Currently in the process of switching to a degoogled OnePlus 5 which is only taking a long time because I’m having to find the right combo of system apps and replacements for googles apps which I’ve all but done.
Seriously if you’re trying to make a google free phone try LineageOS microG. It’s a spin on Lineage that gives you replacements for a lot of core apps like a location provider, and a load of other stuff you wouldn’t realise wasn’t in pure android.
Now all I need is a new battery and I have a FOSS( bar firmware, blobs, and magic earth, because no FOSS map app works well in the UK for me) phone.
But honesty I love this phone it’s just the right size and it still has touch buttons for home, back, and recent apps instead of on screen ones( which I kinda hate). Paired with dual cameras and a gorgeous 1080p OLED display.
And you want to know the best part?
It only cost me £50!
Seriously if you’re sick of modern phones and yern for the good old days this is a pretty great middle ground.
I think the main smartphone market is kind of like the market for cars. The only people that can afford to buy them, can afford to keep up heavy consumer traffic, are the ones who are convinced they need to swap to the top of the line model with some sort of trade-in payment plan, where they want every new trendy thing, and every piece of bullshit technology that’s not going to last even to the next flagship model. Basically, stupid people who are rich and are insecure about it. I’m certainly vulnerable to that to, just as I’m vulnerable to the unbearable lag on even just like a 6 year old phone, which should really not be that old, and then security updates and support are always a concern, I suppose. I think maybe the solution, individually, might just be to root my phone, or install some linux alternative operating system, cause I don’t wanna keep up with this bullshit anymore. I’m trapped in a world of large 19:9 and 21:9 smartphones, unusable with one hand, and with screen space that’s useless 90% of the time. I’m stuck without aux ports, and without any physical style keyboard, no nothin. I also want stuff like the DS stylus port and the flip camera they had on the zenfone 7, that shit is cool.
Every 5th grader I know has a phone (I’m a parent not a creeper). So it’s not just the rich and stupid. Cell network companies give these things away under 2 year plans that most can afford. And it’s not just two year plans, my kids have $50 phones from Motorola that are +6". I think most people like a big phone and it’s only us few that want to see sub 5" phones.
This exactly. If you’re spending anywhere from €250 - €350 on a phone and this is a big spend, you’ll want to keep the device for longer and have a bigger screen because it seems like you’re getting the most value for money.
The majority of phones in the world which make up the bulk of sales are exactly these types of phones: Samsung A07, Xiaomi, Realme, TCL, Motorola etc
Which is why I keep saying about Flip phones that if the OEM wants to see more sales, they need to price them in this range. Not at 1000 bucks+. At that price it will remain a niche product for the few.
God, the small phone crowd are so exhausting. The iPhone Mini. We get it, some people do like tiny phones, but as an example, for iPhone buyers that seems to be <3% of buyers. There is simply not a large enough market for them.
Those bezels are useful though. The bigger and heavier the device the better grip you need in it.
Modern devices try to get around it with crazy accidental touch recognition that works some of the time. But older tablets with bezels give you a place to grip it without the need for touch rejection.
Modern devices try to get around it with crazy accidental touch recognition that works some of the time.
What you do is you take your thousand dollar fragile crystal oblong and you wrap it in a 30 dollar hunk of plastic that adds the correct bezels for actual human interaction and also provides a moderate amount of physical protection and strength.
It’s not an entirely unreasonable approach since the part that’s most susceptible to wear and tear is cheap and replacable vs wear on the fragile crystal and metal slab of magic.
True. This could have been implemented by manufacturers, like Nokia did with the shells for their 33xx-series phones. Instead they seem to be focused on style rather than usability.
I can’t think of anyone in my social circle who owns and uses a phone sans-case in exactly the way the manufacturer sells it. It’s in a wallet case, or a normal case, or it’s got a clear jelly case, or a case that facilitates mounting in the car, etc etc.
I am always surprised at the colour of my phone on the rare occasion I take it out of its case, it’s white, and my case - that entirely wraps it - is black.
2 years or so. The edges get slight dings from keys/change. They resell on eBay for same price as any other used phone, and I include very detailed pics.
Using diagonal screen size to measure phones doesn’t work because of bezels and taller aspect ratios. The 5.5" iPhone 6 Plus (2014) is pretty much the same size as the 6.7" iPhone 15 Pro Max
I actually carried a 7 inch tablet in my pocket before it was cool, bezels and all. This was back on Android 2.3 when people would moan about tablet UIs and say that it’s just a giant phone, to which I would say: Yea, and having a giant phone is awesome.
Actually, the Xperia 5 series from Sony is “small” in comparison, so is the Pixel 8 and they all have the same hardware specs - except the zoom lense. Which is a damn shame, because my Pixel 6 Pro is just a tad too big. I wouldn’t wanna go back to my Xperia Z1 Compact, tbh. 4,3" is not big enough anymore…
I could see it being good for construction or something, keep your main phone in a bag or whatever while you have a paired flip phone on ya. If it gets destroyed due to whatever reason itd be easier to replace.
Yes, that is the kind of use case I’m talking about. Rather than beefing up a thousand dollar phone with a case and a holster, I’d rather keep the good phone somewhere safe while I take a far cheaper handset in my pocket.
Right now, the way I could have that is to have 2 lines with different phone numbers and different phone plans, so the monthly cost doesn’t work out.
People have been saying this for the last 5 years and will continue saying this for the next 5 years. They make less smaller phones cuz people don’t buy them
That will be a side effect of them locking abitrary features behind the bigger and thus more expensive models, if there was feature parity smaller phones would probably still be the norm.
Me for the pixel 8 pro. I’d rather the regular pixel 8 but if I’m going to keep this thing for 7 years (which I will; typing from a pixel 2) then I want it to be as feature rich as possible. Not looking forward to how big it’s going to be when it finally gets delivered
If you can figure out a way to cram all of the shit in a 15 Pro Max into a form factor the size of an iPhone 4 not only will Apple suck your dick in the form of a well-earned half million dollar salary but you'll likely get a Nobel Prize for breakthroughs in quantum computing and also making atoms smaller.
It's a very realistic example of what you would have to do to cram all of the shit from a large phone into a small phone. The features that are cut aren't fucking "arbitrary" unless you want to classify every feature difference as "abitrary" thereby making your definition of arbitrary meaningless.
No, I agree with his point. Features do take space. Maybe we can make space for a headphone jack (🙄), but consumers demand more cameras, with a larger sensor, faster and more power hungry processors, bigger batteries. With any space limitation (even the Pro Max comes with a space limitation because it can’t become an iPad…) there are feature tradeoffs, and obviously a smaller phone will fit fewer cameras, less cooling, a smaller battery, etc.
Of course they do. The S23 for example is smaller than the iPhone 15, was the same price on release (came out Feb 2023) and has features beating the iPhone 15 Pro Max, a much bigger and more recent device. Most features/hardware on the bigger phones exist in smaller phones, most of the extra space on larger phones is usually just taken up by a larger battery anyway. They can go watch some teardowns, look into all the software locked features like with the recent Pixel 8 phones, instead of blindly jumping to the defence of these mega-corporations who only want to upsell.
But yes, obviously some features are a lot harder to fit in a smaller space, but I thought that was the obvious asterisk to my comment. Perhaps they should spend some R&D on figuring that out though, rather than rehashing the same devices year after year which is just leading to e-waste.
(I'd love the 3.5mm port back too, but they all want to sell their wireless 'buds' now, so not going to happen for that reason alone :c)
There are some features that just can’t be equal between a bigger phone and a smaller one (or would require gimping the bigger phone) like a bigger screen (obviously), bigger battery and more size for larger camera sensors
As a woman - I don’t have a problem with pockets, I usually get them enlarged. The problem is with our small hands, which would make using a large phone one-handed impossible. The older smartphone I am still sometimes using as a modem/mp3 player is 7x14 cm, and this is absolutely my maximum. I mostly use a dumbphone, it is smaller than my palm and fits even in a shirt pocket.
I feel like hopefully with a potential paradigm shift, maybe one SIM card and number shared between several devices, one large phone or tablet for work or movies and a smaller feature phone for on demand urgent communications, we’ll hopefully see the market for OEMs open up a bit wider and allow for further competition/collaboration across the whole portable electronics sector
It’s amazing that last year when I was looking for a new phone, the one I bought was one of the smallest I could find - asus zenfone. Same physical size as my precious sony, just a few grams heavier. I’m super happy with it and ny other phone seems super huge in comparison.
Asus, Samsung and Sony are still making some very handy phones. Apple and Xiaomi can go suck it. Admittedly smaller phones in 2023 tend to be on the premium side, but imo they also last longer…because you don’t drop them as often.
Especially the Sony Experia 5 (I through V) is the perfect balance between an old school width where you can easily hold and use the phone in one hand but also have more space to scroll vertically. Its got a beautiful 21:9 display, so cinematoc content looks dope as well.
hey king. I’m curious what you don’t like about the software. it feels like mostly stock android and i think Asus did a good job by not loading it with bloat. what are your thoughts?
Personally I’ve just had issues with pocket mode not registering and combining that with liking tap-to-wake, lift-to-wake I ended up calling my emergency contact way too many times. Still not fixed.
Also, I thought it was standard to allow for forward/backward by long pressing the volume buttons, but that option isn’t available apparently either.
It’s battery optimization is also a bit shite to be honest, however I don’t know of any manufacturer that doesn’t run afoul when it comes to that aspect.
Minor gripes really, but it feels like it could be more polished and while the UI isn’t modified too atrociously, given the above issues I’m wary of what else they’ve modified under the hood.
Honestly, it’s a lot of little things that are coming together that other companies like Samsung are doing better. Connecting to Wifi takes ages, and if one try fails, starting the next try takes forever. Also, some apps don’t support floating windows, there are also some quality of life settings that I miss every now and then. And then there’s some other minor things that I just notice in the moment and immediately forget about again lol. But I definitely appreciate that they don’t try to push their own app store, like Samsung, for example.
Typing this from my pixel 5. The best sized phone ever. I think imo the use case for big ass 15 feet phones is a little overkill. Most people are just buying it because it’s “premium”.
Steve Jobs called the first release of the iPhone with its 3.5" screen, “the perfect size for human hands”.
Say what you want about Steve’s other claims, he was probably fairly right on that one. Humans have opposable thumbs and the average range of said thumbs when touching something cradled in the palm without external movement is about 3-4 inches.
And yet I’m typing this on a “moderate” sized Samsung A71, and to tap something on the top of the screen I need to use my other hand or shift the phone downwards in my grasp to do so.
Yeah I wish my 5a was a little smaller, it’d be perfect. Still been a great phone so far. But my screen is scratched to hell because I forgot to put a protector on it.
Currently using an Essential Ph1 running Lineage (Android 13) and I’m about to switch to a Pixel 4a of all things, because of size, weight (its plastic), cheap as hell (so I can keep a hot spare around and do testing for a low cost), and it has one of the highest NIT ratings of any unlockable phones.
The 5 looks good too, just not as bright, slightly larger, and a little heavier.
From what I’ve seen online, the 5 is trivially larger (like 1mm each way).
What drives me to the 4a is the brighter screen, slightly lighter, and plastic. So when I drop it (not if), it’ll bounce better.
Also, they’re cheap as hell from Walmart of all places, about $100, lol. So I can afford 2 or 3 of them for the cost of a newer phone that has performance and features I really don’t care about.
I recently busted out my Pixel 5 (currently using Pixel 7) to try out Lineage OS and absolutely love how it feels in my hands. It’s light and easy to reach all of the screen with one hand. Man I miss that phone.
Nexus 5 was a good size for me, this 4a is too big to be comfortable. If rather have the bezels back, too. Much easier to use without 100% screen coverage.
my first ever smartphone was the 4. it was my favorite for the longest time. i kept using it as a backup and i have 2 others I’ve harvested for parts. i love how easy it is to take old phones apart :D
Same for me actually. In my case it died during travelling, which was also super inconvenient. Then it got repaired, even for free although slightly out of warranty. Then it happened again shortly after. Such a dumpster fire of a ticking time bomb.
My 5x was the best phone I owned because I paid 250 for it and got that back from my credit card warranty and then another 450+ from a class action against LG.
I found my old ipod touch (5th gen, 4 inch screen) in the closet and power it on yesterday. Can’t believe how small it is. I swear the screen was a lot larger when I bought it years ago. I guess my perception is skewed by modern smartphone screen size which keep getting bigger.
My phone is about 15cm (~5¾ in) tall, and to me, that’s the absolute maximum. It’s slightly too big. The width, about 7cm (~2¾ in) is totally fine.
This (Galaxy XCover 5) was the smallest phone that seemed to exist (and I wanted one woth durability, removable battery, SD slot, headphones etc). It was very expensive though.
Trying to find cheaper ones for various people in the extended family, they all specified “oh, not bigger than my current one”, but it was impossible. There’s basically nothing less than 16cm tall, and most are even bigger.
I’m scared of this one breaking. The XCover 6 is 17cm x 8cm.
If it were shoes I’d say “just get ten sets of what’s the right size”, but the problem with tech is we’re still going to want more ram, more storage etc.
Like who is going to keep all the buttons, ports, dimensions and connectivity, whilst upgrading the innards?
I… don’t really see your point. Could you elaborate?
Computers, for example, reduced significantly with time. Better technology is allowing to put more transistors in smaller packages and fit more components in the same space. At the same time, the move to digital connectivity allows to save more space.
Anyway, even if we had the thinkpad of phones, why can’t we also have the raspberry pi of phones?
Sorry, I was unclear. I’ve got a pair of workshoes that fit me perfectly - so I bought 5 pairs exactly the same. When my current pair wears out in a year, I’ll replace it with an identical pair.
It would be tempting to buy 5 copies of my current phone - except by the time this one breaks in 3-4 years, the innards (processor/ram/storage) will be poor in comparison to newer versions, and it may not be able to run newer versions of software.
It is a shame that no company is saying “lets keep it basically the same on the outside, but improve the internal specs” - they tend to do things like making it bigger, removing headphone ports, removing other physical buttons, or making it thinner but giving it a rubbish battery that’s nonreplaceable.
I used Thinkpad as a comparison, as you can still buy an older model of Thinkpad and pack it with newer innards - so buy the older model with the case you like, but refurbished with more ram, a better processor etc.
If you put my 2 year old Thinkpad laptop next to my old one, they look pretty much the same, except the new one is thinner and much lighter - they still both have physical touchpad buttons, the trackpoint, lots of ports down both sides. I can still use my older laptop bag, because they’re nominally the same size and shape.
I wish some phone models followed a similar process - “here’s the same thing you already have, but better”.
I would absolutely love a barebones, tiny, configurable Raspberry Pi of phones.
That looks perfect - until I saw it’s £850! My current phone was about £250, which was more expensive than I wanted - but the only one that was small enough and had the dust/water/drop-off-a-ladder resistance.
Still, those S23s may be cheap in a few years when they’re “old” :)
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