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I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone

smallandroidphone.com

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Re: I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone

#2

Post by erohead »

I’m a long-time small phone Android user. But after the Pixel 5, I have not been able to find a suitable small Android replacement. The Pixel 6 is gigantic, and the Pixel 7 looks like it is also destined to be huge. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve resorted to using an iPhone Mini, biding my time and hoping desperately that some Android OEM would step up.

But it’s increasingly clear that a small premium phone is not on the roadmap. So I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands. My goal with https://smallandroidphone.com is to rally other fans of small phones together and put pressure on Google/Samsung/Anyone to consider making a small phone.

I have a very specific set of skills and industry connections that I have acquired over a long career in the hardware business (my first startup was Pebble). I will put them to use in our shared quest to get the perfect small Android phone. If no one else builds one, and enough people sign up...maybe I will be forced to make it myself.

If you want a small premium Android phone, this may be your last chance (ever?) to help bring back the phone category that we love.

Re: I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone

#3

Post by unwiredben »

From what I've seen, the tiny Palm Phone (from TCL) didn't do very well, but there's still some inventory on Amazon: https://palm.com/pages/product.

There's also the Cyrcle Phone (https://www.cyrclephone.com/) which doesn't seem to be for sale anymore after its Kickstarter and Indie Go Go campaigns.

Re: I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone

#4

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

The Galaxy S10e is my current phone, and I'm not sure what I will do when it stops receiving security updates. It's basically perfect. It still has an SD card slot. It still has a headphone jack. It has wireless charging. It's reasonably sized. And it had flagship-for-the-time specs (albeit slightly less than the mainline S10 or S10+). Samsung doesn't make anything comparable to this anymore.

The only drawback is that the battery life has gotten worse since I originally bought it. But if I could easily swap that out, I would keep it for another five years.

EDIT: Oh, and the fingerprint scanner on the power button seems to work way more reliably, IMO, than the embedded fingerprint scanners under the touchscreens.

Re: I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone

#6

Post by perardi »

“matching size and design of iPhone 13 Mini”

So, by all accounts, the iPhone mini has been an extremely slow seller.

https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/21/iphone-13-mini-unpopula...

Why would that form factor succeed in the Android space?

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I see these meme on tech sites all the time: “oh phones are too big I just want something simple”. That is a valid sentiment that I think is shared by basically no average consumer. For a lot of people, phones are their primary computing devices, so a big screen is nice there. Bigger phones allow for more battery capacity. Aging populations like them because you can use screen zoom features to really blow up that text size without making the effective viewport too small.

And…people just like big stuff. I know that’s simplistic and a little condescending, but then look at SUV and truck sales.

Re: I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone

#9

Post by danirod »

I miss my old Moto G1. Light and with a small form factor, and at the same time it was one of the first phones that were cheap but not low quality.

It made a breakthrough in a market where you either had an expensive Samsung or you dealt with cheap phones with very bad specs. This was ages ago, fortunately today there are more phones that are cheap but with acceptable specs.

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