Disappointing Phones • Hacker News Board

Re: Disappointing Phones

#21

Post by fsflover » Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 8:46 AM UTC

alexhans wrote: post #5

fsflover wrote: post #2

Librem 5, my daily driver fulfills three out of five requirements. Camera is too weak and size is too big. Software is GNU/Linux, so no bloatware. Can be repaired easily. Has the headphone jack.

This is fantastic. How long have you used it? Can you tell us more? I'll probably buy one of these in the near future once I can research a bit more and I have to decide where to buy it (if in USA on travel, or ship from wherever they might sell it in Europe). Proper GNU/Linux in my phone and full control is exactly what I want, even if exploratory.

I've been using it for a few years already. I wrote a bit here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45276516 and here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39461180

Re: Disappointing Phones

#22

Post by alexhans » Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 9:03 AM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #21

alexhans wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fantastic. How long have you used it? Can you tell us more? I'll probably buy one of these in the near future once I can research a bit more and I have to decide where to buy it (if in USA on travel, or ship from wherever they might sell it in Europe). Proper GNU/Linux in my phone and full control is exactly what I want, even if exploratory.

I've been using it for a few years already. I wrote a bit here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45276516 and here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39461180

Thanks! Very useful.

Re: Disappointing Phones

#23

Post by Markoff » Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 9:20 AM UTC

I find it amusing the author with OnePlus 5T is looking for small phone since 5T was never a small phone even back in the days, so when there were much more small phones available author clearly didn't care and chose big phone - 156.1 x 75 x 7.3 mm, but suddenly now 9 years later when there are almost none small phone he requires significantly smaller phone.

> Size. I've always felt like my OnePlus 5T was slightly too wide to use in one hand, so if my next phone was a little narrower, that would be great. Certainly I wouldn't want to get something larger.

You can certainly buy plenty of phones which are narrower than 75mm other than S24 /S25 and Xiaomi 15, but you can't really buy small phones anymore.

I just upgraded last year from Honor 10 (149.6 x 71.2 x 7.7 mm) to Pixel 6a (152.2 x 71.8 x 8.9 mm), basically the same width and it's funny screen:body ratio in Pixel 6a is better than following generations and hardly newest models finally match it again with hardly any improvement.

Btw. author is wrong Xiaomi phones are nowadays extremely difficult to root/unlock bootloader, so your only options are pretty much Samsung S series with bad slow camera or Pixels infamous for their battery/display issues in almost every generation. Sony phones have even worse camera than Samsung and let's better not talk about the value for money.

Re: Disappointing Phones

#24

Post by Markoff » Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 9:22 AM UTC

Daneel_ wrote: post #7

I was in the small phone camp. I’m in a fortunate position where due to my work I have a work phone that has regularly refreshed hardware that I have some input on, so I made the conscious decision to switch to a max-sized handset (iPhone 15 pro max). I gave up being able to ‘one-hand’ the phone, but let’s be honest - all modern mainstream phones can’t really be used with one hand easily, that ship has sailed. I real…

phone size has nothing to do with camera quality (in the current market, only in the theory), the best android camera phones are the smallest pixels, every other brand has worse cameras and bigger dimensions

Re: Disappointing Phones

#25

Post by Daneel_ » Tue, Feb 24, 2026, 3:09 PM UTC

Markoff wrote: post #24

Daneel_ wrote: post #7

I was in the small phone camp. I’m in a fortunate position where due to my work I have a work phone that has regularly refreshed hardware that I have some input on, so I made the conscious decision to switch to a max-sized handset (iPhone 15 pro max). I gave up being able to ‘one-hand’ the phone, but let’s be honest - all modern mainstream phones can’t really be used with one hand easily, that ship has sailed. I real…

phone size has nothing to do with camera quality (in the current market, only in the theory), the best android camera phones are the smallest pixels, every other brand has worse cameras and bigger dimensions

The iPhone pro max cameras offer more physical options that I actually take advantage of, so it’s a true statement for me.

I agree that phone size doesn’t have to correlate to picture quality, but that’s how many of the manufacturers position their cameras - bigger phones get the more capable cameras.