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I’m not surprised that small phones aren’t a big market segment, but I am surprised there’s not a single maker trying to dominate that niche.
Sony used to, as the article mentions. I suspect their sales were low in large part because their prices weren’t competitive. Some other niche player could easily have that market, especially if they did a little better on the value proposition. Alternately, Samsung launched 29 phones in 2024 or 2025; it’s surprising that they don’t include a single small model to address a market segment that, while not the largest, seems very devoted to that preference.
My best guess is that we’re an unprofitable segment for other reasons. I, for one am not going to regularly buy new phones just because they’re new. I’m also not going to use any bundled bloatware; I’ll change defaults; I won’t subscribe to many, if any services; I’ll block ads aggressively. I’ll even try to pay developers for apps outside of the built-in store, though that’s rarely possible. Anybody who sells me a phone is probably not going to make any profit from me other than the margin on the purchase price, and while I’m willing to pay a little extra for the phone I want (5" screen, headphone jack, unlockable bootloader), I’ll balk at an extreme premium.
You probably have a point. Smaller phones owners usually have a computer to watch their content and are happy with the smaller screen, potentially making them more privacy centric users.
Kind of an empty article. So many words, yet so few content. I wonder if that article was hallucinated by an LLM.
I miss small phones. I use my phone for communication primarily, and the occasional video or something. I swear the keyboards on these things are getting worse and worse at prediction and correcting. I found my old Curve 8320 when moving and just spent some time fondling it, and that really reminded me of the level of control and precision those input methods had. I know I’m in the minority with how I use my phone, so I know that small batch will always be out of my price range. The last two years I’ve been using a Samsung flip and it’s the happiest I’ve been with a phone in a long time.
The BBK group, via vivo, oppo, realme, iqoo and OnePlus launches on the market 200 new phones every year. Can they make just a small one? Just one out of 200, don’t need more
You’ll have to pry my pixel 4a out of my cold dead hands.
Same here, though it really doesn’t fit my vision of a small phone. I still see a screen over 5" as large and 6" as extra-large.
I’ll tell you exactly why - people think bigger = better, and manufacturers play into that by selling them that way and nerfing their “compact” versions of flagship phones.
Personally, I’ve found that anything over 75 millimeters is a bit wide for my hand, and so I tried to keep my phone under 75 millimeters wide with a case included, so generally around 73 millimeters or so.
