Technology

I don't know how you youngsters do it.
One hand eternally glued to this big phone and now they need the other for a soup thermos they suddenly feel the need to drag with them everywhere.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Too small, can't phone

people spend more time on their phones than ever before. its substituted sitting in front of a tv, so i guess people want bigger screens the same way they want bigger tvs.

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'm just waiting for smart watches to get bigger and bigger and eventually lose the strap.

I think it's a psychological thing.

Like, while thinking about what kind of phone we want - a small phone sounds pretty good. But when it comes time to buy it, we start comparing phones, and we see some small ones, and some slightly bigger ones, and some really big ones. We tend to go bigger than we'd originally intended because of psychological anchoring effects.

The slightly bigger phone is seen as a slightly better phone. "not too big" we think, as we compare it to some monsters; and the key stats such as screen resolution and battery capacity sound slightly better. So we tend to buy that bigger phone even if it isn't what we actually thought we wanted.

[edit] I should say that I'm saying "we" in a totally generic way. I definitely don't do this myself. I've literally only ever owned smartphone in my life, and it isn't particularly big or flashy. I have an anti-phone attitude.

I'm not gonna lie, as a 6'4" guy, I can't stand small phones. I understand that I'm an outlier though, and wish there were more options to cater to more people.

People don't buy them for the price they'll buy bigger phones. That's it. That's the whole story.

They have to make the phone cost $300 less to sell in meaningful numbers. Why do that when they could just not make them at all and sell fewer models at higher prices?

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.

This author should’ve spent digging into the iPhone 12 / 13 mini, and how it was received in Apple communities a few years ago.

That experiment really showed that the small phone demographic is passionate and vocal, but small (no pun intended). Those phones sold well when the small-phone-fans ran out to buy them, but the sales numbers cooled off quick.

Given that Apple is working on a lightweight 17 “air” phone, my guess is that they learned screen size is too important for too many people, but they’re going to see if they can strike a middle ground with weight / pocket fit.