just make normal sized cellphones again, please!
Large phones are the new normal size now.
Going back to small phones now feels like trying to type through a postage stamp
Yeah, I was thinking who’s to say what “normal” size even is? In hindsight, it was awkward as hell taking calls on my tiny nokia brick. Personally, I think we’ve hit a sweet spot between functionality and size practicality. I’m happy with my 6" screen as long as women’s clothes continue on the trend of indulging us with functional pockets.
I’m waiting for a free upgrade to switch to a flip phone. I didn’t want one immediately because I was worried about quality, but from what I hear they’re doing well. Decent compromise for me
Ive been using the galaxy fold 3 for 2 years now and i could never go back to one that doesnt fold. The tablet style screen has become my main screen. Its just functionally superior to any normal phone screen and if im only performing simple tasks the smaller outer screen is fine.
I’ve been torn on whether to go with that or the flip. Most of my clothes have smaller pockets so the flip would be great, but then the larger screen with the fold would be handy too!
I saw a review for a new Motorola Razr, and thought that maybe I’d switch to one of those, but I love a good camera and it’s camera wasn’t good.
But the siren song of manageably sized phones still calls to me.
Motorola of today is unfortunately not the Motorola of yesterday. I loved my Razr and Really really loved my Droid with the side charging port, it docked into the nightstand cradle and the driving cradle perfectly.
People asked Apple for this, and when they obliged, it sold so terribly that retailers literally could not give them away. Unfortunately, it seems those who actually want smaller phones are a vocal minority
Capitalism: Providing infinite consumer choice, so long as your choice is to consume what everyone else is consuming.
I’ve got about a billion issues with capitalism, but I’m not sure how you think something like this should work otherwise? Product design/development/manufacturing takes a bunch of resources, so it doesn’t make sense in any model to make things people generally don’t want.
Apple user here. If they don’t come out with a new generation of iphone mini, I am simply going to never buy another phone again.
I am simply going to never buy another phone again.
This will not happen.
I didn’t buy that because of Apple was so opaque about the mini’s battery size. I understand that modern chips require more energy, but damn it if I don’t miss my old dumb phone that could last three days on a single charge.
I settled on Pixel 5 because it’s the sweet spot between small-ish and enough battery.
Everytime someone says this and manufacturers end up making a smaller phone… no one buys them.
I did. I bought the original Jelly. Now I use the biggest phone of them all, a Fold 4…
In saying that, I might buy the new Jelly too, it’s IR blaster feature would come in handy as a universal remote, plus, in case I ever decide to take up running, would be easier to carry the Jelly around instead of a Fold.
This is the reason I’m so hype for the Pixel Fold. Apparently it’s only a 5in screen when closed . We’ll have to see how the other specs shake out and whether the price is worth it, but it sounds promising.
Most people prefer big phones.
As a man they still would need to fit in my jeans pocket though… So we are kinda at a limit now.
Agree. Personally I would prefer a smaller phone. But options are very limited.
Because it’s mostly small crap phones or small expensive phones. A 4,5 to 5 inch pixel, a 5 to 5,5 inch pixel pro to current prices. I’d buy it instantly.
In the beginning days of the Pixel, both sizes were the same specs - just one bigger than the other. The XL outsold the smaller one consistently.
It’s these glass backs that I can’t stand. I bought a phone not a wet bar of soap.
The comments section of a post like this feels like early reddit. Love it!
I adored my Pixel 3a. The size was perfect in my opinion. Small enough to handle with one hand and to put it in my pockets, big enough to enjoy watching videos on it. The Samsung S10e was lovely too.
I don’t have sources but I remember them stating that small form factor phones were not selling too well. So I guess we won’t see many flagship or even midrange phones in the near future.
I’m a big guy, with big hands.
Got the s22 ultra, and it feels like it’s finally a me sized phone. I’ve been fighting tiny phones for decades!
In the end, we need a range from small to large.
Unironically if there was enough demand they would be made. Even the iPhone mini failed in market penetration, not to mention things like the Sony compacts and the Zenfones.
Sony are quite overpriced, and ZenFones have very limited software support. I hope they improve it for zenfone 10
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And that doesn’t require water resistance, my A52s has an IPX 67 rating and has both.
A52s is one of the most goated midrange phones ever made IMO
It is, it has such a perfect balance of features. Now that the A series is losing the headphone jack as well, I’m going to have some serious questions when I’m looking at a replacement phone some time in 2026 or 2027.
I switched to a Pixel 7 today from a Xiaomi Android phone. I always felt my existing phone was too big, and when looking for a new one the first thing I did was go to gsmarena and search for a phone released relatively recently with a smaller screen. Literally the only result was the Iphone SE.
The Pixel phone is practically the same size as my existing phone, just a tad smaller and just a tad heavier. But there is a significant difference in the gesture support, which is usually something I don’t bother with. The result is that the basic system navigation and app switching can be done with my right hand only, in its normal holding position. The swipe from the left to go back a screen can be done from the bottom of the screen, so I don’t need to stretch my thumb up and across to do it from the middle of the screen.
Stretching unnaturally is still required to swipe down from the top of the screen, or I guess if third party app design puts buttons in the top left. But as a software solution to this hardware problem which also preserves the larger screen size for cases where that’s useful or desired, I think it’s pretty good.
you should be able to install a custom ROM that allows you to have notification bar on bottom so that you can swipe up.
@LordShrek @gila iphones used to have the control center by swiping up. Took a while to adjust to doing it from the top right. Wish we had the option to add it to the bottom
Wish we had the option to add it to the bottom
@apple @android feature request here. submitting ticket.
I figured out that the swipe down doesn’t need to begin from the actual notification bar, like it does on my older Android phones. I can just naturally extend my thumb up to halfway up the screen and swipe down from there. Doesn’t work if I have scrollable content already on screen though
Interesting feedback
Over the past day of use I’ve realised I can also swipe left from anywhere on the right edge of the screen to go back, and the swipe down doesn’t actually need to start from the notification bar. I can just swipe down from wherever and it seems to consistently figure out that I’m trying to do a gesture. I installed my normal launcher Niagara and the gestures all still work fine, so with that inclusion general operation is fairly one-handed and comfortable now, other than typing.
20 years ago these were great. Now? Ye gods I’m too old for that tiny stuff.
A friend of mine was all in on the palm pre. And extolled the small form factor and how much better it was than the incoming 4G Android phones…
Now he buys the largest iphone possible every year
I used an overlooked palm pre for internet access before I got my first smart phone and while it was neat at the time it really wasn’t going to be good for say, browsing on jerboa with that screen size. The keyboard wasn’t good either.
I’m generalising here and obviously it won’t apply to everyone, but I tend to think most people with small phones look at huge phones and say “whoa, too big” and thus never bother to give it a go. People with large phones either love them already, or they love the idea of a small phone — so they go get one, and in most cases, immediately miss their large phone.
Of course, some people have experienced both formats enough to know that they definitely prefer small phones — but, unfortunately, they appear to be a minority. Small phones don’t sell well, or else there’d be more of them. And so, these people fall into that all-too-common market category ‘You’re Not Significant Enough’.
All that said, it absolutely depends on what you want from your phone. I use my S23 Ultra to edit photos and videos, play a few games, get some work done — and all of those things benefit from a big display. Hell, even typing is easier for me on a big screen, thanks to my sausage thumbs. 😂
Not possible at the moment. Without the large size, you can’t fit an adequate battery to last a day or longer.
Not to mention that many people want good cameras on their phone, an they need space as well.
Display needs a lot of battery, less of it and you dont need such a big one. Than make it two millimeters thicker and the problem is solved.
I’m typing this comment on a Zenfone 9, which is a pretty reasonably sized phone with a decent battery and camera. Charging to 80% usually lasts me over a day of usage. The camera is good enough as well. Phones don’t have to be so massive to have those features
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There’s definitely a market for these - my partner prefers a more compact phone, it has been harder and harder to get a decently spec’d small phone of late. There are certain niche markets for small devices and alwasy will be
but the big phone manufacturers don’t realize there’s a market for this and they completely neglect that. or rather, they know that there’s a market for it but they know it won’t make them enough profit so they stick with the mainstream, which is a huge shame. i’m sure that there are engineers working at google, samsung, etc. who would love to work on smaller phones, phones with other unique hardware such as trackballs, but aren’t able to because of “turn everything into money” mindset.
It is strange, it may be a small market niche (pun intended) but surely its worthwhile for someone to jump into it, particularly given that it could be satisfied with existing technology, no great advances required
At least here, I am apparently in the minority. I have an S22 Ultra, and I would legitimately take a much larger phone. I estimate I could use up to a 8.5" screen version of the S22U, but that would be the absolute max size I would use.
I do think if someone made a proper small high end phone they could sell them like hotcakes. Maybe make it just thick enough to accommodate a large enough battery.
I want a smaller, but high end phone with S-Pen. We no longer have the Note. How about the Memo (since Memo pads are often smaller than notebooks)? Or we could just get a model that goes back to the old dimensions of the Note 3: 151.2 x 79.2 x 8.3 mm (5.95 x 3.12 x 0.33 in). That was a “big” phone at the time, but compare it now to the S23 Ultra: 163.4 x 78.1 x 8.9 mm (6.43 x 3.07 x 0.35 in). We’re talking like a half inch more length in the current model. Yet, my pockets have not gotten larger.
Me too, but with 16:9 aspect ratio. I don’t want a long screen, just a larger one. Remember phablets?
I love larger displays. Easy on the eyes, better gaming and video experience. Still, on many newer phones aspect ratio is a problem for me. If the phone’s screen is something like 21:9 then it’s only really big on paper, since videos won’t fit perfectly, and the text and UI elements of games I play would still be pretty small, since they scale with the screen’s height in landscape mode.
I could not agree more about the allergy ratio. The only justification I can give is the navigation buttons are gone, so that makes up for then being on screen.
I remember when wider aspect ratios were being pushed, before bezel-less displays, and Samsung had a very large radius for their curved screens, and the phones felt very stretched out. Honestly I would be happy with 16:9 to 19:9 and zero curve, but I am a sucker for the best cameras and most usable zoom.
Life is your creation. :)
