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I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone (2022)

smallandroidphone.com

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Re: I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone (2022)

#511

Post by no_wizard »

rickdeckard wrote: post #422

The hard reality is that there is no PAYING market for such a device, because when it comes to the point-of-sale, most people still choose the normal-size device with better screen/battery/camera. This is equivalent to something I called the "QWERTY paradox" more than a decade ago: Back when the Smartphone market exploded, people disliked typing on a touchscreen and repeatedly stated that they want a device with a ph…

This here in is one of the major differences between Apple[0] and the rest. I imagine they had similar data at various points, and chose to deliberately ignore it. I can’t say for sure but I imagine they thought through the actual end user and experience and realized the tradeoff is more than worth it

[0]: when Steve Jobs still ran the company at least

Re: I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone (2022)

#515

Post by ryandrake »

rickdeckard wrote: post #422

The hard reality is that there is no PAYING market for such a device, because when it comes to the point-of-sale, most people still choose the normal-size device with better screen/battery/camera. This is equivalent to something I called the "QWERTY paradox" more than a decade ago: Back when the Smartphone market exploded, people disliked typing on a touchscreen and repeatedly stated that they want a device with a ph…

The "mini" versions of phones (even the ones marketed as premium) always seem to be nerfed in other ways, like battery life, camera quality, or performance, which could explain why they inevitably don't sell. Nobody really offers a balls-out premium small form factor phone that is better than or equal to the flagship big-phone.

Re: I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone (2022)

#517

Post by maxglute »

_Algernon_ wrote: post #353
maxglute wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Phone finger strap + learn one hand mode.

I just tested one hand mode on my phone and it is all kinds of broken. It doesn't allow scrolling certain pages to the bottom, so it's useless.

You scroll in normal mode. One handed mode let's you reach top UI element with an extra gesture which is more or less all you need for if you want to operate a phone with thumb.

Re: I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone (2022)

#518

Post by XorNot »

ryandrake wrote: post #515
rickdeckard wrote: post #422

The hard reality is that there is no PAYING market for such a device, because when it comes to the point-of-sale, most people still choose the normal-size device with better screen/battery/camera. This is equivalent to something I called the "QWERTY paradox" more than a decade ago: Back when the Smartphone market exploded, people disliked typing on a touchscreen and repeatedly stated that they want a device with a ph…

The "mini" versions of phones (even the ones marketed as premium) always seem to be nerfed in other ways, like battery life, camera quality, or performance, which could explain why they inevitably don't sell. Nobody really offers a balls-out premium small form factor phone that is better than or equal to the flagship big-phone .

But that's just physics. With a larger area, you can be thinner while still having more of all those things - dominated by battery volume dictating most of them.

Re: I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone (2022)

#519

Post by zo1 »

happymellon wrote: post #227
makeitdouble wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> very small Android phones IMHO this is just not viable in the current world. I agree with line the article sets (5"4 for 1080p, almost the size of the Pixel 4a), as mainstream apps will properly work at that size. I still have a working 4a, and some banking apps are getting pretty cramped for instance. And many websites already need furious panning and zooming. A credit card size phone would only work for people wh…

> banking apps are getting pretty cramped Completely agree. Although not even on "small phones", my S23 isn't small but the design of these apps has regressed so much that I barely see any useful information. On my old WAP phone I could see bank balance and maybe the last transaction or two. Now half the screens taken up with upselling account levels, invest in shares, buy crypto, you've been pre-approved!

It's the padding! And the UX teams that add them into the designs!

My cynical take is that an unholy pact was formed between FE devs and UX designers:

By adding in "design" and "user experience" you essentially reduce features, complexity and general "dev time" of every single user-screen or page or component. They're no longer cram-packed with oodles of features, toggles, buttons, menus, etc. Most pages are glorified lists of things, with maybe a menu on each item if you are lucky. Devs dev less, have less bugs, just use FE-library of the day and go home happy because they made a CRUD screen essentially.

Meanwhile, UX designers get to play around and constantly fiddle with design because let's all be honest, nothing will ever be truly good and in a perfect "user experience" space because complexity and functionality are never what the user is happy about having, until they need it.

Re: I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone (2022)

#520

Post by crossroadsguy »

franga2000 wrote: post #435
crossroadsguy wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Stock Android” means where Google does inside it what I have listed above in less savoury words. The ones you’ve listed are basically compromised devices in your pockets — so a notch higher or lower, depending upon how you look at all this :)

Of course, but that's why the bootloader is unlockable. A production device will ship with either a close-to-stock (== close-to-Pixel) ROM or a heavily customized one. If the ROM is closer to stock, it's easier to develop and maintain custom ROMs, so it makes sense to want that as opposed to the alternative.

That doesn’t really help. If you play around with it, the plat integrity test will not pass and there goes too many apps — so that nullifies even MicroG etc as well. I haven’t played around with microg’s #2611 (had seen it on github when it was getting implemented) but the point is — it will remain cat and mouse in this manner and that is a headache one doesn’t want to have on their primary device.
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