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.
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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).
And if was off the phone there’d be nothing to take out. All my shit is stored in a combo of on my home server and hosted space. Not Google, not apple, not a privacy invading data miner. Cloud doesn’t equal evil.
A home server is not cloud.
Aside from me never claiming it was, I said my home server (and) hosted space.
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.
The people who still want SD cards have never had an SD card fail on them and it shows.
Exactly, when I worked in stores there was rarely a day somebody wasn’t coming in and flipping out that they lost all their shit and that we sold them defective cards so we could sell them more.
ReAl MeMoRy
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
Way to be overly dramatic. Ever hear of shipping? But enjoy being over taxed and privacy being more invaded than what the US does.
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.
I’ve nearly 40 gigabytes of FLACs as well as commissioned art (much smaller in size than my music collection) stored on a 256 gigglebyte card in my phone. While the 128 gigs built into my phone is more than enough, when it’s time to get a new phone all I gotta do is slap it into the new phone and boom, gucci. That convenience, on top of only needing to remove the card to add stuff to it, is why an SD card slot is non negotiable for me.
So you’re telling me if a perfect phone existed but did not have removable storage, you wouldn’t get it?
You can just transfer those things. This doesn’t make any sense to me, I’m sorry.
I would rather have any of the features that are part of the non-removeable storage, which I’m guessing is related to better water/dust resistance and a larger battery or other internals which I would use every day.
In fairness I’m not too picky outside of an SD card slot and 3.5mm jack. I ain’t a power user, so as long as I can chat with my buddies, reply to emails, enjoy my media, and it does all that just fast enough, I’ll take anything with an SD card slot and headphone jack. I’m not the average user lol
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
Man I have enormous hands. I can barely fit into most XXL gloves. I still prefer 6" phones.
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.
Is there a community for confidentlyincorrect?
It’s not about the assembly, but all the components and features you want to cram into the box while still having decent thermals and battery.
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.
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:
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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 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.
Oh yes, to top it I have small hands - I can’t reach almost any of the opposite edge without using two hands. Sigh.
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.
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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.
This is what is pushing me towards a flip phone. I just don’t have a need for a 6.7" phone or bigger.
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.
They’re all phablets. People used to make fun of my Note 4 endlessly but it’s practically tiny by modern standards.
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.
