake to be used less.
khurs · 10h ago
>No major player wants a smaller screen because it has downstream impacts on the pipeline of addictive material and ad pixels they can stuff into ocular nerves.
There are lots of phone manufacturers who have no ads business. They just make phones so why would they care?
Size is dictated by trouser pocket size/handbag size and usage. Editing photos and movies to upload onto social media is probably better on a big screen.
Also screen size is dictated by common panel sizes, as low volume will mean a higher price.
Folding screens and iPad Mini's existence suggests people want larger screen real estate.
rtpg · 10h ago
I think photos are a big deal, but IMO it's more about the photo quality. And if you put a nice fancy camera on the phone, suddenly the device gets pretty expensive.
And so while there are people who want "small screen + nice camera". There are people who want "small screen + small price". There are many people who _don't want the small screen_. So you have this phone that can cost a lot of money (in a pretty messy market where most phone models seem to not make money anyways), and you're going to cut off chunks of the market?
So we end up with small screen + shitty camera and specs etc. And people here who want a small phone (but really want a small phone that isn't miserable to use) still are unsatisfied.
manwe150 · 9h ago
I have an iPhone mini, and my understanding is that I lose quite a bit of battery life also by not having the full sized version. The market definitely prefers long runtimes, free from frequent charging, while I need to carry a charge pack sometimes, although just when I expect it to be needed.
makeitdouble · 8h ago
> There are lots of phone manufacturers who have no ads business. They just make phones so why would they care?
There are still bound to the screen resolution dictated by the platforms/environment. A maker selling an android phone with a 480x640px screen
would face a huge uphill battle to see any sales.
Going for a smaller physical screen means higher DPI, so higher production costs and quality control issues. It can make more sense to buy cheaper, low DPI screen and make the whole device bigger to match the needed pixel count.
const_cast · 7h ago
> There are lots of phone manufacturers who have no ads business.
I mean... none of the big ones.
For the others, they DO make small phones, and even non-addictive phones. We have e-ink phones in pure black and white.
crossroadsguy · 1h ago
Just like 16e, Mini and SE were meant to push up the sales of their "other" phones. Otherwise they would not have had both Mini and SE. I mean it was a joke.
But Hanlon's razor and the way Apple has been on a screwing up spree of late I doubt it was anything intentional. They f'ed up knowing not what to do at all. They don't anymore.
atemerev · 1h ago
Sometimes assuming just a tiny bit of malice can explain what otherwise had to be explained by a lot of stupidity.
Occam's razor beats Hanlon's razor.
abujazar · 10h ago
Agreed. I'd prefer a modern iPhone the size of an iPhone 4, it was perfegt. I made the same "upgrade" from 12 mini to 16 Pro, and the 16 Pro is so large and heavy. Feels like we're moving backwards in time.
walterbell · 10h ago
2026 iPhone Fold is rumored iPhone Mini size unfolding to iPad Mini size.
I hope they instead (or also) make a flip version opening up to at most the size of a regular iPhone.
frosted-flakes · 9h ago
Folding phones don't solve the problem of oversized phones, which is that they are awkward and cumbersome to use.
walterbell · 9h ago
Some customers want a phone the size of iPhone Mini, rumored to be sold for $2K+ by Apple in 2026.
notpushkin · 5h ago
Hmmm, so there will be decent small screens produced in 2026, and it would be feasible to make small phones around them?
theshackleford · 8h ago
> they are awkward and cumbersome to use.
For you. As someone with large hands, I appreciate that phones grew in size and I swapped to larger devices as soon as I could.
const_cast · 7h ago
For... well, most people. Half of people are women, so I don't know how they do it. I'm a man, with man hands, and modern phones are not one hand operable. You need two hands. Even if you can do a particular operation with one hand, the phone is unsteady and it's awkward.
I think people with large hands are definitely the minority. So, we're not optimizing for hand size. We're optimizing for engagement, I think.
thaumasiotes · 6h ago
It was observed a long time ago on HN that women, with their tiny hands, loved huge phones - since they were using small phones two-handed anyway - and it was the men who complained that small, one-handed phones stopped being sold.
const_cast · 4h ago
Depends on how you define small. I we're talking back in the era of 3 inch screens, I doubt this.
theshackleford · 1h ago
> For... well, most people.
You don’t speak for most people. You can only speak for yourself. The feelings of “Most people” are clear as demonstrated by the market; they not only find large phones fine, they find them preferable.
> modern phones are not one hand operable
So? I mean for me they are so it’s irrelevant, but what should it matter if they are not? The market obviously does not share your interest in devices to be operated in such a manner as a priority or something of particular importance.
That being said, it’s of course unfortunate that if that is your preference, that nothing in the market caters for it. Your preferences and wants are obviously entirely valid and it’s a shame there is no interest even from a boutique vendor in meeting them.
I have plenty of preferences for products that are not catered too, as I am sure is true for us all and of course I don’t love it, but I must live in the reality that the larger market doesn’t always want what I do.
> We’re optimizing for engagement
The market is optimizing for what consumers asked for, which was larger devices. You say I am in a minority, I claim equally that you are in a minority as well.
frosted-flakes · 6h ago
At 193 cm in height, I have large hands too. I currently use a Zenfone 10 and a Galaxy S10e before that, and I can grip them both just fine in one hand, but I can't also control them with that same hand without awkward contortions and a reliance on gravity.
The only phones I've had that I could comfortably use one-handed were my old BlackBerry Q10 (2013) and BlackBerry Classic (2014). The Q10 because it's short enough to hold between my thumb and ring finger such that I could use my index and middle fingers on the touch screen (slightly unorthodox but it worked really well), and the larger Classic because it has an optical thumbpad and excellent software support for it (it was so good I rarely used the touch screen at all). And both had physical keyboards.
bigstrat2003 · 6h ago
I don't have especially small hands and I can't stand my Nokia XR20 (which isn't even close to the biggest phone out there). If I can't reach every corner of the screen with my thumb while holding the phone, it's uncomfortable and unpleasant to use. Sadly that is most phones these days.
dontlaugh · 3h ago
.
conradev · 8h ago
The margins are also worse, which is way, way closer to a manufacturer’s bottom line than the software ecosystem.
There is demand for larger phones, yes, but manufacturers also charge more for bigger devices and most of that is margin. Following their own logic, they also charge less for smaller phones.
If your customers are sticky, then many of the people who buy the smaller phone would have otherwise bought a bigger phone for more money. Introducing a smaller phone brings down profits.
ginko · 2h ago
>manufacturers also charge more for bigger devices and most of that is margin.
Why do they do that though? Usually more compact, high end devices would be more expensive than bulkier one. When has this trend reversed?
nicholassmith · 1h ago
Bigger equals better consumer perception, I imagine driven in part by the top-tier phones being larger to fit additional battery capacity in for the higher performance processors making all larger devices carry some premium cachet.
javier2 · 9h ago
> I only traded out my iphone 12 mini just recently for an iphone 16 pro (likely the last apple product I will ever buy but thats another story) and aside from the camera it is basically the same. Just heavier, awkward to hold and slightly worse designed.
Just did the exact same thing 5 months ago.. I still miss my 12 mini. Would strongly consider buying a 13 mini instead of its even being sold anymore.
devjab · 2h ago
I ended up replacing my 12 mini with a 6z flip from samsung. The only real annoyance is that Apple hasn't enabled RCS for Danish telecom companies yet. Well that and sand... We'll see how long it lives though. The reason I originally went to apple was because my first smartphone (a galaxy 2) sort of did the planned obsolescence thing exactly the same way my two buddies galaxy 2's did at the time. If the flip lives for 5ish years then I'll likely never go back to apple. Unless they make a phone that will actually fit comfortable in my pockets again.
The little half screen on the flip is useless though. Basically nothing works on it.
abruzzi · 5h ago
i have a 13 mini. Its beat up, battery life is getting worse (even though I rarely use it) and both cameras are smashed (in my pocket during a motorcycle accident), but I look at all the options now and figure I'll just keep using this one. I'd rather be using an iPhone 4, but I need some stuff that that one didn't have to work with a glucose monitor.
grapesodaaaaa · 8h ago
I wish they had made a pro mini. The only reason I got rid of mine was for the zoom of the pro.
dakiol · 2h ago
I don’t know.If I have a “big” phone (anything bigger than the iphone mini, at least for me), I’ll leave it at home most of the time. But if it’s small, I’ll take it with me everywhere. So I can be bombarded with crap more time if I use a small phone.
pyman · 2h ago
Phones are big now because people want better cameras and longer battery life. Also, people are spending 4-5 hours more per day on screens than they did 15 years ago, so they want bigger screen for reading, playing games and watching videos.
volemo · 2h ago
I know I can’t claim to be “the norm”, but all I want is a smaller phone with 1–2 day battery life. I don’t need a better screen, a better camera, or ever more compute. (It’s a freaking smartphone, not a game console!) All I need my phone to do is run a web browser, messaging apps, maps, my banking app, and random little apps some organisations force you to use – like my university’s app, my city’s public transport app, or half the restaurants here. Things that could easily be done with 10–15 year old hardware. Sadly, the industry chose to keep the power consumption constant increasing while computational power, instead of focusing on smaller devices and longer battery life with the same power.
Again, I’m not angry that current phones exist; I’m just sad there aren’t (good) alternatives – at least that I know of.
prmoustache · 1h ago
Did I read it right, are you installing "resstaurants apps"?
protocolture · 8h ago
Phones had smaller screens when you needed the keypad to interact with the largest number of features.
Phone screen sizes grew as the applications that could use screen space grew in demand.
People are watching 1080p films on the train now. The people who want smaller screens are usually willing to deal with a larger one. People who want larger screens usually cant operate their use cases on a smaller screen. Larger screens also tend to mask larger case meaning less miniaturisation required for the components.
thaumasiotes · 6h ago
None of this explains why it's just impossible to get small phones.
You have people who want them unusably large and people who want them to fit in your hand. The solution in every other market is that products are manufactured to fit both sets of needs. You don't see pants coming in one size with the advice "wear a belt".
What's going on?
protocolture · 5h ago
>You don't see pants coming in one size with the advice "wear a belt".
Great example. Because people who are shorter than average tend to have to get pants taken up, and people who are vastly taller than average tend to go to specialty stores.
The average height of pants is largely dictated by what the market will permit, requiring people to make adjustments or leave the market. Having a 2d matrix of height and width defined pant sizes is too complex for the market to bother with.
Technology is worse, anything that requires tooling is done the least number of times possible. While small phone enjoyers are disadvantaged, they arent disadvantaged enough to force them out of the market. Larger tooling is easier to make and caters to all other preferences.
thaumasiotes · 4h ago
> Technology is worse, anything that requires tooling is done the least number of times possible. While small phone enjoyers are disadvantaged, they arent disadvantaged enough to force them out of the market. Larger tooling is easier to make and caters to all other preferences.
No, you're making up a claim that you know perfectly well is false. Just blank most of your day out of your mind, and then... what? Why?
You don't like pants? Televisions come in dozens of different sizes. Laptops come in dozens of different sizes. Are phones different in some way?
Daz1 · 4h ago
Phones come in dozens of different sizes too, what are you on about? TVs come in a greater range of sizes because they're designed for different viewing distances and room configurations. Phones don't have this variable, you hold them in your hand.
dalmo3 · 6h ago
I agree with the sentiment, but pants is a very funny example.
Every manufacturer seems to think people are either tall and fat or short and slim. I'm tall and my only alternative is literally to wear a belt.
Nursie · 4h ago
> What's going on?
You're in a minority, it's not profitable to cater to you, and most people don't care.
That's the cold hard truth of it.
thaumasiotes · 4h ago
You seem to have ignored the part of my comment pointing out that the dynamic you describe doesn't occur in any other market.
Perhaps... just perhaps... the explanation lies elsewhere?
I should have included some kind of question as to what it might be.
Nursie · 3h ago
I don't think it's meaningful. There are not enough people who would buy such a device to make it profitable to design and manufacture. Your priors -
"You have ... people who want them to fit in your hand"
Are incorrect. The number of people who will actually buy small devices is ... small. The number of people who are so interested in small devices they'll overlook things like a lower battery life and whatever other compromises are needed to achieve the smaller size, likely even fewer.
It's not like it hasn't been tried in the past, people in this thread talk about iPhone minis disappearing - Apple couldn't make them a success. Sony couldn't make them a success either and stopped making them AFAICT. As a market segment you're too small to warrant the investment in designing a small flagship. And if nobody's investing in a small flagship, small midmarket isn't going to happen either.
There do appear to be niche manufacturers in this segment (take a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/smallphones/). If the untapped demand is so huge, I would expect to see them become much more mainstream over time.
klausa · 2h ago
There are also no desktop 17” displays sold anymore, nor are there many 32” TVs around. Nobody makes 7” Eee PCs.
Perhaps… just perhaps… people just like bigger screens and it’s not some kind of weird conspiracy theory?
zerr · 2h ago
I'd say the same goes for the removal of FM Radios from mainstream phones.
chupchap · 8h ago
No, the bigger devices just sold more. Larger screen size is a major factor in deciding which phone to buy globally.
uniq7 · 10h ago
How can KPIs from Google/Apple/Meta/X have any impact on the products third-party Android phone manufacturers decide to sell?
pclowes · 10h ago
I think most major players have the same incentives and minor players don't have the economies of scale to make it work economically.
Also the longer I used my iphone mini and the rest of the world moved to comically large phones the more it became apparent that nobody is thinking about small screen form factors in design and when they do its only around ad placement.
bondarchuk · 10h ago
But, for example, what is the money flow from google/advertising in general to Motorola, that makes them not want to release a small screen model in their lineup of cheap phones?
TheDong · 6h ago
Instagram, Tiktok, and Google have gotten users addicted to consuming content, and larger screens help with that.
We are helplessly addicted to digital cocaine, and so we demand large phones, and so motorola will not make money selling a small phone.
It's like the parent said: our addiction is the product, and so just like a chain-smoker will say "I want to quit" as they buy 5 packs a day, a modern smartphone user will say "I want a smaller screen and to look at ads less" as they hopelessly buy a 10 inch phablet and can't go 5 minutes without pulling it from their pocket to check tiktok.
It is not that the money from advertising flows, it is that the addicted users have already been ruined, and will not buy the devices they say they want.
raynr · 2h ago
I think that's the cart before the horse. People buy the big phones and so businesses cater for that.
_carbyau_ · 9h ago
The issue is "bigger numbers" marketing. The story for much of smartphone history was the flagship had a bigger screen.
But then it hit the practicable limits of what people can pocket/hold-comfortably.
If you make a phone with a smaller screen but want to call it "flagship" then you'd better have some good marketing to reverse the perception.
w-ll · 9h ago
I think the other thing is pretty much everyone has a smartphone android/ios, and so the rev model has changed for android its youtube/movies, and for ios its apple tv.
aucisson_masque · 3h ago
It’s an interesting take but I believe most people just prefer bigger phone. I know it’s weird to those of us who like the opposite and funnily enough it’s often women who have gigantic phone, which they can’t put in their tiny jean pocket.
I don’t explain it and every time I get explained they like it better because it’s got bigger battery and bigger screen, I just don’t understand how you could live your life with a brick constantly on you but it’s what people want.
The market just adapted to the demand and it’s not a 40k « petition » that will change much.
FinnKuhn · 3h ago
> I know it’s weird to those of us who like the opposite and funnily enough it’s often women who have gigantic phone, which they can’t put in their tiny jean pocket.
Most women carry their phone in a hand bag anyway as the pockets on most pants for women are way to small either way [1].
Most women pants have no or fake pockets anyway, So the smartphone to pants pocket size relationship is usually only a parameter for men.
LtWorf · 3h ago
Do you have any fact at all to back your opinion?
bapak · 2h ago
Pointless rant. Apple does not earn more or less depending on how many ads it can show.
The market has spoken, it's not worthwhile for Apple to produce small phones.
There are a million companies that are not Google that could also produce mini phones and don't for the same exact reason: most people want large screens to enjoy videos and photos.
Nobody cares about small screens and pockets, everyone holds their phones in their hands or purses at all times.
nine_k · 9h ago
I see it differently. Modern web → the browser → powerful CPU/GPU → big battery → big device → why not cover it with a big screen.
roxolotl · 9h ago
Couldn’t we make it thicker though? The rumored iPhone air is the exact opposite of what I want. Give me a thicker phone with a smaller screen and I’d pay Pro prices for it.
Yea I might have to get a fold. I really don’t want a damn crease in my screen though. I’d almost prefer a Nintendo DS style.
bn-l · 6h ago
Think of the nds emulation though!
jittery41 · 7h ago
This is it, for a while battery life got worse for a while with more powerful chips. But then Samsung goes full in on the big size 6"+ phone and it got better again.
Now even at 80% original capacity, a Samsung can still last me throughout the day given that I am not watching videos constantly. The Iphone 6 back in the day would go to 40% in 3 hours, then suddenly to 5% in minutes.
Plus most people replace their laptop with a phone now. So the big screen size is a must.
brightbeige · 8h ago
That’s how I see it. Screen size is area (x^2) and battery size is volume (x^3). As battery life is a critical feature, a bigger screen fits better battery life.
TulliusCicero · 1h ago
Conspiracy minded bullshit.
Like it or not, Apple keeps cancelling smaller phone lines because they don't sell well. That's it. If they sold really well then they'd keep selling them, but they don't.
I would also love more capable small phones personally, but I can't deny that people overall don't seem to want them.
nunez · 7h ago
I thought the theory behind the 12 and 13 minis was that Apple had a huge surplus of parts that they needed to offload, and making the minis was a profitable way of doing that.
saagarjha · 7h ago
But they launched alongside the flagship devices?
dontlaugh · 3h ago
I think that’s the SEs.
strken · 9h ago
I used to buy ZenFones, but they're huge now. It feels like there's some combination of poor sales and parts commonality that causes the problem, not a shadowy conspiracy, since I don't think ASUS and other manufacturers have a significant way to benefit from phone addiction.
Marazan · 2h ago
I have the last non-huge ZenFone.
The new ZenFones are just rebadged ROGs which explains the massive size jump. I'm not looking forward to replacing this phone when it ages out.
Liftyee · 10h ago
Out of curiosity, why's it your last Apple product?
Watching lots of Louis Rossmann has put me almost ideologically against Apple (even though they design great hardware and smooth UX within their ecosystem), but I'm not good at forming coherent points to present to Apple loving friends.
For me so far, I think it's about control over what I buy - but the rebuttal is always "you're buying a product from them, if you don't like it then tough".
SchemaLoad · 10h ago
The opinion I got from Louis's content is that in a sense he is right, but also almost every brand is even worse. Apple does pretty much nothing to help 3rd party repair and sometimes actively impeeds it, but most other tech products do that while also not even having 1st party repair options.
I remember when Samsung had removable batteries, I went in to a Samsung store to buy a replacement for my S5 battery and they told me they didn't sell them, only new phones. Meanwhile I can take my iPhone in to any Apple store and they will replace the battery for me.
So yeah Apple does need to be forced to massively improve their practices but so does pretty much the entire tech industry aside from a few small projects that focus on being repairable.
pclowes · 10h ago
I just don't see the value add anymore and the company appears to have lost its product vision and the design sensibilities are slipping. Apple is controlled by a geriatric board and a logistics expert and it shows.
I feel I am more frequently encountering software bugs, vaporware,(dESiGnEd fOr ApPle InTelLiGeNce), and ridiculous "innovation" (genmoji). I feel the hardware advances are not very relevant to me, I don't need VR or augmented reality. I want a computer to get out of my way and solve problems for me so I can spend time in plain old reality. The hardware upgrades I DO care about are ridiculously overpriced (Ram upgrades are abusively expensive).
While I prefer my computer to be a tool to get a job done and don't want the computer itself to be a hobby. I also do not want to be forced to use AI. I also dislike the rent seeking and toolbooth behavior of iMessage and the App store. Now that linux has more paved paths, things increasingly "just work" and hardware has basically caught up I don't see a good reason to support Apple's non-vision with my money.
Spooky23 · 7h ago
So you’re making voip calls on your thinkpad?
That’s cool, but you represent a tiny slice of the market that as devices get more powerful, isn’t addressable in the low volumes needed to make you happy.
When the chips needed to make a phone are priced like toys, maybe you’ll find the product for you.
scarface_74 · 9h ago
What Linux computer can you buy with the battery life, quietness, lack of heat and speed of a modern ARM based Mac?
As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard.
And you still end up getting most apps from the Google Play Store.
By the way, iMessage supports SMS/MMS/RCS for interoperability. What else do you want?
danieldk · 2h ago
What Linux computer can you buy with the battery life, quietness, lack of heat and speed of a modern ARM based Mac?
Battery life, probably none. For the rest it's pretty ok now - I recently got a ThinkPad T14. Performance-wise it's in M1/M2 territory and yes the fans can spin up, but they are not very loud.
I have used MacBooks since 2007, but I have started using the ThinkPad more and more. Why?
I put in 64GiB RAM and a 2TB SSD and it cost me almost nothing. The laptop plus these expansions was 1400 or 1500 Euro, a MacBook with 64GiB RAM and 2TB SSD would cost me 5000 Euro. When the battery has had its time, I can replace it by removing a few screws. I added a PCI cellular modem. The expandability and maintanability is just great.
Even though the GPU in my MacBook Pro (M3 Pro) blows away the ThinkPad's GPU on paper, the ThinkPad with Wayland actually renders everything super-smoothly on my 120Hz 4K screen, while on the MacBook the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz is barely noticeable. On the ThinkPad I can run NixOS, which is generally much nicer than macOS.
The primary thing that my MacBook has over my ThinkPad are battery life and a bunch of really good Mac applications like the Affinity Suite. But since more and more applications are switching to Electron, it has become less of a problem. Heck, I even have 1Password with fingerprint unlock, etc. like if it was a MacBook.
As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard.
Or I don't know, you buy a Pixel, install GrapheneOS, and you have better privacy than on an iPhone? And no F1 movie ads too.
pclowes · 4h ago
I think there are a lot of offerings out there now. Maybe not to the minute with respect to battery life but Apples chip advantage is steadily evaporating. I typically don't need more than 8 hours of battery personally.
Have heard good things about framework computers. As a more efficient chip or battery comes out you just upgrade that component if your use case requires it.
prmoustache · 59m ago
Most people don't really need more than 2 hours of battery life anyway[1] as their laptops barely ever leave the house. >8H of battery is nice to have but it is really an important parameter for a specific population while for others it is just convenience. I wouldn't trade an OS/desktop I don't like over my linux setup just because it last longer when I never need more than a couple of hours on battery[3].
[1] which means you need a 4 to 6h range when new if you don't plan to replace the battery too often
[2] students, construction companies, people who are always on the road...
scarface_74 · 45m ago
Is that where we are going? Most people don’t need a laptop that has more than 2 hours battery life?
When I was in the office full time in the bad old days, you would be in a conference room and every one would plug their laptops in.
After I started working remotely and still doing business trips, one charge could last a full day either going back and forth between conference rooms, in “war rooms” etc and no one with M series MacBooks even worried about charging.
Heck my MacBook Pro (work laptop) can last a full day on power with my portable USB C powered external monitor where the power and video come from one cord.
Not to mention on flights with layovers.
scarface_74 · 3h ago
It’s never been “just the chip” for major architectural changes even within x86. It’s replacing the entire motherboard and surrounding components.
What offerings are out there for speed/no fan (quiet)/and lack of heat with battery life?
danieldk · 2h ago
By the way, it's not a lack of heat in the Air. The M4 will hit 105°C and start throttling pretty soon in sustained workloads. At any rate, modern Ryzen laptop CPUs have narrowed the gap with Apple Silicon performance-wise. It's mostly battery life that's still lagging behind. It not only requires a mainboard optimized for power use (which is pretty good nowadays on modern laptops), but also very strong OS integration. I am not sure if non-Apple laptops will get that far, because Linux and Windows simply have to target much more hardware.
At any rate, non-Apple laptops have other benefits, like being able to get 64GiB/128GiB memory and large SSDs without breaking the bank.
In the end it's all a trade-off. If you are a sales representative that needs all-day battery life, MacBook is probably the only option. If you are a developer that needs something portable to hop between desks or on the train, but usually have access to a power socket (yay, Dutch/German trains), a few hours of battery is enough and you might prefer to get an insane amount of memory/storage, a built-in cellular modem, and an ethernet port instead.
xet7 · 7h ago
> What Linux computer can you buy with the battery life, quietness, lack of heat and speed of a modern ARM based Mac?
M1 Air or M2 Air, running Asahi Linux. I am posting this using my M1 Air, running Fedora Asahi.
> As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard.
I use Fairphone 4 with Ubuntu Touch.
scarface_74 · 5h ago
And you lose the battery life advantages by putting Linux on the Mac. Why even buy a Mac?
As far as the Fairphone - poor battery life, bulky, poor camera, and the IP rating of 55 for water? Well at least it runs Linux.
pastage · 7h ago
I have stopped caring so I caved in to work policy and got an iPhone, and I really do not see the point. It is just a thing no better or worse than an Android...
Teever · 10h ago
Funny you should mention this because disposable smartphone vapes are now being sold:
> However, it does seem like there is a profitable business for someone there given how beloved it was/is.
Normal people didn’t love small phones. They loved their small iPhones.
When it comes down to it they will not love the Pine Phone Mini.
For the vast majority of people, the key feature is that it’s an iPhone not that it’s small.
2OEH8eoCRo0 · 9h ago
I don't think that's cynical- it's obvious that larger screens allow more phone usage and more ads on the larger screen.
NoPicklez · 9h ago
It's still a cynical point of view nonetheless
scarface_74 · 9h ago
That makes no sense. The only phone companies that make money from how often you use your phone and buy apps on it are Apple and Google. If there were a market for it other companies would make them.
As far as the mini phones - because physics - the battery life is atrocious. That was one of the main drivers for me to get a larger phone. Well that and because I can pull down the Control Center and use the widget to make everything on my phone larger and still be able to use it without wearing my glasses. With my glasses, I keep everything the smallest size
dangus · 8h ago
I thought that was the case but I tried going small.
I owned an iPhone 13 mini. Basically the perfect small phone if there ever was one.
The downsides are extensive and the upsides are few.
- Battery life sucked. Since a phone is a 3D object making it bigger substantially increases battery capacity. It also makes packaging difficult especially if the goal is a flagship-quality phone. Good luck fitting in good hardware with a lot of features.
- Eyestrain. It’s small.
- Typing. It sucks. The phone is small.
And it turns out the upside of one-handed operation is limited. A simple PopSocket or OhSnap! will make large phones easy to use in one hand.
Plus, if pocketability is your issue, you can buy a folding phone like a Motorola Razr and still get a nice big screen when you pull it out.
phyrex · 7h ago
I disagree. I'm reading and typing this from an iPhone 13 mini. I use a big one for work so it's not like I don't know what I'm missing. I very strongly prefer the small form factor
jayd16 · 5h ago
What an angry way to say "they're bigger because people use the screen for apps and media."
Raed667 · 8m ago
There are some rugged Android phones with the "mini" format ~5.5"
They can be quite chunky but honestly not too bad
OldfieldFund · 2m ago
I think the main reason is battery.
jakegmaths · 3h ago
I'm writing this on a Unihertz Jelly Star which is tiny, and I consider it my "protest phone" at the lack of decent small phones.
A friend jokingly calls it my "microphone", another a "prison phone" (due to its size allowing for more easily smuggling in body cavities). Occasionally I go to mobile phone shops and ask if they have a case for it just for the fun of seeing the look on their faces when they see it (I don't actually want a case, and in fact it came with one which I threw in the bin).
Personally, I couldn't be happier with it.
Only problems: they don't do software updates; camera is poor; non-OLED screen.
In an ideal world I'd have a slightly bigger phone, but not too much bigger. I've grown very fond of this phone.
ChrisRR · 37m ago
The jelly star has got junk in the trunk though
userbinator · 2h ago
non-OLED screen
I'd consider that an advantage: No burn-in.
franga2000 · 29m ago
Is OLED burn-in really something people still care about? I have a handful of OLED devices, some of which I've used daily for nearly 10 years, and none of them have any burn-in. I've never even seen burn-in on anything other than a signage TV, and that happens even on some LCDs.
MiddleEndian · 10h ago
6" doesn't register as small to me at all lol. The HTC 8X was 4.3" and that was a "normal" sized phone for me.
I used the Palm Phone (PVG100) (3.3" screen) (basically the size of a credit card) [ https://www.ricklohre.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/dsc_097... ] as long as I could until it became too slow to use as software got slower and increasingly battery-hungry and I had to give it up last year.
The specs are more than strong enough to handle whatever I need on a daily basis. But I miss the slimmer size of the Palm Phone.
Right now I've pre-ordered this phone https://aiphor.com/products/bluefox-nx1-4-0-android-smartpho... with the 8gigram+128gig storage capacity. Has an even stronger cpu than the Soyes, but I am slightly worried about the resolution of 540x1168px because some elements may end up overlapping.
Even though it's 4", it has a tiny bezel so it's only slightly bigger than the Palm Phone, although a bit thicker cuz of a bigger battery. But still relatively slim, especially compared to the Soyes.
Thanks for all the interesting links, the bluefox-nx1-specifically looks interesting to me. Do you have any information how are handling the new EU law, which requires 5 years of security updates? https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/news/new-eu-rules...
jbaber · 7h ago
I, too, used a PVG100 until it died. The "juicepack" battery doubled the thickness, but it still fit in my pocket. Now I've got a Motorola Razr. I figure the only way companies will give me a small phone if it folds.
MiddleEndian · 7h ago
I tried out the Razr and Z Flip 4 at a store but I thought they were too hard to use while closed and way too big when open.
If you check /r/smallphones I'll post a review of the NX1 in a couple months (or whenever I get it + a week or two). It looks like the closest spiritual successor to the Palm Phone (although the single button on the foot with multiple actions will probably never be beat)
notatoad · 6h ago
you have to compare the actual phone sizes, not the screen sizes. bezels have gotten smaller.
the article's "small phone" benchmark with a 5.4" screen is almost the same size in every dimension as your benchmark of the HTC 8x
An even slightly more mid-range spin on this would be very very viable.
MiddleEndian · 8h ago
The Soyes S10Max performs fine with 8 gigs of ram and a slightly slower mobile CPU. The most intensive thing I do on it is probably video call with people on FB Messenger or Telegram (or I guess load TicketMaster, but even my gf's expensive iPhone struggles with that one lmao), and it does that fine.
But I'll write a review on reddit once I've used it for a week or two.
No clue on aiphor.com, webdevs (or their managers) love javascript lol
dannyfreeman · 8h ago
Do these little phones work well in the US?
MiddleEndian · 7h ago
They seem to work fine on T-Mobile. I hear the Palm Phone had some issue with Verizon where it only worked as a "companion phone" and I hear AT&T limits what phones are allowed somehow, but I cannot speak to those things.
They only have 4G rather than 5G. This has not bothered me but perhaps it would bother others.
jbaber · 7h ago
PVG 100 worked great with my carrier.
raynr · 1h ago
I saw a post on this subject in the android subreddit back in 2019 [0] and it was clear that everyone had already accepted by then that the market was too small to sustain this. I too loved Sony's series of compact phones - the XZ1 Compact is still one of the best phones I've ever used.
It is only going to get worse. Most of us who were young adults when the iPhone was announced are in our 40s now, and presbyopia is a real thing. In a few years my daily QOL will be better served by a bigger phone and I suspect many people around my age are feeling the same thing. The "small electronic accessory I bring around" niche will be filled by smartwatches.
I got the iPhone 13 mini as a work phone for the sole reason of it being the smallest iPhone at the time. I too dislike the phone landscape nowadays with their ridiculous and ever increasing sizes.
My personal device is a Motorola Razr 50 Ultra, which I got because while it's huge when flipped, it's portable enough when it's closed. I can have it in my pocket without it falling out.. without it being annoying while i put on shoes etc...
I use its cover screen a fair amount too, to avoid having to flip it open, which is also why I got the ultra rather than the slightly smaller version.
burnt-resistor · 3h ago
The iPhone 13 Pro -> 16 Pro upsizing is ridiculous. The 13 was just the right size, but now they had to change it so they could sell more cases. It's almost phablet-size now. Look at an iPhone 6S by comparison.
FinnKuhn · 2h ago
The iPhone 13 pro is 71.5mm x 146.7mm x 7.65mm [1] and the iPhone 16 pro is 71.5mm x 149.3mm x 8.25mm [2].
While it did get a tiny bit bigger I wouldn’t have noticed this u less you would look up the spec, especially as it got lighter from 204g [1] to 199g [2] at the same time.
The best phone I ever had was a Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact. I would still be using it if it wasn't too slow to run modern versions of android.
This is one of those things that just makes me feel so out of touch with the rest of the world. Does everyone else have giant pockets and giant hands? Does everyone use their phone with two hands and carry a bag everywhere? Is it just a trend like small phones were a trend before smartphones? Why do people want these giant phones?
ivanjermakov · 8h ago
> Why do people want these giant phones?
Most people only use computers at work, solely relying on smartphones for communication, media, shopping, etc.
It makes sense to have a big screen at inconvenience of having to carry it around.
What surprises me is how small the demand for small phones is. I have absolutely no need for a big screen - I have a monitor.
turtlebits · 7h ago
For more and more people, their phone is their primary (or only) device. On a day to day, I have more face time with my phone than my personal laptop.
Nursie · 4h ago
> Does everyone use their phone with two hands
A lot of us do, yes.
> and carry a bag everywhere?
As a guy in 36" waist jeans (yeah I need to lose a few kg)... I can fit an iphone 16 pro max in my pocket pretty comfortably.
> Why do people want these giant phones?
Well, one reason is that I'm getting older and don't find it as easy to read tiny text on tiny screens any more. Another reason is that I sometimes watch streaming services on there.
Also it's shiny and the battery lasts forever.
RachelF · 6h ago
The Samsung S10e was probably peak Android. Small, high-end, SD card and 3.5mm jack.
There are some decent small Android phones, if you're willing to buy non-mainstream brands. Take a look at:
Asus ZF10 is a more recent specimen. And it's more "peak" IMO. No bloatware, DC dimming, rugged design which doesn't require a case for everyday use.
GuB-42 · 20m ago
For me, it would be the Samsung Galaxy S5 but with modern hardware.
In addition to being small, with SD card and 3.5mm jack, it is water resistant and has a removable battery. It is also one of the most robust non-hardened phones. It has an IR blaster too if it matters to you.
It was a time when Samsung was known for its gimmicks, the one for the Galaxy S5 is "Air View", where it recognizes your finger hovers over the screen. It is actually a good one, because it supports the "hover" targets in web pages!
Most people find it ugly though, and I tend to agree, but if you use a case, like most people do, who cares what the phone inside looks like?
ChrisRR · 34m ago
As someone who often checks that sub, all I can say is that there's no decent small phones and it's just people constantly checking whether one has been released yet
ashellunts · 1h ago
Fully agree. Mine has broken recently and I needed to buy a new phone. The S25 I have now is not much bigger, but even that small difference matters much.
Though 120Hz screen is nice.
smt88 · 6h ago
There's nothing close to the iPhone Mini anymore though
qingcharles · 3h ago
The 13 Mini should still get iOS updates for another couple of years, I think?
Certainly iOS 26 appears to be supported.
Jtsummers · 3h ago
Through 2028 most likely, possibly longer, based on their OS support history (about 7 years).
maxglute · 2h ago
Market wants big phones. The solution... look to the east. Phone accessories to manage big phones. Many women with small hands using finger loops (that double as kickstands), wrist straps, full body lanyards.
Convincing main brands to dump 100s of millions to cater to small phone crowd should be proven DOA by now. The minimalist EDC crowd is niche aberration, most people throughout civilization EDC was more cumbersome. Most people are simply happy carrying more shit around. Look at Stanley cups.
TBH 99% of big phone yucky crowd problems would be solved by a lanyard, but that's too goofy in the west. IMO what we need is better pockets. Front of legs or side belly of shirt. Have a little place to attach a chain like pocket watches. Fix for big phones is not a smaller phone, but better accessory/wardrobe.
Dylan16807 · 2h ago
Some people want a phone where they can use the screen with one hand.
maxglute · 2h ago
Phone finger strap + learn one hand mode.
_Algernon_ · 26m ago
I just tested one hand mode on my phone and it is all kinds of broken. It doesn't allow scrolling certain pages to the bottom, so it's useless.
raverbashing · 2h ago
I disagree, it seems the Eastern phones are gigantic for some reason
And yes I do want smaller phones. Samsung S10e was the perfect size tbh.
But no it seems the option dwindle and now I can't find a phone smaller than my thumb. At least some phones have a "shrink screen" option, but that's not the same thing as a smaller phone tbh
maxglute · 2h ago
Tiny market =/= no market, but not sustainable market. One hand mode + one hand type mode is not the same as small phone, but it makes one hand mode on big devices feasible. I'm personally waiting for eastern foldable phones to get hilariously gigantic so the front cover screen become useful "mini" phones.
mpweiher · 3h ago
I just want an iPhone Mini-sized iPhone.
It's OK if they just make one every couple of years. But please: at least every couple of years.
juancroldan · 23m ago
Same, I am a 13 mini user and will probably stay this way until there is a realistic alternative. It's obnoxious that there isn't a single phone on the market where you can reach the top corner with one hand.
volemo · 54m ago
I don't care how often they make it as long as they release a new one before discontinuing the previous one. %(
thorio · 1h ago
Since Google is about to brick my Pixel 6a with the battery botchering update, i find myself in the same struggle again i had when buying the 6a.
Basically you have to make compromises on performance and camera and then this was, what i came up with:
- Zenfone 10 (flagship with prices still above launch price (!), which soon gets no updates anymore)
- Unihertz Jelly Max (small, but thick and bad camera)
- Rakuten Hand 5G and Rakuten Mini (also bad camera and older Android)
- Balmuda Phone (which i really like, but also bad camera and discontinued, so probably not even security updates and no custom rom support)
- Bluefox NX1 (really tempting, but appearantly kind of bad build quality and no NFC)
All other options are even older phones. Samsung S25 line does exist, but i really like vanilla Android.
I think the price chart of the Zenfone DOES somehow indicates the existence of a market and i wonder if it would be big enough for a small niche player!?
Personally I am considering a pixel 8, which is the "smallest" of current phones, but it still really isn't small. And i don't see myself as a Google customer because of the battery topic...
I personally would have been more happy had Eric made a small android phone instead of the new pebble, but hey...
mmarian · 1h ago
I have the Pixel 8, and I've been happy with the battery and pretty much everything. It's got a great performance/price ratio.
bschwindHN · 9h ago
I used the iPhone SE 1 until January of this year, it was such a great phone and a great form factor. I wrote an article about it to send it off:
Pour one out. I’m still on my SE 2020 and have no idea what to go to once it dies.
user_7832 · 5h ago
Likewise. The 70-something percent battery health isn't the best (and the phone lags like crazy), but the other day I realized it's still a bit smaller than my 2015 Moto G3 (that I still use, though only for basic tasks).
If you are interested, Unihertz launched the titan 2 and it's pretty nice, but no waterproofing or wireless charging are big issues for me.
ghiculescu · 9h ago
I’m still rocking mine! Gonna start looking for second hand ones soon as the home button is starting to die, and that’s the best bit.
I found using the browser is a good enough alternative for many apps, and it also makes them less addictive because they aren’t as slick. Particularly handy for work apps.
AiAi · 31m ago
I’m still using as a secondary device, but the battery was never the same after I replaced, and the touch id/home button doesn’t work anymore, so I have to use that virtual home button.
I ended up getting a newer SE (2022), but I miss the first one.
barbs · 2h ago
The home button's not too hard to replace, at least compared to the screen and battery.
Mine actually broke ages ago but I've just gotten used to using TouchAssist.
saagarjha · 6h ago
I still have mine as the bedside Hacker News browsing device. It is so much nicer to use than iPhone 13 mini which I use as my main phone :(
mrheosuper · 7h ago
the ip12/13 mini have similar footprint, but with modern feature.
bschwindHN · 4h ago
Yep the 13 mini is what I ended up on. I hope that form factor gets a refresh in a few years!
tauntz · 1h ago
I switched from a Pixel 3a to an iPhone 16 and it really bothers me that it's way too huge for everyday usage. Maybe I have extremely short thumbs but here's the maximum reach I have on the screen when I hold my phone "normally" in my hand: https://i.postimg.cc/Cx97jxLZ/iphone16reach.png - I can't reach the upper part of the screen at all, without doing finger-gymnastics or using my other hand. I'd love to switch to a phone that is 50-60%% of the size of the iPhone 16 but there are essentially no (modern) options for this. It's really a bummer :(
crossroadsguy · 1h ago
> $700-800
I can.
Nothing will make happier than ditching Apple and get a smaller Android phone. In fact the size of iPhone 5s was the only reason that had piqued my interest and I had migrated to the iPhones. Then I stayed for other (and important) reasons.
> Stock Android OS
Ah, no. I take that back. That is not going to be worth 700-800 just for the size! In fact take more and put it to a fight which tries to force Google to "decolonise" every aspect of this mobile OS and push for apps to go for alternative app stores.
But as long as Google has it claws and fingers and feet and palm and teeth (imagine every other organ) into my data (and also existence via sensors and what not) on an Android phone in every way possible (sometimes not even imaginable), such pervasive and entangled, that getting out of this Kafkaesque privacy nightmare means using a custom ROM that no OEM supports (or probably will every support) and half the app I use (including bank/payment/Govt apps) will stop functioning and it makes me feel like puking - even the thought of being tracked like that non-stop!
Until then sadly I will contribute to the trillions of Apple and participate in this cozy duopoly these companies have established and rather be in this Kafkaesque control and closed walled garden. It is sad.
So no, I am done with "Stock Android OS" trope at this point :(
The reality is - and it is a sad truth - such a phone in today's world can only exist as a vanity/niche product and hence even with high cost it will suffer from lack of support, abandoned update/upgrade promises, and a really really bad support experience unless it is released to "just few cities" (not even few countries) because this is going to attract such a small number of people!
franga2000 · 23m ago
"Stock Android" usually means "what runs on Pixels" in Android user circles, not actually AOSP. It's a comparison between Samsung/Huawei/Xiaomi/... and Google/OnePlus/Motorola/...
karel-3d · 44m ago
There is no "stock android" btw. There is no such thing.
volemo · 56m ago
Doesn't "unlockable bootloader" requirement solve this problem?
I want a thick clunky device without a screen that can run for 4-7 days without charging. Then i want 1) a normal size device, 2) a tiny one and 3) a tablet. These should be terminals, little more than a screen, a battery and some radio to communicate with the herefore mentioned brick that does all of the heavy lifting. It needs only 20-30 meter range. The brick may also feature a webserver captive portal with public bluetooth and wifi access.
SchemaLoad · 10h ago
I initially thought this was a satire of the absurd devices HN users would ask for.
theendisney · 9h ago
Then it would be monochrome cli ssh only.
derefr · 10h ago
Except that the screen and the radio are 80% of power usage, so this doesn't help anything. For what most people do with their laptop/tablet/phone, the little bursts of CPU are effectively "free" — increasingly cheap with each process shrink! — while the IO is as expensive as ever.
theendisney · 8h ago
What fun comment. You are mistaken in so many ways :)
When idle GSM uses a lot of power. Listening for a wakeup signal doesnt seem expensive at all. It even seems one could pull off the trick for free.
Free < bluetooth < wifi < gsm
There shall be e-paper ofc
The brick can have a battery like that of a quality powerbank. For emergency charging the display snaps on top with some magnets.
There will be heavy cpu loads with lots of reads and writes.
Think a room full of people hammering the media server.
Host websites on it. Imagine the fun!
GPUs may work quite hard to decode and fit the picture on the screen. How to do io better is left as an exersize for the reader. (这意味着你)
Whatever components we can get rid of buys extra space for the battery.
It also makes the handheld device cheaper to replace.
You may swap the battery or have a spare.(slide the empty one into the brick)
You may also break or lose it. It can conveniently be replaced. Nothing important is stored on it.
Lets make them with and without cameras. Imagine the opportunity to not make photos :)
derefr · 4h ago
To be clear, I meant that, when running your average (i.e. mostly-idle, not-very-graphically-intense, yet smoothly-animated) interactive-UI application, with the CPU+GPU module needing to stream vaguely-realtime updates wirelessly over to the display module, the display module would end up using nearly as much battery to receive and display the updates as the CPU+GPU module would be taking to generate and send them. It would be a negligible cost for the display module to just do the rendering itself.
Playing games or using the CPU+GPU module as a media server is a 1%-of-the-time use-case. If you want this architecture to not need a lot of battery in the display module, it needs to be low-power for the 99%-of-the-time use-case: scrolling a webpage.
(This is basically the classical thin-client / fat-client paradox: thin clients save on power right until you want them to do anything continuously. Then the IO costs outweigh the hypothetical costs of localizing that continuous CPU/GPU activity by pushing it down into a fat client.)
rjsw · 10h ago
I have a Nokia 6300 4G Dual SIM KaiOS phone that I can use as a 4G router for larger devices but has good battery life as a feature phone.
carlosjobim · 10h ago
> I want a thick clunky device without a screen that can run for 4-7 days without charging.
That's a landline phone, you can buy it for cheap.
nomel · 10h ago
> It needs only 20-30 meter range.
And, this is trivially satisfied with a $10 extension cord.
theendisney · 8h ago
That would be a different idea i also like. Something like calls over wifi but use ethernet in stead. No more radiation
It doesn't have the Google Play Store but one can sideload Android apps onto it
chartered_stack · 2h ago
I'm a convert on this topic. I went from wanting a small phone to being unable to wait to ditch mine.
Like the OP, I switched from Android (Pixel 3a) to an iPhone SE 3 specifically for the smaller form factor. After using it for over a year, I've found the trade-offs in battery life and camera quality are too significant for my daily use.
These limitations aren't an issue when I'm at home or my desk with easy access to a charger. However, they become acute the moment I'm out for the day. For example, using GPS for navigation or connecting Bluetooth accessories becomes a liability. I can't rely on the phone to last. Also, photos are noticeably more pixelated, and the quality drop-off is clear compared to larger, contemporary phones.
This thread is evidence that the niche for small phones exists. But it's for people willing to accept these compromises by carrying a dedicated camera, a power bank, and using wired peripherals. For me and as the market suggests for most consumers, small phones just doesn't work out as reliable all-in-one devices. I'll probably wait till early next year to pick up one of the new iPhones after they iron out the initial kinks.
vintagedave · 1h ago
> carrying a dedicated camera, a power bank, and using wired peripherals
I'm a small-phone person, and I don't think these _should_ be necessary. I'm fine with wired peripherals (and prefer them), but in 2025, with efficient chips, I don't see why we can't power a device much longer than 24 hours. What if it had decade-old hardware, and -- this is the bit I think is the problem -- the operating system and apps were efficient?
Same with a camera. It seems more about thickness than width; I don't believe it should be impossible to put a large-phone-format camera in a smaller phone. It may take battery space, but see above, we should be ok there these days.
volemo · 51m ago
> but in 2025, with efficient chips, I don't see why we can't power a device much longer than 24 hours.
That is only possible if we don't write the software with dozen layers of abstraction and gimmicky features (looking at you, Liquid Glass!).
ChrisRR · 32m ago
The biggest power drain is still the screen and those haven't really improved that much.
VoxPelli · 1h ago
"the trade-offs in battery life and camera quality are too significant" - a small but thicker phone would have no trouble with battery life and could for sure have the same good cameras as larger phones – and could possibly even ditch the camera bump if it just made the entire phone as thick as the camera bump to fit a larger battery.
(After all, easiest way to increase battery size is to increase the smallest dimension. Add 1mm to a 4-4.5mm thick battery and you'll increase the battery size by 22-25%. Make the iPhone 13 Mini as thick as its camera bump and you would probably add ≈2.4mm, which would make the battery 60% larger)
VoxPelli · 1h ago
If one were to make a iPhone 17 Pro Mini as thick as the iPhone 4 then it would:
- Likely still weigh less than a Pro Max
- Have a battery with a capacity larger than the Pro Max
- Have the pro cameras stick out about as much as they did on the iPhone 6
And it would feel as robust and solid as an iPhone 4 – my favorite iPhone so far
Jolter · 1h ago
The iPhone SE 3 might have a poor camera, but the one on the iPhone mini 13 is excellent!
My conclusion is the same as the author’s: it’s a matter of you get what you pay for. The demand here is for a small premium phone. This would come with a good set of cameras.
flakeoil · 1h ago
Since Pixel 3a and iPhone SE 3, the battery technology has improved and especially the charging times have gone down dramatically so the battery life experience you had then would not occur today with the same form factor.
I recommend the pixel 4a 5g with LineageOS installed, or the Q9 mini.
paxys · 10h ago
We've seen this story play out before. Every phone manufacturer has had the bright idea of introducing a small flagship. They spend a ton of money developing and marketing it. Internet people get excited. And when launched - no one buys it. They learn their lesson and move on.
MostlyStable · 7h ago
It does not surprise me that the things that "internet" people want are not generally popular. What I don't understand is why that means they can't make money selling them anyways. Companies used to make money when the entire cell phone market was _dramatically_ smaller than today. Sure, maybe only 5% of customers want that phone, but 5% of a huge market is still a lot of people! I just have trouble believing that there isn't room for serving that segment of the consumer base.
bigstrat2003 · 7h ago
Yeah, that is surprising and frustrating to me as well. I don't mind being a smaller market. Hell, I don't mind paying more because of it. But companies these days are largely unwilling to have a steady, sustainable business in a smaller market. The insatiable desire to capture the biggest market at all times leaves society as a whole much worse off, because if your needs aren't the most common - you simply cannot find anyone who will do business with you.
makeitdouble · 7h ago
> They spend a ton of money developing and marketing it.
I beg to differ. How much marketing money did Apple spend on the mini line, in comparison to the "standard" size ?
> And when launched - no one buys it.
Pixel 3 and 4a are still the most sold phones in the Pixel line.
Slight tangent, I thought nowadays everyone is (are?) internet people. Everyone's on their phone all the time. Even if it's tiktok or instagram, why aren't brands spending to reach this audience.
rtpg · 9h ago
the foldables seem to have found their niche at least in this space though. But they get away with it by... also being a big phone
walterbell · 8h ago
iPhone Fold is rumored to be 5.5" screen size.
axus · 9h ago
Just wait for smart watches to keep getting bigger until they are mini-phone sized?
Not only is it not a very small phone, I can't even properly type this message one handed. It's also not a good phone which I regret purchasing.
Zenphones until the 10 had easy to unlock bootloaders, leading to long in official support by the community. However with the 10 ASUS stopped that tool and they've been lying ever since that they're still working on it.
My zenfone is now on its final major android update, the rather minor android 15 version, and I've only got two years of security updates left until I need to look for a new phone. That's one thousand euros for barely four years of software support, it's such a disappointment.
That aside the camera is lackluster, it's auto whitebalance is horrific, turning the same snowy scene into a sunset or illuminated by fluorescent light depending on the phase of the moon and it's sampling questionable making images much more blurry in a surreal way. But the optical stabilisation is seriously impressive. Overall I preferred the pixel 4a's images though. A smaller phone and my zenfone's predecessor.
At least I get to just plug it into my stereo thanks to the 3.5mm jack though.
Marazan · 2h ago
Agree on the Camera, bafflingly bad.
Thumbs up on the headphone jack though. Can't fault it there.
wilsonnb3 · 10h ago
I don't know why it was reported so frequently as a compact phone, the ZenFones are much larger than the iPhone mini. It's the same size as a standard iPhone or Galaxy S series.
I was convinced you were wrong but that's correct. The Mini is much smaller and the Zenfone is about the same size as the regular iPhone.
mdasen · 8h ago
The Zenfone 10 is closer to an iPhone than an iPhone mini.
iPhone 16/Zenfone/13 Mini (in mm)
Height: 147.6/146.5/131.5 - the mini is 15mm shorter than the Zenfone which is only 1.1mm shorter than an iPhone.
Width: 71.6/68.1/64.2 - the mini is 3.9mm thinner than the Zenfone which is 3.5mm thinner than an iPhone
Depth: 7.8/9.4/7.7 - the Zenfone is significantly thicker than the iPhones.
Volume: 82.4/93.8/65.0 cubic cm - the Zenfone is physically larger than an iPhone 16 by a decent margin.
The Zenfone simply isn't close to an iPhone mini size. It's larger than an iPhone by volume and the depth does matter when holding it. If we're talking about front-edge to opposite front-edge, we're talking about 87.2mm for the iPhone vs 86.9mm for the Zenfone and 79.6 for the Mini. The Zenfone saves you 0.3mm in grip-distance over an iPhone, but a Mini saves you 7.6mm in grip-distance.
Heck, let's look at weight. A Zenfone is 172g, iPhone 170g, iPhone mini 141g. The Zenfone is the heaviest of the three.
One of the big limiting factors for Android phone manufacturers is the battery. iOS is a ton more efficient. The Zenfone is thicker to accommodate a 4300mAh battery compared to the iPhone 16's 3561mAh (21% larger battery). And the Zenfone's battery is kinda small by Android standards.
People often don't think about the challenges of making a small phone. The electronics don't shrink. If you need a certain square mm for those electronics, they take up a larger percentage of the interior on your mini. You don't need as large a battery because the screen it is powering is smaller, but not proportional to its size - you're still drawing the same power for all the electronics. So you have a smaller percentage of interior space for the battery and you need a larger battery relative to the interior space - or you need to sacrifice battery life as Apple did with the mini.
For example, the iPhone 13 mini is 84.4 sq cm and has a 2438mAh battery. The iPhone 13 is 104.9 sq cm with a 3240mAh battery. The iPhone 13 is 24% larger, but can accommodate a 33% larger battery - because the electronics take up basically the same space regardless of form factor.
So to make an Android mini, you'd be sacrificing a lot of battery life. The Zenfone is not a mini. Its grip-size is basically identical to an iPhone. In every way, it's much more an iPhone than a mini.
burnt-resistor · 3h ago
Of phones I owned 10+ years ago:
iPhone 6S: 138.3/67.1/7.1 = 65.9 cc the mini is just barely smaller.
iPhone 4S: 115.2/58.6/9.3 = 62.8 cc smaller than the mini.
Treo 650: 113/59/23 = 153 cc which is about the same volume as a Galaxy Z Fold 3... the displacement was so uncomfortable, people often used hip holsters for the former.
fgblanch · 4h ago
Commenting just to appreciate this analysis. I totally bought the marketing that this was a small phone, while it seems it just had a small screen.
sabellito · 8h ago
Despite sibling comments, it's still a smaller phone compared to others from the same year. I have one and I'm extremely satisfied with it.
roytam87 · 7h ago
but I missed MicroSD slot. I think my requirement is simple: not too wide (<=70mm), has 3.5mm audio pack, and has MicroSD slot.
and end-up only Sony products comes out.
and I sacrificed performance for a shorter phone so I bought Xperia Ace III.
but I don't know when will my ISP shutdown GSM-1800. If this happens I have to buy Xperia 10 series then.
loloquwowndueo · 9h ago
What a coincidence, I also want an iPhone mini-sized iPhone :) the 12 mini is the perfect size but sadly it was the last of its kind.
phyrex · 7h ago
There's a 13 mini
deffrin · 2h ago
If I have money and the knowledge to build a phone, surely i will make it possible one day.
But I don't know why new innovative people are not getting into smartphone making.
Everyone is trying to make the next big software. But why that grit is missing to bring the variety into small hardware devices that target majority?
Or, is it not reaching people like me? Is it the lack of awareness?
ge96 · 2h ago
One reason is the modem, proprietary blob
I think another reason is sourcing good parts that aren't old and bulky, speaking from the Linux phones I tried
Also drivers somebody has to write em
I used to be annoyed that you had to choose between Android or iOS
Funnily enough, I don't consider the iPhone 12/13 mini miniature at all. Granted, my hands are quite small even for someone of my height (5'7"), but remember those times people made fun of the iPhone 5 and of how gigantic it felt compared to 4S? I don't think human hands have grown that much since then. And I still believe the 1st generation SE is the best smartphone Apple has ever released: a rectangular screen, no camera bumps, a fingerprint sensor (that is still faster than Face ID), a mini jack, light, affordable, etc.
userbinator · 7h ago
12 years ago a small Chinese company made this Android clone of an iPhone 4, but with additional features:
That was the "peak smartphone" era for me; lots of companies making slightly different variations on Androids, at relatively low prices, but almost all of them with the same basic set of practical features which are nearly extinct today. Now it seems all we get are faster CPUs and RAM, more (non-removable) storage and battery capacity, no headphone jacks, a very limited choice of screen sizes, and far too many cameras along with the obligatory unremovable spyware and locked-down OS.
ChrisRR · 38m ago
I'd even be happy with a 5.5" phone nowadays but no-one even makes them
user_7832 · 4h ago
Just as an FYI to everyone who thinks such products are financially "infeasible" - look at companies like Unihertz (or heck, even Framework). Niche categories can and do attract a small but devoted following.
Btw:
1. Unihertz recently launched a BlackBerry esque phone (titan 2), if anyone reading this is interested. (Not sponsored by them)
2. There are many forums (and I think r/smallphones on reddit) where you can find much more discussion on such topics if you're interested.
margalabargala · 4h ago
Unihertz's phones are unfortunately simply technologically infeasible (to use). Their software is apparently write-once update-never, and any phone you buy of theirs will be riddled with permanent bugs.
If Unihertz kept their phones up to date for a few years after launch, rather than only for the few years prior to launch, they would be an incredibly strong competitor in this space but as they are they are next to useless.
leke · 5h ago
It was quite strange to read this title this morning as my 15 year old daughter just received her iPhone 13 mini yesterday from Swappie. She too was complaining that the android phones are too big for her little hands.
I tried all my reasoning skills to persuade her to stick with android, but ultimately she nagged me into getting a second hand one that is still way too expensive in my opinion.
Well it looks like she is right and this is popular opinion. Perhaps small Android phones not selling well is a marketing problem. I've never seen one advertised with size being a selling point.
adithyassekhar · 4h ago
I think she prefers an iphone even if there was a tiny android phone.
jeffhuys · 2h ago
Thing about iphones is yea, they’re expensive, but if well-cared for can last you longer. I’m on a 6-year upgrade cycle and could stretch that more if I wanted to. Will go from my 12 pro to the 18 or 19 pro.
cypherpunks01 · 10h ago
Unfortunately this still hasn't happened yet. There are almost no good options for reasonable size Androids anymore. Zenfone 10 is pretty good, especially with the headphone jack, but it's already out of print and will be obsolete before long. And smaller would be nicer.
Any other current gen recommendations?
ChrisRR · 28m ago
People recommending Zenfone just proves that marketing works on a lot of people. It's literally only a few mm smaller than a standard flagship samsung and yet the small phone crowd recommends it as if it's tiny
wmf · 10h ago
Zenfone 10 isn't even small; it's 2.5 mm narrower than an S25.
barrkel · 9h ago
I had to make this decision yesterday and picked Galaxy S25. A lot lighter than my work Pixel 9.
imp0cat · 4h ago
Seconded. Unfortunately the latest leaks suggest that the next gen - S26 - will be a bit bigger.
blackview n6000. Bombproof. Cheap. Almost a week's battery life.
krater23 · 10h ago
Unihertz JellyStar. Has a headphone jack too.
kbrackbill · 8h ago
I tried with a Jelly Max but despite what they say it doesn't work on verizon :(. It's the perfect phone for me otherwise.
dmonitor · 9h ago
3" sounds like a novelty, but the Jelly Max seems a bit more reasonable at 5". Cool company.
mousethatroared · 6h ago
Larger phones have better battery life time.
Screen power draw and battery capacity scale as the square of the linear dimension. They largely cancel out.
However, all the other hardware are a fixed size so proportionally large phones have longer battery lives.
coolg54321 · 27m ago
Chinese manufactures has been using silicon carbon batteries with larger densities for long time, for example 6.3" vivo X200 FE has a 6500mAh battery which should solve small phone-smaller battery problem
avereveard · 2h ago
Also panel manufacturer will not run limited run 5.4in panel just for a niche market and if they did cost would be super high.
Like internal component can be rearranged to an extent, and battery is a tradeoff, but the panel need to be one on the market, no demand, no panel
pelagicAustral · 9h ago
I recently got a Samsung S25 and it's the best phone I've ever had. I went for the base model and the size is just perfect. It's a small enough phone that I barely feel I carry around all day. It's light and slim and has premium tier hardware so I don't miss out. Never paid more than £300 for a phone before, but I am more than happy with this one.
MinimalAction · 8h ago
I signed up for this perhaps two years ago. I don't remember the update banner being present at the top which says it's officially moving forward. I didn't find anything more on that, what's the actual status now?
david422 · 7h ago
I think it's a dead project. There hasn't been any updates. I signed up about the same time you did.
maz1b · 9h ago
I have on my desk, the Galaxy S8, iPhone SE (First generation), the iPhone 13 Mini, the iPhone 14 Pro and the Galaxy S22. I intentionally now choose and look for phones that are the smallest possible now (S25, iPhone 15pro or 16pro) etc
My favorite to take with me is the 13 Mini. Would love an iPhone 18 mini.
Abishek_Muthian · 5h ago
I literally have dwarf hands, after experimenting with various form factors I've settled on using iPhone SE (4.7") as the main phone and a android (6.7") running FOSS stack as the secondary phone.
I get the "just works" with decent privacy aspect of the smaller iPhone, health benefits from Apple Watch and for anything requiring longer screen time, termux, shelter cloned apps etc. I use the bigger android (Infact I'm typing this on the excellent HN client Hacki from android).
Earlier I used to use Apple Watch with android using a tool I built[1] which now serves notifications from android to my iPhone.
I'm glad Eric is going ahead with the small phone.
Wow, that exploded over night :D
It's nice to see, I am not alone.
With Android working on including a "desktop mode" where you can add a screen and HID devices, I sure hope that the phone screens will get smaller again.
phplovesong · 1h ago
The iPhone 4S was just this. Small, and had it all. It was the best iphone i owned. After this the overall phone size has ballooned. Such a shame.
Wistar · 6h ago
Heck, I want a new iPhone mini sized iPhone. I am stubbornly sticking to my iPhone 12 Mini because it is the form factor I really want.
hexagonwin · 5h ago
I'm still using a 2013 LG G2 (SD800) and can't find a single device that I can switch to. The compact size is just perfect. iPhone 5/s/e was also pretty good but apple killed them with updates :/
andai · 9h ago
I had a Samsung A3 (2016) which was almost the exact form factor of the iPhone Mini.
I loved it for being so small and light. The last few years it became too slow for regular use (and many apps refused to install) so I put it in airplane mode and used it as an mp3 player.
I'd still be using it today, but I lost it! I was very sad.
I also loved the LG K8 (2017), wonderful device. That one was a touch bigger, but had a really nice curved screen.
I used an iPhone SE (2016) until last year actually, which was even smaller.
It worked fine, until software updates made it useless. That's a recurring theme with my phones!
EvanAnderson · 8h ago
> I used an iPhone SE (2016) until last year actually, which was even smaller. It worked fine, until software updates made it useless. That's a recurring theme with my phones!
Very similar story with me. The iPhone SE 1st gen was peak iPhone. Small, had a headphone jack (and could charge while using headphones), nice display, decent battery life. I absolutely loved that phone. I miss having it every day (when I have to use two hands to use this clunker of a phone I have now, when I sit down and feel this gigantic phone in my pocket, etc).
I used my iPhone 4 until the cellular radio wasn't supported anymore. Then I moved into an iPhone SE 1st gen. When the battery bulged I killed it trying to replace the battery (I am not suited to small electronics repair). I gave up, at that point, and moved to a janky Android phone because I couldn't get any phone I wanted from Apple (small and with a headphone jack).
I wish I could have enthusiasm for phones again. Everything isn't what I want.
I certainly won't make the mistake of making a phone integral to my personal workflows and habits again. I certainly won't come to rely on any native apps anymore, either.
I recognize I'm a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of the market. Very few people regard their technology like I do. I feel like the computers (and, at one time, the phones) I use are extensions of myself. I think it's a little like how a musician might regard a beloved instrument, or a craftsman might regard a well-used tool. Very few people get bent out of shape about subtle changes in UI, appearance, latency, or functionality the way I do.
I understand technology today isn't "for me".
It makes me really sad, though.
barbs · 1h ago
I'm still on my first gen iPhone SE. Thankfully the apps I use are mostly compatible, and I just use web versions for everything else. Have replaced the battery and screen a few times each.
I had filled out the form for this. Wish Eric stuck to this instead of the Pebble revival: it'd have a bigger market.
I don't understand how the market isn't considered big enough for any phone OEM: how can it be smaller than that of foldables? Or even if it is, isn't it still big enough, and shouldn't there generally be more sizes and form factors of phones?
It's as tho the car industry decided to only make 184" long SUVs (6.2-6.7" phones) and 200" long 3-row SUVs (foldables)... no other SUVs, no sedans/hatchbacks, no sports cars (much smaller and much lower volume). And different cars are actually hard to engineer and mass-manufacture the chassis and bodies for... in contrast a phone's HW is inherently more modular and mostly just the screen and battery need to be changed for each size.
notpushkin · 4h ago
Wait, is there any chance Google has released Pebble OS source code so that Eric doesn’t pursue making a small phone?
ghostly_s · 9h ago
I want an iPhone Mini sized iPhone.
xarope · 6h ago
I dream of a foldable with an e-ink screen for multi-day usage, and an OLED screen when folded open for media/game consumption.
Someone pinch me awake when that happens, thanks.
QAkICoU7IDNkpFu · 5h ago
I was using Xperia XZ1 compact (4.6") and then moved to Vivo X70 pro+ (6.9") and it's so much easier for the eyes and typing. Yes, it's not the most convenient thing to carry around but I'd rather have less eye strain and typos.
Also I think China makes 3-4" android phones but they're mostly a joke spec wise
ShadowBanThis03 · 6h ago
You can't even buy an iPhone-mini-sized iPhone anymore.
Get used to making calls on a TV tray, and walking around looking like a schlub in cargo shorts for the rest of your life.
ls-a · 9h ago
I also wanted one, then Samsung released the foldable phones. The Z Flip was exactly what I wanted. Now that the Fold is so thin, I want it as a small iPad. I feel that Samsung has solved the small Android phone problem in a different way with foldables
_heimdall · 8h ago
I've wanted a small android phone for a while now too, but partly because I just don't care much for smartphones and want a small and cheap option. Ideally it'd be a pixel so that it should support GrapheneOS.
The foldables are such an interesting concept. I actually had a Surface Duo for a while (though a different style of foldable) and really liked it, but I only had one after they were a year old and I could try it out with a used phone for ~$200.
kbrackbill · 8h ago
I guess people want different things out of small phones. I had a Z flip 3 for a few years because I thought the small pocket size would be nice, but it still doesn't solve the main issue that I can't reach the whole screen with my thumb. (and besides that I have a million other complaints about it, never going to buy a foldable again)
kps · 10h ago
I want a pocket computer with phone connectivity (because too much still demands a phone number).
derefr · 10h ago
Why not a pocket computer with wifi + a softphone app + a virtual PBX service (e.g. voip.ms) for that softphone app to connect to?
As a bonus, your phone number wouldn't be bound to that device, but instead would exist everywhere you can install the same softphone app.
efskap · 9h ago
I tried to make the softphone approach work but I was unreachable far too often when Android decided to kill whichever softphone app I tried.
And if it did keep running, I'm pretty sure it consumed decently more energy than a dedicated telephony module. And yeah as mentioned, even with a "real" local phone number ported to voipms, I wasn't able to get sms codes from some services.
SchemaLoad · 10h ago
Most things which require a phone number block any kind of virtual number service since the only reason they are asking for a phone number is anti spam and KYC.
iamevn · 6h ago
I'm very happy with my Unihertz Jelly Max aside from the camera being not great. I think it's the smallest it can reasonably be (62.7mm wide) while still having its touchscreen keyboard be usable and because it's fairly thick it actually feels good to hold in my hands and I don't need to stick one of those silly pop sockets on the back.
mirkodrummer · 6h ago
Imo the real problem here is being able to use a phone with one hand, UI standardization led both android and iphone unusable with one hand, so I'd argue we actually stopped research mobile touch interfaces. A smaller phone would still need you to stretch the thumb to the other side of the screen
Scrapemist · 6h ago
It is simply more difficult to cram the specs into a smaller form factor and they sell for less. A loose-loose situation. The same is happening in the tv market. 32” is disappearing because it’s more expensive to build smaller 4k displays.
sircastor · 9h ago
My iPhone 12 Mini's camera just broke (the zoom is failing..) I have been poking around for any solution that is around the same size. The best answer is generally never-heard-of companies that pop new phone models out and no certainty as to how long they'll last or be supported. That's on top of having to switch platforms (again).
I'm resigned to getting a new iPhone in Sept - reluctantly.
trumbitta2 · 1h ago
Everybody loves a mini phone. Then you hit your 40s or 50s, and you suddenly understand the benefits of having a bigger screen.
famahar · 8h ago
I have an xperia compact phone I bought for $50 in Japan. It's a bit slow, but I don't do much on it other than jot down notes, maps, photos (the lens is a bit broken so it creates a cool lens flare effect), and messaging. Fits nicely in my pocket and hand. A giant phone just seems so silly to me.
ergocoder · 4h ago
I want a reliable e-ink phone. Minimal phone is good but flaky to the point that it is annoying.
Odd UX that can't be configured (and no idea why). For example, if you touch the power button, it'll unlock and wake up the phone. There's no way to turn that off and require a click. Other android phones can but not minimal. like what the hell was going through their decision making process?
udev4096 · 3h ago
I love mini phones too but how naive do you have to be to trust a random page over an actual phone manufacturer? I can get a new pixel at 500$, install GrapheneOS on it, and call it secure enough. I wish google would make mini-pixel versions, same as apple does with SE
maxglute · 4h ago
At this rate better chance of waiting for cover screen of flip foldables to be mini phone sized.
snats · 8h ago
i get it. i want one of those. the problem is that most cellphones are not actual cellphones, they are entertainment machines. they are a pocket tv / social media feed place. most usage for my normal friends is for that.
grumpy_old_man_ · 8h ago
I remember when people complained that the iphone 6 was ridiculously big ... I'll keep my 12mini until it dies. Then I might buy another 12mini on ebay. I don't edit videos on my phone That's what desktops are for.
robertoandred · 10h ago
I want an iPhone mini-sized iPhone again...
mobilio · 10h ago
SE user here... AMAZING device for it's size.
Now i'm on SE 2020, but every day i miss original SE form-factor.
SchemaLoad · 10h ago
I considered the SE2 but went with the regular iphone after seeing the battery life was much worse on the SE2. Think that's probably what killed the iPhone mini too.
nunez · 7h ago
If there's anyone that can make this happen, it'll be Eric. I signed up and absolutely cannot wait for the Pebble hacker to do this.
david422 · 7h ago
I signed up 2 years ago. I think it's a dead project :(
the__alchemist · 9h ago
I recently bought a new Pixel 4 BC I want a fresh battery, but don't want anything bigger than this.
There are so many Android phone models, but not a single one that's a reasonable size?
I have it since more than a year. I had the first one two weeks because I lost it as it fall through a hole in my pocket. So fix your pockets and buy this phone. I'm really happy with it :)
And didn't found bugs since I have it.
qwerty2000 · 5h ago
Yeah... we definitely don't get what we want.
gandalfian · 9h ago
Mobiles are made by Asian companies to Asian tastes. They like big screens so that's what we get. The two exceptions are apple iPhones and Google pixel. The two American companies making phones for American tastes. Shame as the old 4.5" mobiles had such large bezels they could have accommodated 6" modern screens...
CephalopodMD · 6h ago
you can pry my 13 mini from my cold dead hands
renewiltord · 2h ago
All this is available on China market. Go buy there. Everyone always makes this post when they can just buy Chinese phone. Go get a Soyes or something.
mrheosuper · 7h ago
I will hold my ip13 mini until i can't.
hammyhavoc · 11h ago
With a battery that can be swapped rapidly without tools. Bonus points for pogo pins like a Samsung XCover phone.
Smaller size means smaller battery, but that's mitigated by the above. I want utilitarian. I don't want a phablet. I want practical and unobtrusive. The smartwatch was meant to replace the phone, but doesn't hit the right notes for me.
jauntywundrkind · 10h ago
In past lives, I've clung to 3.5mm jacks and battery swaps (although I consider myself much reformed, yes I maybe would buy an updated LG v20 if one were released: that was an amazingly built metal slate of a phone with both. Just hot and slow, on that Snapdragon 820).
Today, bluetooth works quite well for me (I love not having cables... but it sucks that performance with a microphone is trashfire). 3.5mm adapters are cheap and easy when needed (rarely. I also have a $10 bluetooth->3.5mm in my travel kit that does get used once a year!). And with usb-c providing fast charging, I rarely feel like I'd benefit from battery swaps. I can give myself 50%+ in 30 minutes, with a portable battery that will power not just my phone, but any other device I run into. With Qi 2.2 releasing with 25W wireless charging, and magnetic coupling being standard now, you don't even need wires anymore. Carrying a bespoke phone-only battery seems like a massive downgrade today. (It also felt like a massive fire hazard!) Time to update your expectations!
Worth mentioning that battery swaps make water-resistance much much trickier to pull off. There' a real cost to battery-swappability.
I do wish we saw something like Ara, some phone modularity & extensibility. Fairphone has some modular parts, but it doesn't feel like an open ecosystem, and the parts dont seem super designed for expansion but more just replacement. I guess maybe Framework is doing the best work, albeit in a bigger form factor space, with their Expansion Cards, which are basically just a card form factor USB-C. Licensed CC-BY-4. https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionCards
rtpg · 9h ago
I've come around on swapping batteries, and have decided that external battery packs are the way to go. Works on more devices, and you're not buying batteries that work on exactly one device.
Still want my phone battery to be replaceable, but I'm pretty fine with not being able to do it myself.
oc1 · 3h ago
just get a larger phone and you don't have to carry bulky battery packs.
grishka · 10h ago
My first Android phone was an HTC Desire S. It had a rather sturdy metal case with some plastic inserts for the antennas. The bottom insert slid off to reveal the battery and SIM and SD slots. The only downside is that because of this construction it has the USB port on the side. I used it way beyond official support by installing custom ROMs, but eventually apps got so bloated it couldn't run them without frustrating me.
So, uh, can I please have that but with a more modern SoC and a non-potato camera?
micromacrofoot · 10h ago
foldables are possibly good for this, I'm considering the fold 7 personally
hammyhavoc · 10h ago
I'm definitely open to the idea of foldables or even flip phones (perhaps even enthused!). I'm gutted that the Japanese "Galapagos syndrome" keitei are becoming extinct with fewer and fewer releases each year. The ones that are newly available tend to run Android 10 (yikes). The keitei were always very tasteful, ergonomic, and sensible. Sure, not always flashy in specs, but they didn't need to be when they prioritized the form above everything. Would love for the rest of the world to pick up this dropped ball and run with it.
dimitri_deploys · 10h ago
I've also been interested in this but a little at sea when it comes to navigating the alternate dimension of Japanese flip phones. Do you have any recommendations when it comes to identifying the last best example of the Japanese flip phone?
Liftyee · 10h ago
Neat, I wasn't aware of that kind of Japanese flip phone before. Seems like one of the few phones I'd use without a case these days.
I wonder if any were ever designed with a ThinkPad like aesthetic.
dismalaf · 7h ago
Small Android phones did exist. They got bigger because the big phones ("phablets") sold better.
Also, you can buy reasonably sized Android phones. They're still big-ish compared to say, 2008, but not huge considering the lack of bezel.
yumenoandy · 8h ago
i put my whole family on the last iphone mini generation
system2 · 10h ago
There is Unihertz, but their 5G model is crap. They also don't update their OS.
I believe the big manufacturers don't want to make a small phone (as other users have indicated) because of the big screen's addictiveness. Also, they can't fit a large battery in them so battery life would be a few hours with 1000mp 16k cameras.
I'd rather carry a 1" thick, 4" tall phone than a 0.3" thick 8" tall phone. No pants pockets look normal anymore, and it is even more awkward to walk with tight pants.
ActorNightly · 9h ago
I had the titan pocket. The freaking wifi would just randomly disconnect.
krater23 · 10h ago
Got two weeks ago a update for my jelly star. Don't know what they changed, whas not many, maybe some bugfixes. But I would be really angry when they just change the android version and the way I have to use the phone just with a over the air update that is installed without warning with one button press.
system2 · 9h ago
Android 16 is out, and Jelly Star is still Android 13. Unihertz doesn't even have that many phones to worry about updates. I don't understand why they aren't updating it to the latest. Look at the iPhone 11. Got iOS 18 after 6 years.
theshackleford · 7h ago
> I believe
You can believe whatever you want, but it doesn’t make it true. We know exactly why they make larger devices and it’s not a secret, it’s what consumers by and large want. It’s not a conspiracy.
Every time a vendor falls for the “we want small phones” thing, they sell poorly thus proving the point again and again that it’s a minority at best that are interested.
luxuryballs · 10h ago
Theory: I prefer the iPhone mini because my hands are bigger. I think some people with smaller hands care less because they aren’t losing as much control as I am when the phone is bigger, not as much of a ratio difference.
jachee · 6h ago
I want an iPhone Mini-sized iPhone again.
I busted out my old 4S, and the fit//finish,, materials, and just how nice it is to hold in your hand and operate are still really nice. Would love to fill it with modern guts.
BuckRogers · 8h ago
iPhone 12 mini lover and user checking in here. The haters will berate us for our choice stating that "no one wants a small phone", but that's a lie. Normal sized phones were never going to be instant day-one hits. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy to launch them during Covid, offer them 2 years, and say no one wants them.
Give them a permanent place in the lineup, treating phones like every other very personal device meant for humans. Small, medium, and large.
If you do that, and give people time to see exactly why 5.42 screens are superior to 6.1"+ sizes, then I think the numbers will start to change from what we saw with the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini, which were both launched when people were less on the go than in 100 years.
mannyv · 8h ago
For most consumers their phone has become their primary device, so the big screens make sense. Computer at home? Nope.
I have multiple screen with me, so my 13 mini is great.
strathmeyer · 9h ago
You can still get a PVG100 on Amazon
exabrial · 6h ago
same
catlikesshrimp · 7h ago
>> "Now I'm building Beeper - a universal chat app that lets you chat on 15+ different chat networks (including WhatsApp, iMessage, etc)."
That is another idea which apple didn't like.
pentagrama · 7h ago
iPhone 13 Mini (2023) = 5.4 inches (discontinued).
Pixel 9 (2024) = 6.3 inches.
I know the Pixel 9 is not that small, but is close and an excellent phone (base or Pro models, the XL is bigger).
billfor · 5h ago
This was written before the Pixel 8, 8a, 9, and 9 pro. All of those are just slightly larger than a iPhone mini, at about 6.2".
I understand that Apple did not make enough money to make it worth their while to continue the iphone mini line. However, it does seem like there is a profitable business for someone there given how beloved it was/is.
I only traded out my iphone 12 mini just recently for an iphone 16 pro (likely the last apple product I will ever buy but thats another story) and aside from the camera it is basically the same. Just heavier, awkward to hold and slightly worse designed.
No major player wants a smaller screen because it has downstream impacts on the pipeline of addictive material and ad pixels they can stuff into ocular nerves.
Then few months later they launched the mini expecting it to sell even more or something. Somehow they missed that everyone that wanted a small phone had just bought the SE, and it just wasn't long enough for them to be worth upgrading to the much better mini.
Had they waited for a year to pass the mini might have done much better because those who wanted a more powerful phone could find an excuse for an upgrade after a year, less then 6 months, not so much.
My phone isn't some entertainment device, it's a utility tool. I don't need it to be "smart", it should be useful on the go. The persona sketched by GP just isn't me: Messaging, maps, weather, 2FA, and calculator come first, email (read only) and news feed second, the camera is a third for documenting purposes (if even, I'd rather take my full frame). The easier it is to carry this thing around and the longer lasting its build quality, the better. Why would I pay almost double (USD 699 VS 399 on launch) for a less robust mini with sharper edges?!
If Apple were to continue the offer of rehashed designs from previous generations (preferably with rounder edges) for a SE line, limit its dimensions to never go beyond 140x67.5x8mm, and make it last for solid 5-year release cycles, then count me in as your most loyal customer. As it currently stands I'm looking out for a small sized phone from any manufacturer. I would even lower my expectations on support cycle and build quality quite a bit (if reasonable priced) before I'd give in on the size.
My wife, I, and several people I know had iPhone 12 or 13 Mini. Their battery life was pretty terrible and word soon got out it was. I think this was in the end what killed it for people who are normally buying Apple flagships and were considering a Mini. It was very hard to get through the day with a Mini.
Besides the abysmal battery life, I think the market for small phones is maybe simply not there. Samsung keeps around one smaller model (base S-series) and arguably the Z Flip is a smaller model (but persistent hardware issues). If there was a large demand for flagship-class small phones, I am sure some Android manufacturers would make them.
My hypothesis about the supposed non-existence of the small phone buyer is that they very much do exist (personally, haven't bought anything other than whatever was the smallest Xperia at the time in more than a decade), but that this group has little overlap with the group willing to buy for list price on release day. But the perception of success of a given phone is very much dominated by the latter, the long tail of buyers isn't really seen. Even if the release day premium over mid-lifecycle street price (in countries where price fixing is not allowed) goes to the retailer and is of very little interest to the manufacturer.
Manufacturers should just move compacts to a three year cycle and forget everything about hyper-optimizing desirability for the kind of buyer who spends too much time reading questionable review sites.
iPhone SE 1st gen 2016 (Discontinued 2018)
iPhone 12 Mini 2020 (Discontinued 2022)
iPhone SE 2nd gen 2020 (Discontinued 2022)
iPhone 13 Mini 2021 (Discontinued 2023)
iPhone SE 3rd gen 2022 (Discontinued 2025)
Most of them don't care about the premium features of larger phones. So the Mini was a weird niche within a niche. Small phone with premium price and features.
The Mini and SE2 were virtually identical in physical size. For the 16e they should have used the iPhone 12/13 Mini body and the 13 Mini screen. Use the 15 Pro SoC with 8GB memory, and the 15 camera. Sell it for an SE price. Now you have fused the small phone and budget iPhone markets.
The first phablets were probably the Galaxy Note line starting in 2011 which was met with some skepticism due to the size of them. These were well before the edge to edge screen days. So you had 5.7 inch screens with a bezel.
They were huge but I would routinely see small women pull these things out of their hand bags and press a device that obscured almost their whole face and start chatting.
Things steadily got bigger from there. The general population WANTED this.
General population doesn't buy phones every year and they don't want a nerfed phone when they have to pay 500-1000 $/€s. So they gravitate towards higher end ones.
Companies including Apple has always treated the small size as an entry to mid segment phone. The only exception I know is Sony z3 and z5 compact which suffered heat and battery swelling issues due to Qualcomm messing 810 series SoCs up.
Companies also want you to buy the most expensive phone. So they market the premium models and train their store personnel to sell more of the premium line. If they stop intentionally nerfing the smaller phones, I think there is a market there. However, it will still be smaller.
When I went to buy it, and the case, the employees at the Apple Store questioned me and tried to push me toward the normal iPhone. This is the first and only time I’ve ever felt Apple Store employees steering purchasing decisions. I had to go in there knowing what I wanted, and had to assert that it was what I wanted repeatedly.
Are people buying big phones because they are addicted to their screens, or are people addicted to their screens because of big phones?
Probably because they knew that customers would come back to complain about the abysmal battery life of the Mini? I had a 12 Mini, I loved that phone, but man was it hard to get through the day on a single charge.
The only time I recently struggled getting through the day was when on vacation and constantly using google maps & translate. But that is with a 3 year old phone.
There's also the accessibility factor. Many people become farsighted later in life. It's much easier to see things on a big phone, especially with increased zoom. (I see this all of the time when I fly.)
It's a vicious cycle. Phone manufactures make the screen bigger, app and website developers realize they can cram more junk on the page, consumers demand larger screens as a result, return to step 1.
(Tangential: of course I don't blame anyone for bringing their phone with them everywhere but if you're going to go to a friend group hangout, consider how annoying it is when you're trying to talk to someone and they're clearly checked out browsing some slop on Twitter or talking to someone else entirely. Take a damn break from the phone!)
Larger screen = easier life.
> women
To note, the initial smartphones were already too big for he taste of many: a clamshell feature phone was almost a third of the size of the original iPhone. From that POV, going to a phone that is twice as big is less of a barrier, as they had to keep it in a bag/purse in the first place.
The return of foldables is also pretty well received in that regard.
They are cool phones, but I do iOS. I still use a 13 Mini, and will continue to do so, for quite some time.
As to the point of this article, I seem to recall a couple of very small Android phones, some years ago (about credit-card sized). I guess they didn’t sell well.
IMHO this is just not viable in the current world.
I agree with line the article sets (5"4 for 1080p, almost the size of the Pixel 4a), as mainstream apps will properly work at that size. I still have a working 4a, and some banking apps are getting pretty cramped for instance. And many websites already need furious panning and zooming.
A credit card size phone would only work for people who basically hate their phones I think.
Completely agree. Although not even on "small phones", my S23 isn't small but the design of these apps has regressed so much that I barely see any useful information.
On my old WAP phone I could see bank balance and maybe the last transaction or two. Now half the screens taken up with upselling account levels, invest in shares, buy crypto, you've been pre-approved!
They seemed underwhelmed at the phones.
[EDITED TO ADD]
Found ‘em: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/10/palm-rises-from-the-...
Also, these: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/11/meet-this-unique-com...
No comments yet
The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 had a screen size of 5.5 inches. I had one and regularly had strangers ask me if that was really a phone. I had friends say, "Give me a call on your tablet" as a joke.
I loved it. Now my 6.1 inch iPhone feels on the small side.
They are called tablets, some come with a sim slot so they are essentially the same.
That thing could really stand out in a crowd. I was at a baseball stadium for a concert that year, and spotted someone with a Dell Streak as I was heading down to the field. In a sea of people that was the one phone I spotted. I stopped to ask the guy about it briefly.
I also remember the viral, doctored image showing the reachability of phone screens which "proved" that 3.5 inches was the "ideal" phone size.
Easy to say if the only devices are big phones. There is no choice.
I ended up switching from a 13 mini (I had the 12 mini as well) to a 16 Pro. I was having a lot of battery life issues, and kept running into apps that clearly didn’t fully test with the smaller screen. I also really missed having a telephoto lens.
My phone usage went up; my laptop/desktop usage went down. I don’t like that. Compared to a normal computer, a phone is still worse in almost every way, other than mobility. It’s just now tolerable enough to put up with more of the time. I’m writing this on the phone, it would have been easier on a keyboard and mouse.
There are lots of phone manufacturers who have no ads business. They just make phones so why would they care?
Size is dictated by trouser pocket size/handbag size and usage. Editing photos and movies to upload onto social media is probably better on a big screen.
Also screen size is dictated by common panel sizes, as low volume will mean a higher price.
Folding screens and iPad Mini's existence suggests people want larger screen real estate.
And so while there are people who want "small screen + nice camera". There are people who want "small screen + small price". There are many people who _don't want the small screen_. So you have this phone that can cost a lot of money (in a pretty messy market where most phone models seem to not make money anyways), and you're going to cut off chunks of the market?
So we end up with small screen + shitty camera and specs etc. And people here who want a small phone (but really want a small phone that isn't miserable to use) still are unsatisfied.
There are still bound to the screen resolution dictated by the platforms/environment. A maker selling an android phone with a 480x640px screen would face a huge uphill battle to see any sales.
Going for a smaller physical screen means higher DPI, so higher production costs and quality control issues. It can make more sense to buy cheaper, low DPI screen and make the whole device bigger to match the needed pixel count.
I mean... none of the big ones.
For the others, they DO make small phones, and even non-addictive phones. We have e-ink phones in pure black and white.
But Hanlon's razor and the way Apple has been on a screwing up spree of late I doubt it was anything intentional. They f'ed up knowing not what to do at all. They don't anymore.
Occam's razor beats Hanlon's razor.
https://9to5mac.com/2025/04/28/iphone-18-fold-details-launch...
For you. As someone with large hands, I appreciate that phones grew in size and I swapped to larger devices as soon as I could.
I think people with large hands are definitely the minority. So, we're not optimizing for hand size. We're optimizing for engagement, I think.
You don’t speak for most people. You can only speak for yourself. The feelings of “Most people” are clear as demonstrated by the market; they not only find large phones fine, they find them preferable.
> modern phones are not one hand operable
So? I mean for me they are so it’s irrelevant, but what should it matter if they are not? The market obviously does not share your interest in devices to be operated in such a manner as a priority or something of particular importance.
That being said, it’s of course unfortunate that if that is your preference, that nothing in the market caters for it. Your preferences and wants are obviously entirely valid and it’s a shame there is no interest even from a boutique vendor in meeting them.
I have plenty of preferences for products that are not catered too, as I am sure is true for us all and of course I don’t love it, but I must live in the reality that the larger market doesn’t always want what I do.
> We’re optimizing for engagement
The market is optimizing for what consumers asked for, which was larger devices. You say I am in a minority, I claim equally that you are in a minority as well.
The only phones I've had that I could comfortably use one-handed were my old BlackBerry Q10 (2013) and BlackBerry Classic (2014). The Q10 because it's short enough to hold between my thumb and ring finger such that I could use my index and middle fingers on the touch screen (slightly unorthodox but it worked really well), and the larger Classic because it has an optical thumbpad and excellent software support for it (it was so good I rarely used the touch screen at all). And both had physical keyboards.
There is demand for larger phones, yes, but manufacturers also charge more for bigger devices and most of that is margin. Following their own logic, they also charge less for smaller phones.
If your customers are sticky, then many of the people who buy the smaller phone would have otherwise bought a bigger phone for more money. Introducing a smaller phone brings down profits.
Why do they do that though? Usually more compact, high end devices would be more expensive than bulkier one. When has this trend reversed?
Just did the exact same thing 5 months ago.. I still miss my 12 mini. Would strongly consider buying a 13 mini instead of its even being sold anymore.
The little half screen on the flip is useless though. Basically nothing works on it.
Again, I’m not angry that current phones exist; I’m just sad there aren’t (good) alternatives – at least that I know of.
Phone screen sizes grew as the applications that could use screen space grew in demand.
People are watching 1080p films on the train now. The people who want smaller screens are usually willing to deal with a larger one. People who want larger screens usually cant operate their use cases on a smaller screen. Larger screens also tend to mask larger case meaning less miniaturisation required for the components.
You have people who want them unusably large and people who want them to fit in your hand. The solution in every other market is that products are manufactured to fit both sets of needs. You don't see pants coming in one size with the advice "wear a belt".
What's going on?
Great example. Because people who are shorter than average tend to have to get pants taken up, and people who are vastly taller than average tend to go to specialty stores.
The average height of pants is largely dictated by what the market will permit, requiring people to make adjustments or leave the market. Having a 2d matrix of height and width defined pant sizes is too complex for the market to bother with.
Technology is worse, anything that requires tooling is done the least number of times possible. While small phone enjoyers are disadvantaged, they arent disadvantaged enough to force them out of the market. Larger tooling is easier to make and caters to all other preferences.
No, you're making up a claim that you know perfectly well is false. Just blank most of your day out of your mind, and then... what? Why?
You don't like pants? Televisions come in dozens of different sizes. Laptops come in dozens of different sizes. Are phones different in some way?
Every manufacturer seems to think people are either tall and fat or short and slim. I'm tall and my only alternative is literally to wear a belt.
You're in a minority, it's not profitable to cater to you, and most people don't care.
That's the cold hard truth of it.
Perhaps... just perhaps... the explanation lies elsewhere?
I should have included some kind of question as to what it might be.
"You have ... people who want them to fit in your hand"
Are incorrect. The number of people who will actually buy small devices is ... small. The number of people who are so interested in small devices they'll overlook things like a lower battery life and whatever other compromises are needed to achieve the smaller size, likely even fewer.
It's not like it hasn't been tried in the past, people in this thread talk about iPhone minis disappearing - Apple couldn't make them a success. Sony couldn't make them a success either and stopped making them AFAICT. As a market segment you're too small to warrant the investment in designing a small flagship. And if nobody's investing in a small flagship, small midmarket isn't going to happen either.
There do appear to be niche manufacturers in this segment (take a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/smallphones/). If the untapped demand is so huge, I would expect to see them become much more mainstream over time.
Perhaps… just perhaps… people just like bigger screens and it’s not some kind of weird conspiracy theory?
Also the longer I used my iphone mini and the rest of the world moved to comically large phones the more it became apparent that nobody is thinking about small screen form factors in design and when they do its only around ad placement.
We are helplessly addicted to digital cocaine, and so we demand large phones, and so motorola will not make money selling a small phone.
It's like the parent said: our addiction is the product, and so just like a chain-smoker will say "I want to quit" as they buy 5 packs a day, a modern smartphone user will say "I want a smaller screen and to look at ads less" as they hopelessly buy a 10 inch phablet and can't go 5 minutes without pulling it from their pocket to check tiktok.
It is not that the money from advertising flows, it is that the addicted users have already been ruined, and will not buy the devices they say they want.
But then it hit the practicable limits of what people can pocket/hold-comfortably.
If you make a phone with a smaller screen but want to call it "flagship" then you'd better have some good marketing to reverse the perception.
I don’t explain it and every time I get explained they like it better because it’s got bigger battery and bigger screen, I just don’t understand how you could live your life with a brick constantly on you but it’s what people want.
The market just adapted to the demand and it’s not a 40k « petition » that will change much.
Most women carry their phone in a hand bag anyway as the pockets on most pants for women are way to small either way [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/06/style/pockets-womens-clot...
The market has spoken, it's not worthwhile for Apple to produce small phones.
There are a million companies that are not Google that could also produce mini phones and don't for the same exact reason: most people want large screens to enjoy videos and photos.
Nobody cares about small screens and pockets, everyone holds their phones in their hands or purses at all times.
Now even at 80% original capacity, a Samsung can still last me throughout the day given that I am not watching videos constantly. The Iphone 6 back in the day would go to 40% in 3 hours, then suddenly to 5% in minutes.
Plus most people replace their laptop with a phone now. So the big screen size is a must.
Like it or not, Apple keeps cancelling smaller phone lines because they don't sell well. That's it. If they sold really well then they'd keep selling them, but they don't.
I would also love more capable small phones personally, but I can't deny that people overall don't seem to want them.
The new ZenFones are just rebadged ROGs which explains the massive size jump. I'm not looking forward to replacing this phone when it ages out.
Watching lots of Louis Rossmann has put me almost ideologically against Apple (even though they design great hardware and smooth UX within their ecosystem), but I'm not good at forming coherent points to present to Apple loving friends.
For me so far, I think it's about control over what I buy - but the rebuttal is always "you're buying a product from them, if you don't like it then tough".
I remember when Samsung had removable batteries, I went in to a Samsung store to buy a replacement for my S5 battery and they told me they didn't sell them, only new phones. Meanwhile I can take my iPhone in to any Apple store and they will replace the battery for me.
So yeah Apple does need to be forced to massively improve their practices but so does pretty much the entire tech industry aside from a few small projects that focus on being repairable.
I feel I am more frequently encountering software bugs, vaporware,(dESiGnEd fOr ApPle InTelLiGeNce), and ridiculous "innovation" (genmoji). I feel the hardware advances are not very relevant to me, I don't need VR or augmented reality. I want a computer to get out of my way and solve problems for me so I can spend time in plain old reality. The hardware upgrades I DO care about are ridiculously overpriced (Ram upgrades are abusively expensive).
While I prefer my computer to be a tool to get a job done and don't want the computer itself to be a hobby. I also do not want to be forced to use AI. I also dislike the rent seeking and toolbooth behavior of iMessage and the App store. Now that linux has more paved paths, things increasingly "just work" and hardware has basically caught up I don't see a good reason to support Apple's non-vision with my money.
That’s cool, but you represent a tiny slice of the market that as devices get more powerful, isn’t addressable in the low volumes needed to make you happy.
When the chips needed to make a phone are priced like toys, maybe you’ll find the product for you.
As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard.
And you still end up getting most apps from the Google Play Store.
By the way, iMessage supports SMS/MMS/RCS for interoperability. What else do you want?
Battery life, probably none. For the rest it's pretty ok now - I recently got a ThinkPad T14. Performance-wise it's in M1/M2 territory and yes the fans can spin up, but they are not very loud.
I have used MacBooks since 2007, but I have started using the ThinkPad more and more. Why?
I put in 64GiB RAM and a 2TB SSD and it cost me almost nothing. The laptop plus these expansions was 1400 or 1500 Euro, a MacBook with 64GiB RAM and 2TB SSD would cost me 5000 Euro. When the battery has had its time, I can replace it by removing a few screws. I added a PCI cellular modem. The expandability and maintanability is just great.
Even though the GPU in my MacBook Pro (M3 Pro) blows away the ThinkPad's GPU on paper, the ThinkPad with Wayland actually renders everything super-smoothly on my 120Hz 4K screen, while on the MacBook the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz is barely noticeable. On the ThinkPad I can run NixOS, which is generally much nicer than macOS.
The primary thing that my MacBook has over my ThinkPad are battery life and a bunch of really good Mac applications like the Affinity Suite. But since more and more applications are switching to Electron, it has become less of a problem. Heck, I even have 1Password with fingerprint unlock, etc. like if it was a MacBook.
As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard.
Or I don't know, you buy a Pixel, install GrapheneOS, and you have better privacy than on an iPhone? And no F1 movie ads too.
Have heard good things about framework computers. As a more efficient chip or battery comes out you just upgrade that component if your use case requires it.
[1] which means you need a 4 to 6h range when new if you don't plan to replace the battery too often
[2] students, construction companies, people who are always on the road...
When I was in the office full time in the bad old days, you would be in a conference room and every one would plug their laptops in.
After I started working remotely and still doing business trips, one charge could last a full day either going back and forth between conference rooms, in “war rooms” etc and no one with M series MacBooks even worried about charging.
Heck my MacBook Pro (work laptop) can last a full day on power with my portable USB C powered external monitor where the power and video come from one cord.
Not to mention on flights with layovers.
What offerings are out there for speed/no fan (quiet)/and lack of heat with battery life?
At any rate, non-Apple laptops have other benefits, like being able to get 64GiB/128GiB memory and large SSDs without breaking the bank.
In the end it's all a trade-off. If you are a sales representative that needs all-day battery life, MacBook is probably the only option. If you are a developer that needs something portable to hop between desks or on the train, but usually have access to a power socket (yay, Dutch/German trains), a few hours of battery is enough and you might prefer to get an insane amount of memory/storage, a built-in cellular modem, and an ethernet port instead.
M1 Air or M2 Air, running Asahi Linux. I am posting this using my M1 Air, running Fedora Asahi.
> As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard.
I use Fairphone 4 with Ubuntu Touch.
As far as the Fairphone - poor battery life, bulky, poor camera, and the IP rating of 55 for water? Well at least it runs Linux.
https://www.vapezilla.com/collections/smart-vape-phone
Normal people didn’t love small phones. They loved their small iPhones.
When it comes down to it they will not love the Pine Phone Mini.
For the vast majority of people, the key feature is that it’s an iPhone not that it’s small.
As far as the mini phones - because physics - the battery life is atrocious. That was one of the main drivers for me to get a larger phone. Well that and because I can pull down the Control Center and use the widget to make everything on my phone larger and still be able to use it without wearing my glasses. With my glasses, I keep everything the smallest size
I owned an iPhone 13 mini. Basically the perfect small phone if there ever was one.
The downsides are extensive and the upsides are few.
- Battery life sucked. Since a phone is a 3D object making it bigger substantially increases battery capacity. It also makes packaging difficult especially if the goal is a flagship-quality phone. Good luck fitting in good hardware with a lot of features.
- Eyestrain. It’s small.
- Typing. It sucks. The phone is small.
And it turns out the upside of one-handed operation is limited. A simple PopSocket or OhSnap! will make large phones easy to use in one hand.
Plus, if pocketability is your issue, you can buy a folding phone like a Motorola Razr and still get a nice big screen when you pull it out.
They can be quite chunky but honestly not too bad
A friend jokingly calls it my "microphone", another a "prison phone" (due to its size allowing for more easily smuggling in body cavities). Occasionally I go to mobile phone shops and ask if they have a case for it just for the fun of seeing the look on their faces when they see it (I don't actually want a case, and in fact it came with one which I threw in the bin).
Personally, I couldn't be happier with it.
Only problems: they don't do software updates; camera is poor; non-OLED screen.
In an ideal world I'd have a slightly bigger phone, but not too much bigger. I've grown very fond of this phone.
I'd consider that an advantage: No burn-in.
I used the Palm Phone (PVG100) (3.3" screen) (basically the size of a credit card) [ https://www.ricklohre.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/dsc_097... ] as long as I could until it became too slow to use as software got slower and increasingly battery-hungry and I had to give it up last year.
Right now I have a Soyes S10Max, which has a 3.5" screen (same screen size as the original iPhone), but it's kinda chunky. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRZ47T53?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_...
The specs are more than strong enough to handle whatever I need on a daily basis. But I miss the slimmer size of the Palm Phone.
Right now I've pre-ordered this phone https://aiphor.com/products/bluefox-nx1-4-0-android-smartpho... with the 8gigram+128gig storage capacity. Has an even stronger cpu than the Soyes, but I am slightly worried about the resolution of 540x1168px because some elements may end up overlapping.
Even though it's 4", it has a tiny bezel so it's only slightly bigger than the Palm Phone, although a bit thicker cuz of a bigger battery. But still relatively slim, especially compared to the Soyes.
Front comparison: https://preview.redd.it/dtwnubx05scf1.png?width=3840&format=...
https://preview.redd.it/s2391amd7hbf1.png?width=320&crop=sma...
Will see!
If you check /r/smallphones I'll post a review of the NX1 in a couple months (or whenever I get it + a week or two). It looks like the closest spiritual successor to the Palm Phone (although the single button on the foot with multiple actions will probably never be beat)
the article's "small phone" benchmark with a 5.4" screen is almost the same size in every dimension as your benchmark of the HTC 8x
https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/HTC-8XT,Apple-iPhone-...
This is true, and it's hard to fully assess without a tool like you linked, which is pretty neat.
>the article's "small phone" benchmark with a 5.4" screen is almost the same size in every dimension as your benchmark of the HTC 8x
But as mentioned, I don't consider the 8X to be small. It's a standard-sized phone in my eyes.
(By the way from some reason aiphor.com automatically redirects me to google.com unless I disable Javascript.)
An even slightly more mid-range spin on this would be very very viable.
But I'll write a review on reddit once I've used it for a week or two.
No clue on aiphor.com, webdevs (or their managers) love javascript lol
They only have 4G rather than 5G. This has not bothered me but perhaps it would bother others.
It is only going to get worse. Most of us who were young adults when the iPhone was announced are in our 40s now, and presbyopia is a real thing. In a few years my daily QOL will be better served by a bigger phone and I suspect many people around my age are feeling the same thing. The "small electronic accessory I bring around" niche will be filled by smartwatches.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/dijok5/is_there_a_... (how quaint the prices look, a mere 6 years on)
My personal device is a Motorola Razr 50 Ultra, which I got because while it's huge when flipped, it's portable enough when it's closed. I can have it in my pocket without it falling out.. without it being annoying while i put on shoes etc...
I use its cover screen a fair amount too, to avoid having to flip it open, which is also why I got the ultra rather than the slightly smaller version.
While it did get a tiny bit bigger I wouldn’t have noticed this u less you would look up the spec, especially as it got lighter from 204g [1] to 199g [2] at the same time.
[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/111871 [2] https://www.apple.com/iphone-16-pro/specs/
Most people only use computers at work, solely relying on smartphones for communication, media, shopping, etc.
It makes sense to have a big screen at inconvenience of having to carry it around.
What surprises me is how small the demand for small phones is. I have absolutely no need for a big screen - I have a monitor.
A lot of us do, yes.
> and carry a bag everywhere?
As a guy in 36" waist jeans (yeah I need to lose a few kg)... I can fit an iphone 16 pro max in my pocket pretty comfortably.
> Why do people want these giant phones?
Well, one reason is that I'm getting older and don't find it as easy to read tiny text on tiny screens any more. Another reason is that I sometimes watch streaming services on there.
Also it's shiny and the battery lasts forever.
There are some decent small Android phones, if you're willing to buy non-mainstream brands. Take a look at:
https://www.reddit.com/r/smallphones/
In addition to being small, with SD card and 3.5mm jack, it is water resistant and has a removable battery. It is also one of the most robust non-hardened phones. It has an IR blaster too if it matters to you.
It was a time when Samsung was known for its gimmicks, the one for the Galaxy S5 is "Air View", where it recognizes your finger hovers over the screen. It is actually a good one, because it supports the "hover" targets in web pages!
Most people find it ugly though, and I tend to agree, but if you use a case, like most people do, who cares what the phone inside looks like?
Certainly iOS 26 appears to be supported.
Convincing main brands to dump 100s of millions to cater to small phone crowd should be proven DOA by now. The minimalist EDC crowd is niche aberration, most people throughout civilization EDC was more cumbersome. Most people are simply happy carrying more shit around. Look at Stanley cups.
TBH 99% of big phone yucky crowd problems would be solved by a lanyard, but that's too goofy in the west. IMO what we need is better pockets. Front of legs or side belly of shirt. Have a little place to attach a chain like pocket watches. Fix for big phones is not a smaller phone, but better accessory/wardrobe.
And yes I do want smaller phones. Samsung S10e was the perfect size tbh.
But no it seems the option dwindle and now I can't find a phone smaller than my thumb. At least some phones have a "shrink screen" option, but that's not the same thing as a smaller phone tbh
It's OK if they just make one every couple of years. But please: at least every couple of years.
Basically you have to make compromises on performance and camera and then this was, what i came up with: - Zenfone 10 (flagship with prices still above launch price (!), which soon gets no updates anymore) - Unihertz Jelly Max (small, but thick and bad camera) - Rakuten Hand 5G and Rakuten Mini (also bad camera and older Android) - Balmuda Phone (which i really like, but also bad camera and discontinued, so probably not even security updates and no custom rom support) - Bluefox NX1 (really tempting, but appearantly kind of bad build quality and no NFC)
All other options are even older phones. Samsung S25 line does exist, but i really like vanilla Android. I think the price chart of the Zenfone DOES somehow indicates the existence of a market and i wonder if it would be big enough for a small niche player!?
Personally I am considering a pixel 8, which is the "smallest" of current phones, but it still really isn't small. And i don't see myself as a Google customer because of the battery topic...
I personally would have been more happy had Eric made a small android phone instead of the new pebble, but hey...
https://blog.bschwind.com/2025/01/11/the-original-iphone-se-...
If you are interested, Unihertz launched the titan 2 and it's pretty nice, but no waterproofing or wireless charging are big issues for me.
I found using the browser is a good enough alternative for many apps, and it also makes them less addictive because they aren’t as slick. Particularly handy for work apps.
I ended up getting a newer SE (2022), but I miss the first one.
Mine actually broke ages ago but I've just gotten used to using TouchAssist.
I can.
Nothing will make happier than ditching Apple and get a smaller Android phone. In fact the size of iPhone 5s was the only reason that had piqued my interest and I had migrated to the iPhones. Then I stayed for other (and important) reasons.
> Stock Android OS
Ah, no. I take that back. That is not going to be worth 700-800 just for the size! In fact take more and put it to a fight which tries to force Google to "decolonise" every aspect of this mobile OS and push for apps to go for alternative app stores.
But as long as Google has it claws and fingers and feet and palm and teeth (imagine every other organ) into my data (and also existence via sensors and what not) on an Android phone in every way possible (sometimes not even imaginable), such pervasive and entangled, that getting out of this Kafkaesque privacy nightmare means using a custom ROM that no OEM supports (or probably will every support) and half the app I use (including bank/payment/Govt apps) will stop functioning and it makes me feel like puking - even the thought of being tracked like that non-stop!
Until then sadly I will contribute to the trillions of Apple and participate in this cozy duopoly these companies have established and rather be in this Kafkaesque control and closed walled garden. It is sad.
So no, I am done with "Stock Android OS" trope at this point :(
The reality is - and it is a sad truth - such a phone in today's world can only exist as a vanity/niche product and hence even with high cost it will suffer from lack of support, abandoned update/upgrade promises, and a really really bad support experience unless it is released to "just few cities" (not even few countries) because this is going to attract such a small number of people!
I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31411191 - May 2022 (1053 comments)
Quick search for just display size found these 10 phones released after 2023: https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?nYearMin=2023&fDisplay...
When idle GSM uses a lot of power. Listening for a wakeup signal doesnt seem expensive at all. It even seems one could pull off the trick for free.
Free < bluetooth < wifi < gsm
There shall be e-paper ofc
The brick can have a battery like that of a quality powerbank. For emergency charging the display snaps on top with some magnets.
There will be heavy cpu loads with lots of reads and writes.
Think a room full of people hammering the media server.
Host websites on it. Imagine the fun!
GPUs may work quite hard to decode and fit the picture on the screen. How to do io better is left as an exersize for the reader. (这意味着你)
Whatever components we can get rid of buys extra space for the battery.
It also makes the handheld device cheaper to replace.
You may swap the battery or have a spare.(slide the empty one into the brick)
You may also break or lose it. It can conveniently be replaced. Nothing important is stored on it.
Lets make them with and without cameras. Imagine the opportunity to not make photos :)
Playing games or using the CPU+GPU module as a media server is a 1%-of-the-time use-case. If you want this architecture to not need a lot of battery in the display module, it needs to be low-power for the 99%-of-the-time use-case: scrolling a webpage.
(This is basically the classical thin-client / fat-client paradox: thin clients save on power right until you want them to do anything continuously. Then the IO costs outweigh the hypothetical costs of localizing that continuous CPU/GPU activity by pushing it down into a fat client.)
That's a landline phone, you can buy it for cheap.
And, this is trivially satisfied with a $10 extension cord.
It doesn't have the Google Play Store but one can sideload Android apps onto it
Like the OP, I switched from Android (Pixel 3a) to an iPhone SE 3 specifically for the smaller form factor. After using it for over a year, I've found the trade-offs in battery life and camera quality are too significant for my daily use.
These limitations aren't an issue when I'm at home or my desk with easy access to a charger. However, they become acute the moment I'm out for the day. For example, using GPS for navigation or connecting Bluetooth accessories becomes a liability. I can't rely on the phone to last. Also, photos are noticeably more pixelated, and the quality drop-off is clear compared to larger, contemporary phones.
This thread is evidence that the niche for small phones exists. But it's for people willing to accept these compromises by carrying a dedicated camera, a power bank, and using wired peripherals. For me and as the market suggests for most consumers, small phones just doesn't work out as reliable all-in-one devices. I'll probably wait till early next year to pick up one of the new iPhones after they iron out the initial kinks.
I'm a small-phone person, and I don't think these _should_ be necessary. I'm fine with wired peripherals (and prefer them), but in 2025, with efficient chips, I don't see why we can't power a device much longer than 24 hours. What if it had decade-old hardware, and -- this is the bit I think is the problem -- the operating system and apps were efficient?
Same with a camera. It seems more about thickness than width; I don't believe it should be impossible to put a large-phone-format camera in a smaller phone. It may take battery space, but see above, we should be ok there these days.
That is only possible if we don't write the software with dozen layers of abstraction and gimmicky features (looking at you, Liquid Glass!).
(After all, easiest way to increase battery size is to increase the smallest dimension. Add 1mm to a 4-4.5mm thick battery and you'll increase the battery size by 22-25%. Make the iPhone 13 Mini as thick as its camera bump and you would probably add ≈2.4mm, which would make the battery 60% larger)
- Likely still weigh less than a Pro Max - Have a battery with a capacity larger than the Pro Max - Have the pro cameras stick out about as much as they did on the iPhone 6
And it would feel as robust and solid as an iPhone 4 – my favorite iPhone so far
My conclusion is the same as the author’s: it’s a matter of you get what you pay for. The demand here is for a small premium phone. This would come with a good set of cameras.
I recommend the pixel 4a 5g with LineageOS installed, or the Q9 mini.
I beg to differ. How much marketing money did Apple spend on the mini line, in comparison to the "standard" size ?
> And when launched - no one buys it.
Pixel 3 and 4a are still the most sold phones in the Pixel line.
The news when Pixel7 was launched:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/gadgets-news/this-is-the...
Zenphones until the 10 had easy to unlock bootloaders, leading to long in official support by the community. However with the 10 ASUS stopped that tool and they've been lying ever since that they're still working on it.
My zenfone is now on its final major android update, the rather minor android 15 version, and I've only got two years of security updates left until I need to look for a new phone. That's one thousand euros for barely four years of software support, it's such a disappointment.
That aside the camera is lackluster, it's auto whitebalance is horrific, turning the same snowy scene into a sunset or illuminated by fluorescent light depending on the phase of the moon and it's sampling questionable making images much more blurry in a surreal way. But the optical stabilisation is seriously impressive. Overall I preferred the pixel 4a's images though. A smaller phone and my zenfone's predecessor.
At least I get to just plug it into my stereo thanks to the 3.5mm jack though.
Thumbs up on the headphone jack though. Can't fault it there.
I was convinced you were wrong but that's correct. The Mini is much smaller and the Zenfone is about the same size as the regular iPhone.
iPhone 16/Zenfone/13 Mini (in mm)
Height: 147.6/146.5/131.5 - the mini is 15mm shorter than the Zenfone which is only 1.1mm shorter than an iPhone.
Width: 71.6/68.1/64.2 - the mini is 3.9mm thinner than the Zenfone which is 3.5mm thinner than an iPhone
Depth: 7.8/9.4/7.7 - the Zenfone is significantly thicker than the iPhones.
Volume: 82.4/93.8/65.0 cubic cm - the Zenfone is physically larger than an iPhone 16 by a decent margin.
The Zenfone simply isn't close to an iPhone mini size. It's larger than an iPhone by volume and the depth does matter when holding it. If we're talking about front-edge to opposite front-edge, we're talking about 87.2mm for the iPhone vs 86.9mm for the Zenfone and 79.6 for the Mini. The Zenfone saves you 0.3mm in grip-distance over an iPhone, but a Mini saves you 7.6mm in grip-distance.
Heck, let's look at weight. A Zenfone is 172g, iPhone 170g, iPhone mini 141g. The Zenfone is the heaviest of the three.
One of the big limiting factors for Android phone manufacturers is the battery. iOS is a ton more efficient. The Zenfone is thicker to accommodate a 4300mAh battery compared to the iPhone 16's 3561mAh (21% larger battery). And the Zenfone's battery is kinda small by Android standards.
People often don't think about the challenges of making a small phone. The electronics don't shrink. If you need a certain square mm for those electronics, they take up a larger percentage of the interior on your mini. You don't need as large a battery because the screen it is powering is smaller, but not proportional to its size - you're still drawing the same power for all the electronics. So you have a smaller percentage of interior space for the battery and you need a larger battery relative to the interior space - or you need to sacrifice battery life as Apple did with the mini.
For example, the iPhone 13 mini is 84.4 sq cm and has a 2438mAh battery. The iPhone 13 is 104.9 sq cm with a 3240mAh battery. The iPhone 13 is 24% larger, but can accommodate a 33% larger battery - because the electronics take up basically the same space regardless of form factor.
So to make an Android mini, you'd be sacrificing a lot of battery life. The Zenfone is not a mini. Its grip-size is basically identical to an iPhone. In every way, it's much more an iPhone than a mini.
iPhone 6S: 138.3/67.1/7.1 = 65.9 cc the mini is just barely smaller.
iPhone 4S: 115.2/58.6/9.3 = 62.8 cc smaller than the mini.
Treo 650: 113/59/23 = 153 cc which is about the same volume as a Galaxy Z Fold 3... the displacement was so uncomfortable, people often used hip holsters for the former.
and end-up only Sony products comes out. and I sacrificed performance for a shorter phone so I bought Xperia Ace III.
but I don't know when will my ISP shutdown GSM-1800. If this happens I have to buy Xperia 10 series then.
But I don't know why new innovative people are not getting into smartphone making.
Everyone is trying to make the next big software. But why that grit is missing to bring the variety into small hardware devices that target majority?
Or, is it not reaching people like me? Is it the lack of awareness?
I think another reason is sourcing good parts that aren't old and bulky, speaking from the Linux phones I tried
Also drivers somebody has to write em
I used to be annoyed that you had to choose between Android or iOS
I wish android phones had lidar
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And the Light Phone 3: https://www.thelightphone.com/lightiii
https://www.gizchina.com/2013/11/07/jiayu-g5-unboxing-hands-...
https://www.gizchina.com/2013/09/18/exclusive-hands-video-st...
https://www.gizmochina.com/2013/09/22/teardown-picture-jiayu...
That was the "peak smartphone" era for me; lots of companies making slightly different variations on Androids, at relatively low prices, but almost all of them with the same basic set of practical features which are nearly extinct today. Now it seems all we get are faster CPUs and RAM, more (non-removable) storage and battery capacity, no headphone jacks, a very limited choice of screen sizes, and far too many cameras along with the obligatory unremovable spyware and locked-down OS.
Btw:
1. Unihertz recently launched a BlackBerry esque phone (titan 2), if anyone reading this is interested. (Not sponsored by them)
2. There are many forums (and I think r/smallphones on reddit) where you can find much more discussion on such topics if you're interested.
If Unihertz kept their phones up to date for a few years after launch, rather than only for the few years prior to launch, they would be an incredibly strong competitor in this space but as they are they are next to useless.
I tried all my reasoning skills to persuade her to stick with android, but ultimately she nagged me into getting a second hand one that is still way too expensive in my opinion.
Well it looks like she is right and this is popular opinion. Perhaps small Android phones not selling well is a marketing problem. I've never seen one advertised with size being a selling point.
Any other current gen recommendations?
https://www.androidauthority.com/samsung-galaxy-s26-screen-s...
Screen power draw and battery capacity scale as the square of the linear dimension. They largely cancel out.
However, all the other hardware are a fixed size so proportionally large phones have longer battery lives.
Like internal component can be rearranged to an extent, and battery is a tradeoff, but the panel need to be one on the market, no demand, no panel
My favorite to take with me is the 13 Mini. Would love an iPhone 18 mini.
I get the "just works" with decent privacy aspect of the smaller iPhone, health benefits from Apple Watch and for anything requiring longer screen time, termux, shelter cloned apps etc. I use the bigger android (Infact I'm typing this on the excellent HN client Hacki from android).
Earlier I used to use Apple Watch with android using a tool I built[1] which now serves notifications from android to my iPhone.
I'm glad Eric is going ahead with the small phone.
[1] https://github.com/abishekmuthian/apple-watch-with-android
With Android working on including a "desktop mode" where you can add a screen and HID devices, I sure hope that the phone screens will get smaller again.
I loved it for being so small and light. The last few years it became too slow for regular use (and many apps refused to install) so I put it in airplane mode and used it as an mp3 player.
I'd still be using it today, but I lost it! I was very sad.
I also loved the LG K8 (2017), wonderful device. That one was a touch bigger, but had a really nice curved screen.
I used an iPhone SE (2016) until last year actually, which was even smaller.
It worked fine, until software updates made it useless. That's a recurring theme with my phones!
Very similar story with me. The iPhone SE 1st gen was peak iPhone. Small, had a headphone jack (and could charge while using headphones), nice display, decent battery life. I absolutely loved that phone. I miss having it every day (when I have to use two hands to use this clunker of a phone I have now, when I sit down and feel this gigantic phone in my pocket, etc).
I used my iPhone 4 until the cellular radio wasn't supported anymore. Then I moved into an iPhone SE 1st gen. When the battery bulged I killed it trying to replace the battery (I am not suited to small electronics repair). I gave up, at that point, and moved to a janky Android phone because I couldn't get any phone I wanted from Apple (small and with a headphone jack).
I wish I could have enthusiasm for phones again. Everything isn't what I want.
I certainly won't make the mistake of making a phone integral to my personal workflows and habits again. I certainly won't come to rely on any native apps anymore, either.
I recognize I'm a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of the market. Very few people regard their technology like I do. I feel like the computers (and, at one time, the phones) I use are extensions of myself. I think it's a little like how a musician might regard a beloved instrument, or a craftsman might regard a well-used tool. Very few people get bent out of shape about subtle changes in UI, appearance, latency, or functionality the way I do.
I understand technology today isn't "for me".
It makes me really sad, though.
This phone looks like it might be good replacement but it could also be a bit dodgy. I'm going to wait a bit for reviews before considering buying it https://aiphor.com/products/bluefox-nx1-4-0-android-smartpho...
I don't understand how the market isn't considered big enough for any phone OEM: how can it be smaller than that of foldables? Or even if it is, isn't it still big enough, and shouldn't there generally be more sizes and form factors of phones?
It's as tho the car industry decided to only make 184" long SUVs (6.2-6.7" phones) and 200" long 3-row SUVs (foldables)... no other SUVs, no sedans/hatchbacks, no sports cars (much smaller and much lower volume). And different cars are actually hard to engineer and mass-manufacture the chassis and bodies for... in contrast a phone's HW is inherently more modular and mostly just the screen and battery need to be changed for each size.
Someone pinch me awake when that happens, thanks.
Also I think China makes 3-4" android phones but they're mostly a joke spec wise
Get used to making calls on a TV tray, and walking around looking like a schlub in cargo shorts for the rest of your life.
The foldables are such an interesting concept. I actually had a Surface Duo for a while (though a different style of foldable) and really liked it, but I only had one after they were a year old and I could try it out with a used phone for ~$200.
As a bonus, your phone number wouldn't be bound to that device, but instead would exist everywhere you can install the same softphone app.
And if it did keep running, I'm pretty sure it consumed decently more energy than a dedicated telephony module. And yeah as mentioned, even with a "real" local phone number ported to voipms, I wasn't able to get sms codes from some services.
I'm resigned to getting a new iPhone in Sept - reluctantly.
Odd UX that can't be configured (and no idea why). For example, if you touch the power button, it'll unlock and wake up the phone. There's no way to turn that off and require a click. Other android phones can but not minimal. like what the hell was going through their decision making process?
Now i'm on SE 2020, but every day i miss original SE form-factor.
There are so many Android phone models, but not a single one that's a reasonable size?
I have it since more than a year. I had the first one two weeks because I lost it as it fall through a hole in my pocket. So fix your pockets and buy this phone. I'm really happy with it :) And didn't found bugs since I have it.
Smaller size means smaller battery, but that's mitigated by the above. I want utilitarian. I don't want a phablet. I want practical and unobtrusive. The smartwatch was meant to replace the phone, but doesn't hit the right notes for me.
Today, bluetooth works quite well for me (I love not having cables... but it sucks that performance with a microphone is trashfire). 3.5mm adapters are cheap and easy when needed (rarely. I also have a $10 bluetooth->3.5mm in my travel kit that does get used once a year!). And with usb-c providing fast charging, I rarely feel like I'd benefit from battery swaps. I can give myself 50%+ in 30 minutes, with a portable battery that will power not just my phone, but any other device I run into. With Qi 2.2 releasing with 25W wireless charging, and magnetic coupling being standard now, you don't even need wires anymore. Carrying a bespoke phone-only battery seems like a massive downgrade today. (It also felt like a massive fire hazard!) Time to update your expectations!
Worth mentioning that battery swaps make water-resistance much much trickier to pull off. There' a real cost to battery-swappability.
I do wish we saw something like Ara, some phone modularity & extensibility. Fairphone has some modular parts, but it doesn't feel like an open ecosystem, and the parts dont seem super designed for expansion but more just replacement. I guess maybe Framework is doing the best work, albeit in a bigger form factor space, with their Expansion Cards, which are basically just a card form factor USB-C. Licensed CC-BY-4. https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionCards
Still want my phone battery to be replaceable, but I'm pretty fine with not being able to do it myself.
So, uh, can I please have that but with a more modern SoC and a non-potato camera?
I wonder if any were ever designed with a ThinkPad like aesthetic.
Also, you can buy reasonably sized Android phones. They're still big-ish compared to say, 2008, but not huge considering the lack of bezel.
I believe the big manufacturers don't want to make a small phone (as other users have indicated) because of the big screen's addictiveness. Also, they can't fit a large battery in them so battery life would be a few hours with 1000mp 16k cameras.
I'd rather carry a 1" thick, 4" tall phone than a 0.3" thick 8" tall phone. No pants pockets look normal anymore, and it is even more awkward to walk with tight pants.
You can believe whatever you want, but it doesn’t make it true. We know exactly why they make larger devices and it’s not a secret, it’s what consumers by and large want. It’s not a conspiracy.
Every time a vendor falls for the “we want small phones” thing, they sell poorly thus proving the point again and again that it’s a minority at best that are interested.
I busted out my old 4S, and the fit//finish,, materials, and just how nice it is to hold in your hand and operate are still really nice. Would love to fill it with modern guts.
Give them a permanent place in the lineup, treating phones like every other very personal device meant for humans. Small, medium, and large.
If you do that, and give people time to see exactly why 5.42 screens are superior to 6.1"+ sizes, then I think the numbers will start to change from what we saw with the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini, which were both launched when people were less on the go than in 100 years.
I have multiple screen with me, so my 13 mini is great.
That is another idea which apple didn't like.
Pixel 9 (2024) = 6.3 inches.
I know the Pixel 9 is not that small, but is close and an excellent phone (base or Pro models, the XL is bigger).
A full flagship phone at 6.1" size