- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
You must log in or # to comment.
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 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
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.
“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
@BlueBaggy @corbin as a tiny-handed person, I resent being called “no one”
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.
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.
Stock market says brrr
Because most people use their phone as their main, if not only, device, so a bigger screen is more desirable to consume content.
By that logic everyone should buy a foldable
I would, if long term durability is not a concern and the price is not too damn expensive.
Basically if money is no issue.
Answering single handed on me iPhone 12 mini on latest iOS 😇
It is a great small phone!
Answering the phone single-handed sounds like it should be possible on even the largest of phones. No problem for me using a Pixel 9 Pro, although it’s not a very big phone of course.
That was discontinued after two iterations. Was going to switch to ios just for their mini range after years of Android, then saw that they got rid of small phones as well. Like, what would I gain by switching ecosystems if I know that the next phone is still going to be huge?
BTW, I settled for an S24, which is considered “small” now but still way too big, but at least Samsung has a decent one handed mode that doesn’t hide half of your screen like ios or stock android but instead decreases the whole screen to bearable sizes:
Still feels like the damn clown mask meme, where, after years of increasing phone sizes, they now add a stupid software feature to virtually decrease screen size to remain usable.
I second this.
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.
This is how you know a boomer wrote that 🤣
Feels same for modern UI, everything is just giant these days… I need at least 4k, else I go vomit even on 100% zoom level these days.
Luckily, it is possible to set standard scaling of browsers to 50%…deleted by creator
Yea, 😄 not you are the boomer, the one who thinks writing on larger screen is more easy, is the boomer
I don’t want a small phone or a slide out keyboards.
I want :
Replaceable battery.
Non glass back.
3.5 jack.Galaxy Xcover series.
3.5 jack is easy, most budget phones have them (along with a MicroSD card slot)
The replaceable battery? That’s gonna be hard to find. There the obvious Fairphone, but its very costly for its specs and is only made for EU, and even if someone from the US imports it, the only US carrier allowing it is Tmobile.
Samsung Galaxy XCover series have IP67 Water resistance, headphone jack, and MicroSD card slot, and the replaceable battery, but its specs are not that good for its cost (as reported by various Reddit users).
I wouldn’t trust the water resistance tho. One drop into a puddle and the back comes off exposing the internals.
The xcovers backs usually stay on when you drop them and the back only really holds the battery in. The internals are protected by another layer of plastic.
As you say the specs do suck though.
3.5 jack.
They exist, but it’ll constrain your phone choices a lot.
I’d just get a USB-C-to-1/8"-TRS adapter. If you want to charge while playing, you can get one with passthrough.
Without passthrough:
https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Adapter-Female-Samsung-Devices/dp/B08Z3B5QL3
or with passthrough:
https://www.amazon.com/ZOOAUX-Headphone-Charging-Earphones-Compatible/dp/B094Z6149B
Can probably just leave the thing plugged into your headphones.
Yeah I get they exist, but I will lose that in a day
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.
That phone isn’t actually small. It has a small screen, but it’s 25mm thick and weighs 300g.
“walled garden” - how many 5.4” android phones can you name from the current decade?
I agree, it’s like the author is saying “why this public-market company I trusted blindly is not doing what I (minority) want?”
I think it’s a valid criticism that should be welcomed. You could make this argument for any company when they make a bad decision.
“Oh well you trusted this company blindly so why are you upset and criticizing this design choice you don’t agree with.”
I also am not convinced a criticism is less meaningful if it’s the minority opinion. Many such cases in the world where the minority opinion is proven to be better for the majority.
RAM is a horrible indication of phone performance imo.
The A15 chip in the iPhone 3 SE absolutely destroys the Dimensity 6300 chip in the 8GB phone you linked
A lot of people had liked iPhone because for the longest time android phones were not able to compete in the cpu/gpu space especially around the time of the iPhone 11.
Although now at the high end android phones are much closer together in performance so it’s more about what features you care about more between the phones.
The truth is though that it’s not an apple-specific thing. On the android side Asus was the last large phone maker to ship modern small phones, and even they have taken over their zenfone line (small phones line) with a large phone for the ZenFone 11.
Based on reports from companies, it sounds like the market is just not there, at least not big enough to warrant the R&D compared to “regular” phones which make them good money.
And it has a flir camera. Not super useful for the masses, but flippin awesome nonetheless
Flip phones with 7 day battery life, including 20 hours of talk time?
I assume that the author specifically wants a smartphone.
How many times is this going to be regurgitated? The question has been well and truly answered.
We don’t buy them.
That, and small phones on the Android side are often nerfed beyond reason, like a bottom-of-the-barrel Mediatek SoC with low RAM and shit storage option instead of the bigger model’s Snapdragon and quality storage, or shit cameras, or garbage screen resolution, etc etc.
There is something to be said about the larger variant having more room for better cameras, but outside of that, the nerfing feels almost intentional.
Small size means a smaller battery. If they make the phone’s processor too powerful, the battery will run out in less than a day, and then everyone will be mad about that. There’s also less surface to dissipate heat.
Making things smaller is harder and more expensive, but people who want small phones don’t want to pay more than large phones.
Removed by mod
They don’t care about “you”. They care about their “consumers” (as in, you in bulk), who don’t buy them.
It’s capitalism; simple as that.
But I want mine to have a goatee, why doesn’t apple give iPhone a goatee?
Not to mention: the old people (the ones with money) can’t see them.
How many times is this going to be regurgitated?
OP is an iPhone user. They’re very used to their tiny phones and they love them and simply can’t understand why everyone wants a large phone.
It’s a blind take. If iPhone 16 Pro Max sold less than iPhoneSE, then they would still sell the latter.
But there is no comparison.
When are we finally going to get curved phones on some kind of bracer? They wear them in every futuristic movie, we finally have curved screens, and no one’s made one for wearing on your forearm yet.
Sounds like a big smart watch.
And I’m not sure how useful the Pip-Boy format would be. Now you’ve got a device that still requires both arms to use, but you can only use one hand…
Exactly. I wish at least the smart watches were 2-3x wider to be more useful. Maybe just give us some kind of arm dock that curves the device when attached, and flattens when removed for more hands on stuff.
More than one company has gotten to the prototype stage. Don’t remember any huge companies, but there’s video out there. You don’t realize how much the form factor sucks until it’s real.
Maybe they could make a pop out version that would flatten when off the dock. Seems like it would be less wear and tear going from slightly curved to flat than the screens that fold completely.
Because they’re fucking stupid.
I can pick up a phone in either hand and type on it using only that hand, and I can play games using both hands at once. If I’m using a bracer, it means I can’t do anything else with either hand or use my off hand to interact with it.
The only problem a bracer solves is not having pockets, but even then you still need to wear a bracer.
Bracer if unbreakable could be decent to use a gadget for industry applications, I think. Easier to check the screen, without keeping one of your arms off to do so
Honestly sounds like a benefit. Could help battle phone addiction.
Samsung had a smart watch with a curved screen and a 3g modem in 2014 (the original Gear S). I guess it didn’t work out.
I want a repairable phone. A phone where I can replace the battery
replace the battery
Besides the obvious Fairphone, theres a Samsung Galaxy XCover series, which acoording to many users on Reddit, the specs are not great for its price. The latest XCover 6 Pro is like $599 USD at release.
I bought a refurbished Xcover 6p and so far it’s great. There’s also the perks of being intended for companies: very long software support and pogo pin charging accessoires.
And screen. And buttons.
I also want something that’s supported more than 3 years so there’s a point to repairing it. Ideally, support should come from the community so it can be infinite as long as someone is willing to do the work.
Based on https://postmarketos.org/install/ the Nokia N900 can run the latest stable release of PostmarketOS.
Nokia N900 was a proper Linux-powered phone released in November 2009.
So yeah, it’s been getting over 15 years of community support so far.
Edit: Fixed typo
What’s wrong with Fairphone then? Think I’m gonna buy FP 6 when it arrives
They are pretty expensive for the hardware.
Unless I’m misremembering don’t they charge flagship prices but have midrange specs?
Unfortunately, that’s the cost you pay for a more “ethical” phone. Apple, Samsung, and all the mainstream phones are cheaper because they are subsidized by underpaid labor and sometimes even child labor.
(Not judging people who buy mainstream phones, just stating the reality.)
Thanks! I didn’t know that was part of their thing. I just thought they made the phones repairable. Has their supply chain been audited by a third party?
I’ve also been looking at FP but I believe there are some issues of getting one outside of Europe.
We only get FF 4 here (US), and through a reseller (Murena). And my understanding is that there are caveats in the bands it supports.
I am in the US, and bought my FP5 through clove technologies in the UK. I’m on T-Mobile and get 5G and everything.
No Jack.
Hum… So Fairphone ?
I really wanted to buy the Fairphone 5, but they don’t ship replacement parts to where I live which makes the entire concept pointless.
Forward shipping exists.
OK, so that’s a possibility, but when you start adding a ~$30 fee on top of the cost of the part and shipping from Fairphone you’re looking at about $100 per repair, which stops making sense pretty quickly. You’re better off spending a little more money on a good device that is dust- and moisture-sealed and taking care of it for a few years.
Makes sense. But you can offset part of the shipping from the fact that you can easily do the repair yourself.
Another possibility would be the HMD Skyline. Less repairable than Fairphones, but still far easier than most other smartphones. Only 2 years of updates though.
But starting from 2027, a removable battery will be mandatory for all smartphone in the EU, which mean most, if not all smartphone will switch to removable battery. This may also make repair a lot easier.
For the US, its not just shipping, but also an import fee on top of that, since the De Minimis rule just got overturned by the trump administration.
Yea, but with the De Minimis rule overturned by the trump administration, importing it to the US is gonna have import fees. And also a lot of fees for each part you import, making the whole “repairability” thing pointless as it cost so much.
Unsure why you were downvoted. This is true
For being too forward, maybe?
I’m curious, how repairable? Like comfortable with a solder iron or slots and what not like a PC?
Repairable phones would be great but the demand for them hasn’t undone the cost of design for them. There’s a lot of tech in an incredibly small package, so repairable phone would still require people to have specialty equipment to repair.
Like very few people own an oven for working with BGA chips. And if we go with socket based chips, the thickness of the phone has to increase or the battery has to decrease.
Don’t get me wrong, I think an open and repairable phone would be great. But having one is an engineering challenge that most phone makers have opted to just skip putting dollars into because the demand for one doesn’t justify the cost. Your average buyer is just chasing shiny and doesn’t see repairing their dinosaur as valuable.
But yeah, I’m sure there’s plenty here that would love such a device. Sadly we are not the majority.
Imo I don’t think the goal is/should be “every part is repairable by any average person without tools” tbh. Like that would be awesome but it also isn’t realistic, like you said phones are super complicated. But making simple repairs – stuff like swapping a battery – possible for anybody is realistic imo, and then the rest should be as easy to repair as possible for local shops or someone who does have the necessary skills and equipment. At least personally I feel like that’s a good spot to aim for.
Replacing SMT components would fall outside of repairability for 99.99999% of people. More realistically things like ports, screens, and batteries should be replaceable since they’re typically connected to the main board with cables. Furthermore ICs going back on a phone is probably extremely rare while the above mentioned items are very common failure points.
It’s sad that people have gotten used to just throwing away stuff instead of repairing it. Sure, some repairs really aren’t worth it - like the screen I’d gotten replaced of my LG G3 that was prone to have this defect with its screen regardless of screen swaps and whatnot - but most of the time, it’s just minor things that can actually be fixed by non-tech savvy person.
I think it should be of paramount importance that more companies are held accountable as to the amount of waste they’re producing and how much they’re contributing to pollution and waste around the globe. Unfortunately, capitalism is a thing, so that’s not gonna happen.
Having repairable options for those that do care is awesome, though. If I could afford, I’d gladly go for a Fairphone if I ever need to replace my current phone (still going strong after 5 years of use). Until their mass appeal, they’ll likely remain out of my pockets.
Bga is more about skill than equipment. I’ve done it with a cheap hot air gun and a toaster oven. Though it took many failed attempts to get right
But this isn’t always about your phone being repairable by you. It’s about your phone being repairable at all. Apple, google, samsung, et al have made it clear that they have no interest in refurbishing and repairing phones. That’s fine, they have the right to do whatever I guess. And further, this creates a great opportunity for many people to create small businesses.
America has very few markets left wherein one can create a business that is not utterly dominated by some conglomerate that will eat your shit. This is one where you can do so, with honest work (eg not just buying shit from Chinese manufacturers and reselling it on amazon for a profit).
However, the tech industry is openly hostile to small business and its consumers, so every business that has worked in this sector has been either destroyed or hollowed out to barely anything by big techs greedy bullshit in the name of security.
This would enrich communities: you would have another possible route where someone local could open a business within the community, that would hire locally within the community. But apple, samsung, microsoft, etc lobby extremely hard to make sure that they never have to stop pairing parts, providing spare parts, providing schematics, etc. and of course they’re not being asked to do this for free. They’re being asked to do this for a fair and reasonable cost, but they still refuse.
Now designing phones with user replaceable wear items like batteries or even common failure points like screens is obviously a good idea as well in theory but comes with challenges. However the challenges are mixed. Batteries can be user replaceable in thin and waterproof phones. The galaxy s5 is almost as thin and almost as waterproof as the s23 and has a user replaceable battery. If more engineering effort was put forth I’m sure it could be greatly improved. The issue is design; they (especially apple) don’t want to disrupt their “beautiful”glass back phones that 99.9999% of people slap a case on. User replaceable screens are more challenging to make waterproof but I’m sure they could figure it out.
But if the above was addressed, they wouldn’t necessarily have to. We could go back to the days of going to a small store next to your grocery store and getting your phone screen changed out for $150 while you do your shopping. except much more money because an iphone 16 pro max oled is ~ $700 just for the screen, which brings up the other issue of people don’t want to repair stuff anymore because component cost is outrageous. The phone is $1200 for the base model so if the screen and labor is $800 a lot of people will (foolishly) go “well for $400 more I can just get a brand new one!” even though it’s the same damn phone. However, these screen prices fall dramatically when the phones get even a few gens older and a bunch get recycled
HMD (Nokia) Skyline has a cool feature where you unscrew 1 screw and can change various things like battery. Unfortunately phone itself is not impressive especially from OS update standpoint (only 2 year support for major Android versions). I would love to see this idea being copied by other manufacturers.
Unfortunately phone itself is not impressive especially from OS update standpoint
I swear to god manufacturers do this on purpose so that they can point to the low volume of sales and claim “See! People don’t really want these features” when in reality they’ve just slapped a couple good features onto a completely dog shit device.
Unfortunately phone itself is not impressive especially from OS update standpoint (only 2 year support for major Android versions).
Companies with a smaller market share tend to do that (with Fairphone being the exception).
Why spend resources to support devices for 5 years (or more) if you can keep selling newer phones and redirect your devs to work on the new phone. Its just capitalism 🤷♂️
Fairphone
Whoever owns the Nokia badge are selling phones designed specifically for repairability by end users; the only issue I have with them is they don’t really say much about how long they’re going to have software support, so expect it to last 4 to 6 years tops before replacing it becomes required anyway.
