Manufacturers don’t make displays under 6 inches available for purchase, with special cases (such as the iPhone Mini) being made under exclusive contracts. The best lead they have so far is to try to use displays designed for the front part of a foldable phone, but they’re yet to strike an agreement.
TIL that display manufacturers are also part of the reason why we aren’t getting small phones and why it’s probably even harder for manufacturers like Fairphone to make them.
I just want one with a removable battery and a headphone jack…
And SD card support. Why TF do I want to pay a mint for storage when I could spend like $50 (or less) for the equivalent (or more) in SD form?
it’s not that you want to, but rather that the companies want to charge you $100 more for $5 of ROM.
Either that or get you on a cloud storage subscription
That you’ll need stable internet to use (so goodbye using your media library while camping/offroading)
Not just that, but they get to charge $100 dollars more for the $5 of ROM while avoiding the support costs and reputation hit of idiots who force the SD card in the wrong way or blaming the device when the SD card is inevitably sheered in half after being forgotten about during a battery replacement.
Unfortunately every market incentive just aligns against expandable storage in phones.
Read Only Memory…?
This, also should the phone die, you can still take out the card and don’t lose your photos (fuck the cloud).
Wait until 2027 and buy a Sony then, I guess. They’re the only manufacturer who consistently includes a headphone jack and starting in 2027 all phones sold in the EU have to have removable batteries. Yeah, it’s pretty sad that that’s the only option…
Guess I’ll be moving to the EU in a few years ;-;
You don’t need to; the Brussels effect has you covered.
It’s cheaper to sell phones with replaceable batteries worldwide than to design the same phone twice for different markets. So most major manufacturers will probably just sell EU-friendly phones everywhere just like when the EU required USB charging ports.
Apple literally a victim of it’s own success.
Yeah, it’s pretty great here lol
Like the old days, man
I don’t mind not having a removable battery, and a headphone jack is nice but not make or break… but so few phones apparently have expandable storage these days.
This brothers me so much. It’s such an obvious cash grab - manufacturers can force you to buy a more expensive model of the same phone, cloud services can tap your wallet for additional space, and carriers can tap your wallet for a larger data plan.
It’s gross. There’s literally no consumer-friendly reason to strip it.
While I like having the options and agree it’s pretty shitty to remove those features, how do you use up all your storage? I upgraded to 256GB and am no where near filling it.
I’ve seen people argue they need to store a ton of media, but I’d argue you don’t need to keep a backup of everything in your phone. Rotate media out after you watched it or whatever.
Me too, Fan, me too.
…and a qwerty keyboard.
At the last EU is fighting to make your first wish happen.
RIP headphone jacks.
I don’t understand why we can’t have a phone a usb C port on top and bottom for audio + charging
Meanwhile me, a 6’4" man with big ass hands, is finally happy that most phones actually feel big enough for my fucking hands for once
Have an older iPhone we use at work and I almost can’t type on it with how small the fuckin screen is lol
But yeah, options are nice, make small screens more often ya nerds
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I just want a small screen and a physical keyboard like phones had when BlackBerry was still a thing. I had absolutely no trouble blind tiping on those even tho I have sausage fingers.
These days I depend on autocorrect and it betrays me fairly often
I moved from the normal sized iPhone to the Max this year. No regrets so far. The most common thing I do with my phone is consume media so the cumbersomeness has been a good tradeoff.
I had bought a 15 Pro on release day but returned it for the max after a week of continuing to doubt myself after holding a max in the store. I had jumbophones up till the iPhone X, I even had a Dell Streak back in the day.
Most suprising thing to me was that the speaker was insainely better. I stopped carrying a Bluetooth speaker around with me for when I’m working cause the speakers get the job done well enough now. It’s not a 1-to-1 replacement but it is just ggod enough that it suffices. Also, the battery life from the smaller phone to the larger was such a big increase that I’ve stopped carrying around an external battery but just keep a usbc cable with my in case my ecig runs out of battery and I need to charge it off my phone.
It’s been an interesting series of trade offs going back to a larger phone but then again, the bezels and thickness have reduced so much that a Max without a case feels the same as a normal size phone with a case. I thought I’d get bit by the screen being too big more than I have but I guess some honest self reflection on what I actually use my phone for compared to what I picture I use it for helped with the decision making. (I totally get that other people’s use cases with have completely calculus)
I don’t get what the obsession with big phones is. Is it that most people really want big phones or that companies can charge more for them?
It’s not that people want big phones, it’s that people like big screens.
Two main reasons I think:
- it’s easier to make a big phone as there’s more space for all the components
- the average consumer doesn’t use computers as much anymore, so people start using their phone for all kinds of things where they benefit from the bigger screen
People generally just want the biggest screen they can hold in their hands comfortably.
For most people that seems to have settled into the 6.5-6.7" range, depending on aspect ratio and bezels.
I’m old and my eyesight requires them now. Lol
For me it’s the bigger battery.
But then the bigger battery has to power a bigger screen 🤔
Second option.
Bigger screens which is the whole appeal with smartphones.
I have small hands and I hate that I have to jerry rig my phone with shit to just reach the upper part of it.
also, interesting side-by-side comparison of the Zenfone 10, the iPhone 15 and the Pixel 8 from the article:
This is what is pushing me towards a flip phone. I just don’t have a need for a 6.7" phone or bigger.
i want a smartphone, that i can hold securely
while still being able to reach the entire screen.i have pretty big hands, and even i cant reach the upper left quarter of my phone (pixel6a) without letting go of the left and bottom edges.
its ridiculousPutting things like a back arrow on the upper left is just asshole design, for starters.
Which is why Android very seldom puts stuff in the far top left corner and if it does, it’s the back arrow, which you can and should avoid by just using the universal back action via either gestures (my favorite), the on screen button, or the physical button if you have one.
Material design is pretty much about moving shit away from the top and especially lop left to the bottom
Similarly putting stuff in the upper right is just asshole design for those of us who are left handed, unfortunately that’s relatively common.
My favourite phone ever was my first android phone in 2010, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini (e10i). Every time I’ve had to buy a phone since, I’ve looked around trying to find something similar, but it feels like no such thing will ever exist.
Loved that phone. Check out the Jelly Star (I have the Jelly 2) if you want a small, full featured Android. Compromises for the size and price of course, but it has a headphone jack, sd card, IR blaster, and usb-c - everything I need.
Unihertz phones are really cool. My main phone is an S20 but I use an Atom with downloaded podcasts for hikes and runs.
Sony used to sell smaller phones in general. Plus, they all come with headphone hacks.
Nothing quite as small as the Mini, but the Sony Xperia 5 V is relatively compact in a “thin but tall” way. Sadly, I don’t think they’re still producing their Compact lineup.
If you want to go tiny, there’s the Unihertz Jelly Star:
Unihertz sells a phone with a 4.2" screen, but it’s still tall because there’s a physical QWERTY keyboard underneath the screen.
You just brought back fond memories of mine
I loved sliding that keyboard
I still have one in a drawer! It’s functional, but too old to use…
It was the perfect phone.
Mainstream ruined everything. Like it always does.
You mean corporate greed? Yes
I’m on the iPhone mini and I wish I could get a smaller phone. It is way better than the tablets my family carry!
I was disappointed when they discontinued the mini.
I’m a cyclist in the city so for me, a smaller size phone is ideal to keep it secure in a pocket. I got gifted a Pixel 6 about a year ago (wanted to stick with the Pixel 2!) and now I always need to bring some sort of pack to put it in.
On the other end there doesn’t seem to be any phablets either. they are all weirdly long screens.
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I had an og Dell Streak when it first came out. It absolutely blew people’s minds when they saw it back then.
Looked up some old reviews of it and can’t beleive it was a 5" screen. In my mind, I remember it being so much bigger.
Width has to still fit in hands to be mainstream.
Almost all popular mainstream Android phones are absolutely phablet sized to the point that it’s now the standard, and not the outlier. Your perception has just changed.
I’m still using my mi max 3 that’s 6.9" screen, no modern phone seems to be able to match that.
It’s not really that complicated, people expect high end phones to have all day battery, which is hard to do with a small phone.
If only high end smartphone chips focus more on efficiency rather than performance, which for most people is already powerful enough for day to day use.
It would stand to reason that a smaller screen would lend to less power draw both for the screen’s power usage and being able to use a lower resolution keeping the CPU draw lower too
My zenphone is small and has good battery life. Wish more would shoot for this type of form factor
the sad reality is many people will say they want a small phone like this, but then not buy it for some reason or another, then they sell less, and so companies abandon making them.
I am a very happy owner of a ZF10 too, lovely device.
“Won’t buy it for one reason or another” meaning the manufacturer intentionally builds the device so shittily that the feature you want is drowned out by 15 year old hardware and high prices. I’ve seen it happen a hundred times already.
I really hate this argument since it implies every phone is a 1:1 copy of the next and the only difference is the headphone jack, or SD card slot, or removable battery and “see! nobody wants this one feature anymore because ObscurePhone 22 had it and nobody bought it!” Never mind the fact that ObscurePhone 22 was built by child slaves using secondhand parts from old recycled Gateway computers, the screen is CRT, and they cost $5000 each, but yeah, “nobody bought it because people hate headphone jacks now.”
They could make a small screen phone, but thicker to make more room for a bigger battery.
At this point I’d rather buy a super outdated smartphone. They’re small enough for my hands and pockets, dirt cheap and still functional, and most of the good games left on Android are only available on those old versions.
I held onto my Sony XZ2c for months after calls stopped working on it after the US 3G shutdown. I got a flip phone for making calls.
The worst part? The XZ2c has VoLTE calling capability, but all the US phone companies refuse to support it on their networks.
Now I’m begrudgingly using a OnePlus 6 and praying that I don’t drop the massive thing >:[
Basically, even if we want to use aging tech we’re held hostage by telecom companies, who obviously would prefer to rope people into new devices on credit plans. ARGH
So wait, if US companies don’t support VoLTE then how do they do calls over 4G and 5G?
It was that VoLTE wasn’t supported for that particular model of phone. VoLTE is very much the norm here although I’m unsure if every phone uses it now. My flip phone probably doesn’t, but it’s hard to tell with how stripped down its manufacturer-customized Android is.
I use a dumbphone with volte as a backup phone for work on tmobile
For myself, phone screens have finally gotten to the perfect size for my hand, and a good size to actually use them for stuff comfortably.
But there should always be variation and choice, for the other users in the market!
