Because every time a manufacturer releases a small phone, nobody buys them.
this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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Well yeah, the people who want a small reliable phone are unlikely to replace them every year for no discernible reason. Cue more articles and comments about how there’s no sale data to support the idea that people want small phones! The odds are stacked against us.
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.
Large phones are supposed to be called phablets, but it seems like that distinction was phased out as they got bigger.
I remember that term. It was short-lived.
Yeah, because nobody wanted to call a phone a phablet. It's a stupid name.
Phablets were more like an iPad Mini than an iPhone Pro Max back then. They were huge compared to the biggest phones around. I remember seeing people talking on the street with highe phones pressed to their cheeks.
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.
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.
Can we make this its own thread? Cause I'm genuinely interested in this often.
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.
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
Thought provoking!
You can. Ditch Apple and join us. Plenty of small phone selections here on the other side. Edit: you know what. Android doesn't have that many either.
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.
Anything decent without bloatware, with a propper non-MediaTec processor and a long support time with security patches?
You know. I stand corrected.
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 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.
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.
You see ads on your phone?
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
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(2 replies)
"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
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(4 replies)
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
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