Technology

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.

Bigger screens mean bigger and more obtrusive ads.

I'm convinced this is 90% of the reason right here.

I held on to my iPhone 4S as long as I could. Now I have a 12 "mini". I know I'm in the minority, though, because I don't spend all day staring at my phone. I do like having all the features, but I use them only occasionally--say, once a week or less. I prefer my internet use on my gaming computer with a big monitor, and a full-size keyboard.

I expect I'll end up with a huge phone for my next one, that I don't need, just to keep access to the functionality. Like everything else in life, there's always compromises to be made.

I believe I saw where you hear that people want small phones, they make them, and then they sell poorly. So, to the company at least, it doesn’t look like people want the smaller devices.

Now, I saw some comments in here about the smaller devices usually being less robust than their normal/pro counterparts, and that could also be a major reason small phones don’t sell.

I miss the times when I found 5" phones big. Now they just seem small because everything else is pushing 7"

I do, I bought smallest phone available from known company. But most of those companies just decided you need huge phone that can't fit everywhere, removed sdcard slot, removed headphone jack. Last time I remember nobody asked them to remove those features. I think it is the same enshittification like with everything, they no longer make cheap houses, smaller cheaper cars, actual budget gpus etc, etc. Feels like every company targets top 20% and the rest - gtfo and be damned.

Because most people use their phone as their main, if not only, device, so a bigger screen is more desirable to consume content.

I bought a pixel fold because the screen on the front is small and it opens in a wide format when I need to look at tables

There is a feature called single hand mode on most keyboards. Makes it something like this. I do however agree that small phones are nice.

Answering single handed on me iPhone 12 mini on latest iOS 😇

It is a great small phone!

I don't want a small phone or a slide out keyboards.

I want :
Replaceable battery.
Non glass back.
3.5 jack.

I want a repairable phone. A phone where I can replace the battery

Why can't we go back to small phones?

The iPhone SE is dead,

Is there any chance that you chose to lock yourself into a very small walled garden with a vendor who might make decisions about product that you might not agree with?

Apple is the only one making iOS phones, and Apple doesn't seem interested in small devices anymore, so that door is shut.

Right. You stick yourself in that garden, you are gambling that the vendor is going to come out with the product that you want.

There are still a few niche companies working on smaller devices, like Unihertz, but those phones almost always have low-end hardware and limited software support.

Well, size is kind of a constraint on what hardware you can put in the thing.

If what you mean by "limited software support" is "apps are going to be optimized for the bulk of users and will probably feel small if the great bulk of users are using larger screens", well...I mean, yeah.

The iPhone 3 SE you have:

4.7-inch (diagonal) widescreen LCD Multi‑Touch display with IPS technology

1334-by-750-pixel resolution at 326 ppi

Memory 4 GB LPDDR4X RAM

https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?nYearMin=2022&nRamMin=8000&fDisplayInchesMax=5.5

Let's grab one from that list:

https://www.gsmarena.com/ulefone_armor_mini_20t_pro-13298.php

Size 4.7 inches, 53.3 cm2 (~63.1% screen-to-body ratio)

Same screen size as your phone.

Resolution 720 x 1600 pixels, 20:9 ratio (~373 ppi density)

30 pixels narrower, but 266 pixels taller than your phone.

8GB RAM

Twice the memory of your phone.

Can buy online in the US:

https://www.amazon.com/Ulefone-Armor-Mini-20T-Pro/dp/B0DJ74TQXT

And it was released October 2024, so it's pretty new.

Now, you may not be able to get an iOS phone that fits your hardware wants, but them's the breaks when you go with a platform that has only a single vendor making hardware for it.

There were benefits to the comically-large form factor, though. Touch keyboards worked significantly better with larger screens,

No, the tiny soft-keyboard on my old Galaxy Xcover is significantly easier to type than any modern phone. Less movement of the finger, easier targeting of the buttons. I'm always surprised anew, each time i dust it off and play with it.

How many times is this going to be regurgitated? The question has been well and truly answered.

We don’t buy them.

I don’t understand why so many people here keep saying that it’s too hard to make a small phone when all these companies literally make watches with 5G connections…

Why can't we go back to small phones?

Well, I can't speak for everyone else, but I can't go back because they don't sell any small phones.