If they're going to make only bog phones they could at least bring back all the hardware features they've removed over the years.
this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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Because apparently people want big phones.
For the last 10-15 years it's been a boiling frog situation really - .1 or .2" increase every generation until 7" somehow becomes the norm (for a phone, not a tablet, mind you).
I wish there were more small hi-end phones too.
Thought provoking!
Here's my dilemma:
- Been without cell service since the pandemic (eventually stopped using the smart phone altogether)
- All my digital needs are satisfied, devices and functionality in every room for every purpose I need
- Have multiple forms of solid and satisfactory communication channels (don't need a cell number)
I've thought about buying a model I could jailbreak, but again it's just to use a system that's abusive. "Download our app!", "Use our digital coupons!", "Link your phone number!", "Scan our code!", "Let us track your location for your convenience!".
I'm really a niche subgroup though, I already need other devices while at work that a phone wouldn't suffice for. I kinda see more people going this route though. If your transportation has a computer, then what's the endpoint in carrying a phone? If your job requires digital devices, the phone is basically reduced to a large brick of a communication device. I see more and more equipment being specialized and having added communication aspects for more complicated machinery, cell phones are not going to keep up with it in a general sense.
tldr: cell phones are just a fad with an abusive system that will die out one day and be remembered like rotary phones. They're generally subpar for any specific task and are only a place holder till we figure out better systems.
Even for the government you need apps nowadays. Yes you can try doing things in person but wait times aren't reasonable. I've been trying to get a dumb phone for myself but still find I need a smartphone for specific apps a couple of times a month...
What happens if sms 2fa is phased out, and more sites require either an Authenticator app or passkey?
My workplace requires an Authenticator app, actually multiple, and help with my phone bill in return for doing that in my personal device. I don’t know what they do if someone had a feature phone
Seriously.
I don't want a tablet in my pocket all day.
I bought my current phone because it was small and the options I had when looking for small phones were extremely limited.
I'm not trying to seriously game on a smartphone. I'm not trying to watch full length movies. It's in my pocket 90% of the time. I want it to be small.
You can. Ditch Apple and join us. Plenty of small phone selections here on the other side.
I used a Jelly pro for two years as a daily driver. Smaller than a credit card
Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo/OnePlus, and Vivo, the top four Android smartphone manufacturers, have not released a single phone with a display 5.5 inches or smaller in the past three years, according to data from GSMArena.
Seems like they’re going away on the Android side too.
Sure sure, plenty more that offers 4.7 and smaller.
I was small phone enjoyer until my Sony Z3 Compact. I really liked it, but after it died, I tried bigger phones and I couldn't go back.
Why is the article using diagonal screen size as their measurement for phone size? In that case you could have a phone the exact same size get “bigger” just because bezel sizes have shrunk over the years.
They specifically call out the iPhone SE as a “small phone” that they seem to want. But the newest iPhone, the iPhone 16 is only 6% bigger in width and height. Fractions of an inch larger. I can totally understand why somebody would want a phone with smaller overall dimensions, but why on earth would your metric for an ideal phone be a smaller screen?
Because, for a touch screen, the screen itself IS the user interface. Imagine while holding with one hand, you want to reach your thumb to the opposite corner to hit a button. Even if the body of the phone is the same, a larger screen will need a bigger reach for your thumb. That is primary issue.
I don’t see why we don’t already have an iPod size device. I just need something for music and if a phone call happens to come in - great! It was so simple then.
Bigger screens mean bigger and more obtrusive ads.
I'm convinced this is 90% of the reason right here.
I don't think phone makers are that close to ad companies.
It's most likely the same thing as a truck- people say they don't want this insecurity driven monstrosity, but test after test, people buy the bigger one.
Edit: I mis-wrote that, my implication was that the people deciding the phone size spec are going to be doing it off hard data like what customers like to buy and what extra hardware they can fit in. I know Google owns Pixel, but the data point surrounding more ad impressions is extremely weak compared to literally any other data point regarding consumer choices
I don’t think phone makers are that close to ad companies
Google?
Ironically they still have a small phone
I have a Pixel. It is literally made by one of the largest advertising companies in the world.
Google is not interested in a larger screen size so that more ads that otherwise wouldn't have been scrolled to can count as an impression. Given 95% of apps are scroll based anyways, you would get what - a couple percent more impressions on ads the user wouldn't have scrolled past before closing their phone?
No, this is not the main reason, especially when you consider every major phone brand on the market is going this way.
It's obviously a case of "consumers see big and click buy" (see: cars) and "big phone means more battery life and better specs we can market".
I miss the times when I found 5" phones big. Now they just seem small because everything else is pushing 7"
You have to also consider that when 5" was big, bezels were big too. With today's thin bezels the same physical size that used to hold 5" could probably hold 5.5".
It also used to be commonplace to have a physical home button below the screen on a number of flagship devices, along with the camera being positioned separate from the screen.
I feel like that could bring us closer to a modern equivalent of 6” screens in the same body
"Why can't we go back to small phones"
Company releases small phone
"No one" buys it
Company stops making small phones
People complaining why there are no small phones
Don’t forget that company does fuck all in advertising the small phone at a similar level as the “regular sized” phone
no one bought it because it was shit. companies do this all the time so they can make more expensive things more cheaply, and force people into buying the most expensive.
I want an easily removable battery. As in, I want to be able to have two batteries, one in my phone and another in a charger and I just swap them once a day. I used to be able to do that, and it was normal. Now, the only phones that have that are either extremely garbage or also feature a barcode scanner and cost as much as a "flagship" device.
"because it was shit" if you look at the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini they were essentially the same phone just in different sizes, while the sales of the mini stayed in the low 1 diget % the iPhone 13 was around 35-40% of all iPhone sales in it's first year.
I agree with some of the things in your 2nd part it has nothing to do with small phones.
And not to say you said it but it came up in the article a couple times, comparing screen inch sizes to determine if a phone is big or not is flawed > the screen to body ratio increased a lot over the last year's which means that a phone could have the same physical size with a bigger screen.
I think I may have just done a bad job of explaining my first point:
I'm saying that manufacturers are putting these features on phones that people weren't going to buy anyway on purpose, in order to support the narrative that nobody wants those features.
There's counter examples of course, but for the most part I think what I said is applicable.
I held on to my iPhone 4S as long as I could. Now I have a 12 "mini". I know I'm in the minority, though, because I don't spend all day staring at my phone. I do like having all the features, but I use them only occasionally--say, once a week or less. I prefer my internet use on my gaming computer with a big monitor, and a full-size keyboard.
I expect I'll end up with a huge phone for my next one, that I don't need, just to keep access to the functionality. Like everything else in life, there's always compromises to be made.
I believe I saw where you hear that people want small phones, they make them, and then they sell poorly. So, to the company at least, it doesn’t look like people want the smaller devices.
Now, I saw some comments in here about the smaller devices usually being less robust than their normal/pro counterparts, and that could also be a major reason small phones don’t sell.
They make bad small phones that people don't buy because they're bad, then conclude its because people don't buy small phones.
They make phones like the palm palm, the second phone you have to pair to your other phone, for those days when the big phone is too big. Also the battery didn't even last a day. When it doesn't sell they say its because it was small, not the everything else.
I bought a pixel fold because the screen on the front is small and it opens in a wide format when I need to look at tables
Same reason I have a Samsung Fold. 75% of the time it's a small phone for small regular tasks. When consuming media, I open up.
There is a feature called single hand mode on most keyboards. Makes it something like this. I do however agree that small phones are nice.
My default setting. Big hands =\
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