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We demand more small phones!

Started by Redaktion, September 01, 2020, 02:02:56

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Igniam

I have owed small phones since when I can't remember. Enjoying learning cryptic typing with the pre-qwerty feature phones of old, moving on to a 4" Huawei handset, which was snatched during a mugging ' managed to keep my fare at least, else the trek home....' I then went back to a feature phone, this time qwerty, the appeal of writing correct language (sort of😅) was sort of embedded in me, but e-mail had become important so I got a Blackberry, like every normal person, with a wish to be mobile yet connected. I then settled to a Lumia 520 for a good amount of time, having discovered Telegram. Loved it so much got another 520 after the first got irreparably damaged, then the 550 some few months later because Windows 10. Best times of my life, Windows Mobile rocks😎. Though I left it somewhere, and never went back for it, was sort of mad at Microsoft for giving up on the OS, do miss it though, badly.
I then went ahead and bought a HTC10 good phone, really. But, it was too much, too big, too slippery, it felt like I had soap on my hand, wet soap. So I sold it and bought an iPhone, the 4s. Then I missed the power of the 10, so I got another iPhone, the 7. Small in size, great in power, and it's still supported, albeit with not as smooth and logically laid Interface as Metro, but oh well, whatever can a single man do.

Looking at current trends, the bigger screen sizes are a compensation to the ever increasing  consumption of media and gaming on the go, and since most of humanity falls under this category, making a new niche segment doesn't equate with the big expectation of wider margins. Even with the SE (2020) which is more of a ' Let's say farewell to this design and leave it at a good footing, 'and make money out of it, 'Yea!!' Sort of device, the intend was a play, with nostalgia, supported with the ease to manufacture the device at a low, very low cost, and clean out as much as possible of the 'old' platform for the 'new' one.

Sony did great with the compact line, which is more than can be said for most. I just hope that there is a company that really grows a heart for the < 5.5" handset, base it's flagship on that size.

I do wonder though, about the Note with that 6.9" screen, 🥶

vertigo

When the Note first came out, I joked about how people looked like they were holding a tablet up to their heads to talk on the phone. I've since been dismayed to learn that many people actually like having such a massive phone, and unfortunately phone manufacturers seem to cater almost exclusively to those people, ignoring those users that want a phone that's actually portable. And it's interesting that, aside from phablets like the Note, the transition to larger sizes has been gradual, almost as if they're easing consumers into it, like slowly raising the temperature of a pot of water with a frog in it. I wonder if people (those that didn't jump straight to phablet devices) would be so accepting of these massive phones if the manufacturers had suddenly increased by 1-1.5" and a few dozen grams instead of a quarter inch and half dozen grams at a time.

I've also been frustrated by the inability to find many phones of reasonable size and weight; I've been looking for a replacement phone for the past year to year-and-a-half, and none of them have been worth it to me for various reasons, but there have been a handful that I might have gone with if not for being too big and/or heavy. Even my current phone is pushing the limits of both, and almost all the newer ones are even bigger and heavier. I even had to change how I hold my phone, because I used to support the bottom with my pinky to improve my grip on it, but had to stop since the increasingly heavy phones started hurting my pinky.

At least it seems like in the past couple years the screen-to-body ratio has been increasing more to allow for larger displays with less increase in the size of the phone, but even so manufacturers still seem intent on also increasing the phone size to make the screen even bigger, not content to just gain a little extra screen size in the same size body (which I would think would be preferable, since it seems that would require less R&D). Granted, I was hesitant about increasing size even when moving from a roughly 4" to 5" screen, only to find I got used to it and actually preferred it due to increased usability, but I've personally hit my limit at this point (on a 3-4 year old phone), as it still feels a bit much sometimes even after all those years of use. I do find that it feels very small after using my tablet for a while, but I quickly readjust.

I actually looked at Sony a few years ago, more for the (at the time) extreme and unbeatable battery life, but didn't get one, and haven't since, due to their limited availability and concern about warranty coverage (they either come from an unauthorized retailer with no warranty or, if there are any with a warranty, I frankly don't have faith that it would be handled well). I considered the Samsung S10e, but didn't get it for three main reasons: small battery with resultant short battery life (biggest reason), poor power button placement, and I just don't like some of the tweaks Samsung does to Android. I really like what they're doing with folding phones, though, and think that's the future of phones. In fact, I was wanting something like that for at least a couple years before they even mentioned it. It would be amazing to have a smaller, more manageable phone but be able to open it up for a bigger screen when needed. Best of both worlds. Of course, it'll be a few years before they come down in price enough to be even close to mainstream.

And then there are a lot of other annoyances and compromises in phones that I wish review sites would take responsibility and call the manufacturers out on (same with computers), but pretty much every review site just glazes over or completely ignores them, and certainly doesn't make a point to hold the manufacturers' feet to the fire by stating in each and every review when they make stupid design choices, e.g. small batteries, no removable storage, USB 2.0, small amounts of storage/RAM, microUSB (may not be an issue anymore, but there were still phones coming out with this years after USB-C came out), and inability to unlock bootloaders and voiding warranty when doing so. The last one being the primary reason I've been wanting to go OnePlus, but for a company who's motto is "never settle" they require their customers to do an awful lot of settling, such as using USB 2.0 all the way up to and including the 6T, no expandable storage (even worse when combined with limited storage capacity), mediocre battery life, and releasing some versions in the US and not others (e.g. 7 Pro, which is too big, but not 7).

I realize there's a lot of subjectivity in all of this, and different people have different priorities, but I often feel like phone and laptop (and peripheral and other) manufacturers just try to do the same as everyone else, leading to numerous products very similar to each other, many of which are lacking in important areas, instead of being innovative and daring to be different. And that's how we have 99% of phones being either too big/heavy, because they all want to cater to that market, or being a reasonable size and weight but then cutting themselves off at the knees by handicapping important specs. It's like they don't want to make an ideal product. I've read through dozens of laptop reviews over the past couple weeks and probably >50 in the past year or so, and it's a regular occurrence for them to be almost perfect, but then there's a couple poor decisions made that drag them down and lead to a non-purchase. It's really crazy how often this happens, and makes me wonder what the people in charge of these decisions are thinking, and if the companies actually want to sell their products.

Victor

I agree!! Phones became too big, impossible to carry on a pocket

Kvarta

Yeah, its anoyng that you must have a bag for your smartphone.

Damien

Preach! I think this might be the reason why you are one of the few tech sites that still have a best compact phones list. We need more reviewers speaking out like this.

NoteBookFan876

This reminds me of an article years ago with same issue from gsmarena. They also had a petition to go along with it ~ a few months later (I think) ..the Z1 compact was released.

www.gsmarena.com/help_us_make_a_change_sign_our_smartphone_petition_now-news-5891.php  maybe you should join forces to do another petition ;) ;) :D

They are very few relatively small phones out there which have sacrificed their top & bottom bezels for a lengthier screen from some what high to medium specs which i'm fine with the latter. It seems the market is cranking out nothing but large phones (with 720p why??)..

The Mi 9 se (if you can get/ afford it) the recently 4A, A41 are very note worthy..then again how long before we see some more if any at all =/. Currently I'm rocking an A01 ;D Though it has a few short comings which has been discussed, it is quite comfortable to hold & easy to operate in one hand, light weight & of course pocket-able.

Yes! We demand more small phones! With good specs!

GordonnotRamsay

There are advantages with having smaller phones, it fits better in your pocket, compact, and easier to bring. You can go for the google pixel phone or the iphone se 2020. Both are affordable and in the smaller side

Wiwa

Yes we demand handier smartphones!  Pixel 4a width minus 4 mm, hight minus 10mm, weight ok

Josephine

Oh my, I couldn´t have said it better myself! Give us back high class small form factor smart phones! The new iPhone12 Mini leads the way, now please Android manufacturers, follow this example!

Shaylah

Yes! More compact, high-end phones. And make them available in Canada! Just because we want smaller phones, doesn't mean we want to revert to a flip phone or completely basic smartphone. I'm hanging onto my XZ1C until a decent alternative shows up. The Samsung Galaxy S10e seems promising but they are currently in short supply here.

D. Henry

There are a few reasons that I can think of as to why the big tech brands are releasing smaller phones or listening to the market demands...

1) The bigger the phone, the bigger the price tag, the bigger the unit profit margins
2) incremental releases of new technology such as 5G to get people to use trade-in and insurance programs to upgrade yearly or face the full, cardiac arrest-inducing price tags

They've done everything to make small flagships entirely feasible, more so now than ever before:

1) screen to body ratios are at all-time lows
2) battery tech is advancing faster than ever thanks to all manner of e-tech adoption outside the mobile and computing arenas - "economies of scale"
3) hardware/software optimization is so advanced thanks to smart device adoption
4) OEM OLED technology is not a monopoly anymore and OLED technology is and has always been a massive benefit to battery optimization
5) OEM's finally are placing priority on the specialization of cameras of a device - opting for multiple cameras that do one thing very well, rather than a single lens that does almost nothing right
6) other internal hardware has never been more compact - as mentioned in the article, - "With microchip manufacturing processes reaching into the single digits of nanometers"

So the question of size is quite a curious one from a user's perspective, but perhaps not so much so from an OEM's perspective.

It seems my first enumerated point of profit margins takes precedent over the optimization of existing and new tech within the framework of "user comfort".

Headwesty

Well here we are half way through 2023 and I still can't move on from my XZ1C.  Robust, no nonsense, still fast.  I have it attached to my bike handlebars in rainstorms!  I just got a Zenfone 8 as the nearest vaguely modern phone but I think it might be going back on eBay.  By comparison the XZ1C has a 100% reliable fingerprint reader (in the right place) and a camera button (this is Sony!).  Who cares that it's a bit boxy when it's in a case?  I have been a fan of the Sony compacts since my first Z1 Compact - though I do miss wrist loop attachment point!

A

Quote from: Headwesty on June 20, 2023, 12:24:49Well here we are half way through 2023 and I still can't move on from my XZ1C.  Robust, no nonsense, still fast.  I have it attached to my bike handlebars in rainstorms!  I just got a Zenfone 8 as the nearest vaguely modern phone but I think it might be going back on eBay.  By comparison the XZ1C has a 100% reliable fingerprint reader (in the right place) and a camera button (this is Sony!).  Who cares that it's a bit boxy when it's in a case?  I have been a fan of the Sony compacts since my first Z1 Compact - though I do miss wrist loop attachment point!

It is 2023 and I still can't find a top end keyboard phone or a top end phone with a removable battery...

I mean it is pretty clear the ship has sailed for smaller phones, I mean be aware as people want more features on stuff in their phones, you need space to fit it.

That said, now there is at least some variety other than slabs like those bendable phones, many of them are smaller than regular phones before you open them up

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