1y ago

The vanishing of the small high-end smartphone

www.smh.com.au The vanishing of the small high-end smartphone

The ASUS Zenfone 10 claims to be a pint-sized flagship, but the truth is there have been no truly small and powerful phones in 2023.

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.

103 comments

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.
  
  This, also should the phone die, you can still take out the card and don't lose your photos (fuck the cloud).
  
  Use common sense, most don't want them, they've proven to be unreliable vs real memory, and it lessens the ability to waterproof phones.
  The overwhelming majority uses and prefers cloud storage. Whether external or self hosted. Pay a mint? Literally costs pennies on the dollar for pretty respectable amounts.
- 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 ;-;
- 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.
- 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
- 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
  
  First point is incorrect, there's no easy/hard with the difference in an inch. People don't build phones, machines do. We're very capable of making small phones. That not what the market wants.
  Second point is 100% correct. People want computers, and with crazy battery life, batteries can only be so small if you want capacity. The bigger screens combined with that make the user experience for the majority better.
- 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.
- Second option.
- Bigger screens which is the whole appeal with smartphones.
- There isn't one, there's an "obsession" with phones that are usable by today's use case, which is computer replacements for the overwhelming majority.
  Step outside of the small phone echo chamber and youll see that's not even remotely what the market demand is. Fine if you like small phones, but you're the minority. If that's where the money was, they'd still be common.

Most of the issues people have with Android are one and the same. Compared to a decade ago, there isn't any choice any more
Years ago, there was almost too much variety at times, and manufacturers would experiment heavily alongside Google. Some phones had physical keyboards, some had no headphone jacks, some had no physical buttons at all, and they came in either stupidly small or (at the time) freakishly large.
Now, for some reason Android feels very sanitized, even the shite that manufacturers stick on top of stock to make it feel like it's their product and not Google's. There aren't even that many manufacturers any more, and unlike the past when Android embraced being a bit different, it all feels like everyone is trying to follow Apple instead of Android leading the pack....
- Very surprising that there's no 5.5" phones on the market. I still have good eyes and I'd rather have more pocket space. Sticking with the pixel 7a for now, but yearning for a new Xperia X Compact.
- It's all become so bland.

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:

Anyone who wants to keep this convo going, check out !compactphones@lemmy.world
- Joined!
- Thanks!

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 ridiculous
- Putting 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.
- Oh yes, to top it I have small hands - I can't reach almost any of the opposite edge without using two hands. Sigh.

This is what is pushing me towards a flip phone. I just don't have a need for a 6.7" phone or bigger.

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.
- [This comment has been deleted by an automated system]
- 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
- LOL, by "mainstream" you mean market demand? People use phones as computers now, people that want small phones are the 1%, Apple bought back small phones remember? The 1% loved it, the rest didn't. No money to be made = it won't get made.
  Same as people who want unreliable SD cards and wired headphones jacks, by far the statistically insignificant minority. What people want as a whole is what influences production, not fringe cases.
  
  Even I used to believe that there is a good demand, but sadly it's a very small minority.

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.

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.

Thank for bringing this up. I'm currently using a Samsung Galaxy S10e. I mostly use the smartphone from my pocket:
listening to podcasts with earbuds on;
running with Strava on;
working in the garden with music on;
checking messages with my smartwatch on;
driving my car with Android Auto on;
... . Of course I also use my smartphone itself for messaging, shopping online, banking, ordering takeaway, ... . And a larger screen would definitely be more comfortable in these cases. But having a larger smartphone when I'm currently using my smartphone while it's in my pocket, is a step back. In fact, for use at home I still have a Samsung tablet to have a bigger screen die when that's more useful. When I would switch to the SG S23 version, it seems that the dimensions of the new device are quite similar? Dimensions: S10e: 5.60 x 2.75 x 0.31 inches (142.2 x 69.9 x 7.9 mm) S23: 5.76 x 2.79 x 0.30 inches (146.3 x 70.9 x 7.6mm) Zenphone 10: 5.77 x 2.68 x 0.37 inches (146.5 x 68.1 x 9.4 mm)
So as long as the basic version of the SG s-series is sold in the above dimensions, I'm not worried 🤞

On the other end there doesn't seem to be any phablets either. they are all weirdly long screens.
- 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
  
  75% of your battery cycle, the screen is off. So a smaller screen can only win battery in that 25% window. A bigger battery on the other hand can be applied to 100% of the cycle.
  Unless you go oldschool lcd, a smaller screen does not gain as much as a bigger battery for battery cycle time.
- 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.
- They could make a small screen phone, but thicker to make more room for a bigger battery.

There was actually a meme I saw a while back where a guy was wielding a sword and shield. Except the sword was an iPhone and the shield was a samsung phone.

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?
  
  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!

I just want Sony to make another XZ1 Compact but with updated internals. Keep the screen size, camera shutter button, 3.5mm plug and make it thicker to squeeze in either wireless charging or a slightly bigger battery.
- This.
  Sony's Compact series was excellent, especially for someone with small hands like me. The bigger ones have no advantages for me.

and one of the driving forces behind the design of the Palm Pilot was that it had to fit in a shirt pocket …
- I just dug out my palm pilot to check, pretty shocking it's only about 5.5" diagonal. It seemed huge in the day.

Not just small phones actually big phones as well. Remember the Huawei P8 Max, Sony Xperia Z Ultra or Mate 20X?
Phones these days only seem to exist between 6" and 6.8".

I'm currently using a Samsung flip 5. I have it set up to use all my main apps on the outer screen, so I can just have a small screen. Then I have the option to open it for apps that I might want to be on a larger screen.
It's working out pretty well. Some days I never even use the inner screen.
- I might have to do this for my next phone. How's the battery life?

103 comments