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I don’t get why you’d want a smaller phone unless you’re looking to get one in a flip-phone style form factor. I’d be down for that. I miss being able to accurately text from my pocket.
I don’t get why you’d want a smaller phone
Being able to hold the phone comfortably and securely in your hand is really important for me. I’d love to be able to reach the vast majority of the screen without having to shuffle the phone in my hand or use two hands. I very rarely watch any videos on my phone, or play any games that require a large screen.
My wifes iPhone 12 Mini is a perfect size.
One-handed mode exists if you need to reach the whole area of the interface with one hand, albeit it won’t help if grip is an issue. Maybe a pop socket kinda thing for that?
Galaxy S3 was comfortable to chat and surf. One or two words less per line but it fit in your pocket and your hand didn’t get tired from the weight.
I went S2 -> S5 -> S8+ -> Note 10+ -> S23 Ultra
Never really felt my phone was too big, though there are times where I’ve got a show to go to and wish I had a cheap flip phone to fall back on. The older phones seemed fine at the time until I realized how much better the bigger screens were. I’m not sure I’d want one bigger than the S23 Ultra, unless it folded out to a tablet.
Have you heard of women? Or maybe teenagers with not-so-large hands?
Most larger phones have a single-hand mode that gives you kind of a picture-in-picture of the screen itself.
Are you stupid…? You still have to hold the phone in one hand. One-handed mode doesn’t change the physical width of the phone.
Ok? The issue wasn’t clearly defined. There’s always pop sockets and similar to make it easier to hold. That said, my teenaged kids have 0 be issue holding this phone so idk what OP is on about
Because I don’t want this giant thing in my pocket that’s also hard to hold, let alone use one handed.
Using one handed isn’t really an issue if you toggle the one-handed mode…
MKBHD’s video titles are so click baity now
It’s annoying but I get it. If you want to make it or stay big on YT you gotta play the game, and the majority of people eat up click-baity titles and obnoxious thumbnails.
I don’t disagree but it’s still a shame to see a well established channel needing to go to such lows.
ALL HAIL THE ALGORITHM
I hate small phones. I switched back to an iphone SE years ago and realized it was a pita to use anymore. Everything is… too small.
There is at least the Unihertz Jellystar, which is a fairly nice tiny phone. Personally I’m likely stuck with Pixel phones because I’m a big fan of Graphene OS, otherwise I’d likely pick one up after my Pixel 4a fails, which might be awhile, since it’s still going strong.
Never heard of the Jelly Star! $200 bucks?! I just ordered one.
Oh, cool! Hope you like it dude :)
Fucking awesome phone. Been my daily driver for a week now.
Typing is horrible, tough, and for anything serious (browsing, streaming…) you will want a bigger screen and general more build quality. Camera, sound quality, screen are all screaming low end.
Super fast charging because the battery is tiny, sill good SOT because the screen is tiny too.
Feels damn good to be able to use and hold your phone one handed in almost any orientation you can hold your arm in.
Keyboard: AnySoftKey and a Compact layout (2 keys, 1 button) is very helpful.
I’ve been using mine since Christmas
It’s amazing how capable this thing is with such a tiny screen
Have you heard of thumb-key keyboard? It’s basically a 3x3 grid with swipe gestures for extra characters. I’ve been trying to switch to it for a bit cause I think eventually my typing will be faster and it will be a better one handed typing experience.
Anyway, I think this would work well on a small screen device too, if you can get used to a whole new keyboard paradigm.
It’s on the IzzyOnDroid repo for f-droid.
Hope this is helpful to someone!
Tried ThumbKey and realized, I’m 100 % used to QWERY/QWERTZ keyboard layouts. The ThumbKey keys are not in roughly the same spots as on a regular keyboard and I just couldn’t get used to this. Damn brain. I might give it another try in the future, because the idea is damn great.
Yeah I had the same problem. I just had to commit to being a slow typer for a while, but I inproved quicker than I thought. Still learning tho. I keep a regular keyboard I can switch to with the button on the bottom right of the home buttons for the rare times I need to type something urgently.
Because there is no demand, display manufacturers don’t produce small phone displays anymore. And because there’s no small display in stock, phone manufacturers have given up on producing small smartphones. Technically, you can contract the display manufacturers to restart production of small phone displays, but no one seems to be interested in taking the upfront risk.
Bigger screens make it easier to use as my main computer, thank you.
I couldn’t resist. I’m sorry
Dom Joly moment
BIG
I just went phone shopping not too long ago and had the opposite experience. Bigger phones are way harder to find now. Where the hell are the 6 or 7 inchers? 😩
That’s what she said… sighs
I think he means normal sized phones, instead of the ‘phablets’ we are surrounded by now. I still think the ~6.1 inch screen is the perfect size.
6.1” is too big. I miss the 4.7-5.1” range that they had on the iPhone Mini for example.
👶
HTC One dimensions: 146.4 x 70.6 x 9.4 mm
S23 dimensions: 146.3 x 70.9 x 7.6 mm
You don’t account for the MUCH smaller bezels and the different aspect ratio. The phone size is very similar
Thats a small phone and I agree they are good too. But 6 is a good size imo, plenty of real estate and cant still be used with one hand.
I can’t use a 6" screen one handed, I doubt most women (who are half the population) can either.
@BearOfaTime @warm at 6", even smaller hands like mine are able to reach within .5cm of the top of the screen. At that size, the weight distribution of the phone is what makes a difference in terms of manageability. For example, the weight distribution of the Pixel 6a (6.1") makes it a breeze to use with my right hand, but a tad more difficult with my left one. Using it in reverse (had to once) is impossible one-handed.
Yeah, that size is certainly the limit for usability tbh. Its diminishing returns past that, I dont need a wider or longer phone, everything can be displayed perfectly on a 6 inch.
If you have big hands.
Nah, I have average hand size and can use that size phone with one hand easily. Though I do prefer smaller phones in general and would rather see more choice in that space.
I can only reach about 5" with the thumb, while holding the phone. But not the opposite edge. Average male hand.
Yeah if you keep the same grip, if I change grip I can reach everywhere, though smaller would definitely be easier and more comfortable.
Lol, I call BS.
You clearly don’t have “average size hands” unless you’re excluding women from that calculus.
Even then, an average man probably can’t use a 6" screen one handed. Why else do they ship with “one handed mode” on devices?
Yeah average male hand sorry. Female hands is another reason we need small phones, that and the illegally small pocket sizes they have to put up with!
I can use it one handed, its not the most comfortable thing for every task, but doable. I would not want a phone any larger though.
I find for me it is half about the usability of thw phone one handed and the other half being pocketability. I don’t want to have to carry a man-purse just to be able to have my phone with me at all times. Front pocket of jeans is where i keep my phone and the pockets are not deep enough to contain the phone without pressing into my hips when i sit. Keeping the phone in the back pocket is just inviting theft.
I just want another Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact with updated specifications.
For me, it’s about width, not screen size.
My current phone is 6.1", but it’s only 68mm wide, so it’s easy to hold one-handed and slips in & out of my pocket easily. (It’s a Sony Xperia 10 V).
I love everything about this phone except that there’s no NA version, so my phone is missing a couple of the cell bands from my service provider. In particular, the wide band, so I don’t get great reception in the middle of large buildings.
Other than that, it’s great. Lots of RAM so app swapping is quick, and the battery life is so good I have it set to only ever charge to 80% and I’ve only dipped down to 20% on very high usage days. My usual usage is 80-50% daily.
Meanwhile, the Galaxy S line:
Seriously, the Zenfone 10 and S24 have the same size in practice. I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about.
did you watch the video, basically the next Zenfone is a ROG phone lite.
and i say this as a ZF9 user.
Yes, but we still have the S line. So I don’t know about this whole “small flagship is dead” thing.
it’s more or less the idea that companies are starting to ditch the idea. Apple introduced the mini with 12, and 13, and ditched it for the plus models after 2 generations. Asus had it for the 9 and 10, and 11 (so far) is only launching with an Ultra, ditching it after 2 generations. Samsung just has the unique position that its catalog is large enough that itll have some reasonable in terms of SOC, but not technically flagship as it lacks the camera functionality of the top model.
I guess I’m having a little trouble about the “flagship” definition then. I always assumed that the S line was the best Samsung has to offer, the Pro line was the best from Apple, and so it goes. So the S24 and the 15 Pro are flagships, and those have the same size of the Zenfone 10.
But if “flagship” is only the most expensive phone from a company, I’d argue that the ROG phones are flagships from ASUS, not the Zenfone ones. IDK.
The S24 Ultra is the flagship, as it has the 200 MP camera that the normal S24 does not have: https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=12773&idPhone2=12771
So tired of this.
You ppl are a minority. Nobody wants a fucking 5 inch phone. Friggin let it go, the industry moved on. Go cry to the ppl who wanted the headphone jack to hang around.
Personally, I know zero people that want this IRL. They are all pumping their chest out about who’s got the bigger, nicer screen size. The very idea that most people want a “small phone” is absolutely not true.
I do think folks that want them should have the option BUT THEY DON’T after YEARS of crying about it. It’s over. They are not catering to your desires.
Let it go and get on with life. Fuck. You keep crying about it, and I’ll keep reminding you.
It ain’t happening.
I just want a phone that I can use with one hand and not fucking drop the thing trying to type something on the other side of the screen.
No. You’re not getting a fucking tiny phone you can use your damn thumb to do everything with. Deal with it. Because that is fucking stupid.
Want one hand operation? Too bad. They don’t make phones that cater to that dumb ass requirement. Because nobody wants to use their device like that. The screen size of a phone like that isn’t enjoyable to most people. Get it?
These are multimedia hand held devices. Not a fucking pager. God forbid you have to use your other hand to use these things. The horror…
Wow, what a low-quality take. See if your doctor can prescribe something to spontaneously regenerate some brain cells so you can imagine:
- carrying a shopping bag in one hand and trying to see where to take it thanks to the smaller phone in the other
- holding the brake lever on your bicycle and entering a new address
- smaller screens mean less illumination area, meaning longer battery life
- smaller screens costing less to produce, thus cheaper phones
Gotta suck to be so unimaginative lol.
Look at Mr lucky here with two hands. Fucking ableist.
You ppl are a minority.
You say the market has concentrated too much?
What are you on about? Just because someone is in a minority doesn’t mean their preferences or desires are invalid. Infeasible maybe, but not invalid. There are all sorts of products made for people in a minority of some kind. I can’t imagine left handed versions of common right handed objects are an extremely lucrative market, but there are products that exist for those minorities.
Plus it’s not like minorities or majorities are ever static, things evolve and change over time. If no one ever voiced an opinion, how would anything ever change?
You can keep crying about people stating a preference, and I’ll be sure to keep reminding you they are as free say what they want as you are.
And you can keep crying about phones not being the size of a box of tic tacs. Let’s see who’s argument plays out in the end. You’re not getting a damn 5 inch phone. Ever.
Reply again with that nonsense, I’ll remind you of it again.
Over and over and over. Because if you ppl wanna keep bringing it up, I’ll oblige and keep shooting you down because it’s absurd to limit a device to that size.
If they offer the option, kewl. But guess what - they won’t.
What are you on about? Just because someone is in a minority doesn’t mean their preferences or desires are invalid. Infeasible maybe, but not invalid. There are all sorts of products made for people in a minority of some kind. I can’t imagine left handed versions of common right handed objects are an extremely lucrative market, but there are products that exist for those minorities.
Plus it’s not like minorities or majorities are ever static, things evolve and change over time. If no one ever voiced an opinion, how would anything ever change?
You can keep crying about people stating a preference, and I’ll be sure to keep reminding you they are as free say what they want as you are.
This is your daily reminder that tiny phones don’t and will not ever exist again. Thanks, bub-bye.
What are you on about? Just because someone is in a minority doesn’t mean their preferences or desires are invalid. Infeasible maybe, but not invalid. There are all sorts of products made for people in a minority of some kind. I can’t imagine left handed versions of common right handed objects are an extremely lucrative market, but there are products that exist for those minorities.
Plus it’s not like minorities or majorities are ever static, things evolve and change over time. If no one ever voiced an opinion, how would anything ever change?
You can keep crying about people stating a preference, and I’ll be sure to keep reminding you they are as free say what they want as you are.
They’re all pulling their chest out about who’s got the bigger
Yea, sounds like everyone you know is a tool. I don’t know anyone who behaves like this, it’s juvenile.
I agree with you except the headphone jack part. My Bluetooth headset is great, but losing the convenience of using a non-battery device and not worrying about the battery life really is a great loss. I’m so glad my steam deck and switch have a headphone jack.
There is no convenience with a headphone jack in 2024. Let it go my god.
Idk what phone you’re using but if BT is a drag on your every day life and your phone battery, holy shit you got bigger problems.
This ain’t 2015 where BT was a battery hog and shitty connection issues. Times have changed. Hardware has changed. Software has changed. Your argument no longer holds any weight in a conversation about convenience.
I have to charge my headphones for 25 mins for every 6 hrs of usage?? Reeeeeeee
Lol it almost seems like you’re the one that can’t seem to just let things be
Much as I like Bluetooth, it’s another thing to charge, has lower sound quality than wired unless you can afford LDAC, and other technical and real life reasons it seems your low quality privileged ass can’t comprehend.
Read a book, truly embarrassing to read how you think.
The death of small phones is why I’m so committed to my flip 4. The space it takes up in my pocket or bag is so much less than any “regular” phone.
Pocket space is only half the problem. The other half is one-handed use and the flip is huge when opened.
I know it’s not everyones cup of tea but…
I ended up buying a Pixel Fold for the Fold aspect. There’s an added benefit that it’s really short when folded so I can reach the entire screen one handed. It’s heavier and thicker than a slate phone, but I actually enjoy the folded experience way better than other phones.
This is true, and honestly my biggest gripe with the phone. I don’t wear small mitts, and I can only comfortably reach 3/4 of the way up the phone. This is exacerbated by the fact that phone application design is in a very top-centric stage right now. I wonder if there’s a way I could extend the android nav bar to take up the top 1/4 of the screen…
On Samsung devices there is an accessibility setting that gives a smaller one-hand screen when swiping down from the bottom bar. But that just feels like a waste of space when you could just have a smaller screen.
That’s available on Pixels as well - I use it a lot even on my smaller 4a. Very handy in a pinch!
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To me that’s the exact and only purpose of a phone: for it to be a handheld portable computer. For that purpose I should be able to use it with one hand
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To me that doesn’t really compute. I like to see a lot of information on my screen and my eyes aren’t as young as they were.
I do too, but glasses help a lot. In my use case 5" is plenty, though not with default settings: global UI size was tweaked so everything is smaller, and more fits on screen.
I don’t really like looking at curved screens
Neither do I, and I’m doing everything I can to avoid those phones. No feature can balance that huge con.
Flat screens aren’t as easy to do that with especially as I like to use a case.
Hmm, interesting. I’m using gestures too, some more than others, and with a flat screen it’s fine for me.
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Because it’s something you use a lot for small things throughout the day. When you need to quickly answer a message or look at a map you shouldn’t need to stop and place down everything you’re holding.
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This is probably very subjective. I’d say I use my phone one-handed about 7/10 times and I’d do it more if I could. Actually I do most things one-handed when possible but I have small hands so phones are becoming an issue. There isn’t a specific reason, it’s just more convenient.
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I just don’t find I really need to very often, very rarely in fact.
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Haven’t watched the video but he is one of the reasons and a strong one. He has really big hands and has been pushing flagship devices since forever.
I have really big hands too, and even with those, really big phone sizes are just not practical, IMHO. Unless one has giant NBA player tennis racket sized hands, past 6” to 6.2”, you just can’t comfortably hold your phone and reach every part of the screen without shifting it around all the time.
I have pretty small hands and I use a 6.7" phone with no trouble. (As a size reference, I can comfortably reach the frets on a 3/4 size electric bass or a guitar, but a full size electric bass is too big for me and I can’t play without moving my hand a lot more than you’re supposed to.)
I don’t disagree you may find it comfortable, I just genuinely don’t understand how you do it. I guess you don’t mind the shuffling around that comes with typing a button in the opposite corner of the screen, but I personally do. When holding my phone with one hand in a position I can type in and the phone just won’t slide down to the floor, my thumb just doesn’t reach the opposite corner of the screen without shifting the phone in my hand.
I think it’s a matter if habits mostly. After thinking about it more, it seems I almost always use my phone with both hands. With one hand it does feel pretty awkward and unstable if I’m trying to do something complicated like typing. I can use it one handed and it’s fine for something like scrolling through social media or controlling a music player. I also use a launcher (Niagara) that happens to be designed well for using one handed on a big phone (but that’s not why I use it).
It could also be an Android vs iPhone issue. I use Android, and the back gesture is really convenient no matter how you’re holding the phone. I’ve noticed that iOS doesn’t seem to have a back gesture, and the back button in a lot of apps is in the worst possible place for one handed use. I think there’s an overall trend in Android apps to put the most important controls at the bottom of the screen, but in my (admittedly very fuzzy) recollections of Apple apps, they seem more inclined to put buttons at the top.
Praying the Xperia 5 VI is a bit more compact that the previous iteration. That and Sony actually start supporting their services for at least 5 years -_-
It probably is if the rumour about them switching to a 19.5:9 resolution is true. It’ll still be larger than the S24 and Pixel 8 because of the top and bottom bezel but height should decrease by a couple of mm.
Yeah, the lack of software support made me disregard the Xperia completely (well and its price), which is sad because it is otherwise a great phone with actual useful features that other manufacturers have removed.
As a small phone lover, here’s the thing: we don’t consume as many phones or as many services as (general) big phone people.
It’s not only about the size of the community. It’s that our phones are tools generally at our service and not the reverse.
Hopefully Linux phones are not so far away from usable in the next couple years.
Linux phones aren’t gonna help, the issue is the hardware
Isn’t Android Linux?
Linux is often used to refer to a family of operating systems including Ubuntu, Debian, fedora, red hat, ect., which all use the Linux kernel.
However, GNU/Linux may be a better name for this family of operating systems, since they all use GNU components and (to varying extents) embrace the philosophy of the free software foundation.
Android uses the Linux kernel, but not GNU components, and do not embrace the philosophy of the Free software foundation.
Stalman, the man who founded GNU and the free software foundation published his thoughts on this:
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/android-and-users-freedom.en.html
Yeah, but it’s not like a typical Linux installation on a PC would be. You can’t just install a Flatpak application or anything like that. It doesn’t use many of the GNU core utilities that most other Linux distros use, and doesn’t use a mainline kernel.
People that ask for Linux phones know Android is Linux.
It’s just a lot more concise to say than “I want a phone with an open bootloader and hardware fully compatible with a mainline Linux kernel. I want to have a phone that can run a Phosh/Gnome Mobile/Plasma Mobile UI and on the backend work in a similar way to how desktop Linux would.”
Isn’t android a Linux fork or am I misremembering?
Linux is a kernel. In that sense Android is Linux.
However when people say Linux they usually mean the full OS with the GNU utilities and all the other things that make up a Linux distro.
In that sense, Android is not Linux as pretty much everything other than the kernel is built specifically for android.
And even the kernel itself is a fork of an ancient version with shitloads of changes to it, plus a bunch of proprietary blobs.
I mean, Android…
Mom: “We have Linux at home”
Linux at home: Google™ Linux
Unfortunately it does not look like as if linux phones would be developing anywhere
Hopefully Linux phones are not so far away from usable in the next couple years.
I said the same thing in like 2013. :(
RIP Ubuntu Edge
They got so close to the Kickstart goal
It seemed more likely back then than it does today. Ubuntu and Firefox were both developing mobile OSes around that time.
What’s the closest thing to a viable option nowadays?
Plus it looked like Web Apps were gonna become huge.
I know the words “web app” send some on Lemmy into a frenzied rage, but they’d be amazing from a platform agnostic perspective.
Imagine if the biggest barrier to entry for new smartphone OSes (app support) was gone. It’d be huge.
But seeing it as a threat to their business models (don’t get that 30% cut if it’s not through the App/Play stores), Apple and Google have had pretty shitty support for them.
If a Linux phone was out today and had good hardware and software, it’d still fail just like Windows Phone and BlackBerry OS did. WebApps would give it a strong chance though.
Agreed. I’d like to add that web apps are much better today than they were 10 years ago. We have notification support, touch support, etc. A well-made progressive web app is basically the same as a native app now — or it would be with halfway-decent OS support, anyway.
The fact is, a ton of common apps are just web wrappers anyway, even on desktop. Like Discord, Slack, and Steam. Even Outlook is moving in that direction.
I think a Pixel running Graphene is the closest viable option. Out of the pool of bespoke built to run GNU/Linux phones, it might just be the PinePhone Pro. It’s the one suffering the least from critical existence failure.
Try calyx for a stable, truly Google-free pixel experience.
It is indeed quite dire. My hope lies in that the recent attempts have been more upstream first oriented where lots of distros run on phones. They do not work well yet but that approach might just get us there eventually.
Another thing that gives me hope is that phones do not change much any more. Much easier to catch up to a stagnated market.
I actually think the opposite is true as well. Phones these days mostly exist between 6.2 and 6.8". We don’t actually have any huge phones as like the Galaxy Mega 6.3 (which with modern 19:9 aspect ratio screens and smaller bezels would be more like 7.5") don’t exist either
