The iPhone mini might be a counter-example. The iPhone mini has sold poorly and it seems like Apple is unlikely to continue it when they redesign the form factor. They'll keep it around while they keep this form factor since they've already spent the money, but I doubt that we'll see an iPhone 15 mini (when they're likely to come out with a redesign based on their 3-year cadence).
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/09/iphone-12-mini-low-janu...
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/15/iphone-13-mini-expected...
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/05/iphone-12-mini-sales-la...
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/22/poor-iphone-12-mini-sal...
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/06/30/apple-ends-iphone-12-mi...
> it seems that phone makers who usually copy Apple on everything, just skip this idea at all
Making a smaller device is difficult. You still have to pack in the same guts, but you have less space to do it. This is particularly acute when it comes to battery.
Android phones often need 50-100% more battery to achieve similar battery life as the iPhone.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/17004/apples-iphone-13-series...
Here we see an iPhone 13 Pro with 3095 mAh battery getting 16.62 hours of battery life. The Asus ROG Phone 5 gets 16 hours with a 6000 mAh battery. The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra gets 15.91 hours with a 5000 mAh battery.
Android phone manufacturers need space for large batteries. The iPhone mini's 2406 mAh battery is smaller than an iPhone Pro, but it's less than half what a lot of Android phones are coming with. Android phones seem to have standardized on 5000+ mAh and that's more than double an iPhone mini's battery.
Then there's also the heat/cooling situation. With a smaller space, it becomes harder to engineer.
And if they create this smaller phone which might be harder to make, would customers be willing to pay as much for it? I was kinda shocked that Apple offered the iPhone mini for $100 less than the regular iPhone.
When it comes down to it, the iPhone mini probably nets Apple 1-2% of its revenue. Is that enough to keep it around? Maybe. But Android manufacturers don't have Apple's margins and they don't have Apple's volume.
The reason there aren't Android mini phones is that customers don't buy mini phones. Even if they say that they'd like a mini phone, they aren't willing to buy it. Every woman I know says that mini phones would be the biggest seller. Apple has tried that and it's only 5%. I love my iPhone mini and I'll be really sad if Apple gets rid of it. I don't see why people want giant phones. At the same time, I understand the engineering challenges of smaller phones and acknowledge that while I think everyone should want a smaller phone, they don't.
>shown by the iPhone mini.
If anything iPhone mini has shown the market for expensive, mini iPhone is rather small. iPhone SE are still selling well because it fits the market of both price and size conscious segment. Possibly Touch ID although we dont have any Data to back this.
Even in Japan, the market which typically prefer smaller size phones, iPhone Mini has not been making as much sales as many have hoped.
So the people who want smaller phone are also those generally dont care much about latest camera, screen, or tech. And these market also tends to be low margin. iPhone SE starting at $399 is already considered expensive for a small phone.
I guess that is part of the reason why supply chain sources are pointing to a iPhone 14 Max rather than iPhone 14 Mini. Personally I am waiting for the iPhone 13 Mini to drop in price. Or if possible updated iPhone SE with Touch ID on power button.
https://www.engadget.com/japanese-toaster-maker-balmuda-firs...
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/11/meet-this-unique-com...
I think the problem is people use their phone as a computer now so they want a big huge screen. I use a desktop computer or laptop for anything serious and just want a phone that is as unobtrusive and one handed as possible. I lament a generation that only uses a phone for “computing.”
They are similar in size for height/width, but the jelly 2 is about twice the depth compared to the palm. Both are around the size of a credit card in width/height.
The palm works well if all you do is occasional sms, phonecalls and very little app useage (like I have my mobile banking app on it). It only runs a older android version (8). Make sure to de-bloat it aggressively if you get it (enable developer mode, connect via ADB and remove anything verizon and everything that sounds like it might have a phone-home "feature").
If you often listen to podcasts/music on your phone and don't want a mid-day charge the palm will not work. The jelly 2 is much more realistic when it comes to battery and with light usage I get 3 days out of it, normal usage (podcasts/music a few hours per day, some surfing and email) I get 1.5 days out of it. I don't use bluetooth headphones though, so not sure how much that impacts it.
I looked at a lot of "small" phones on chinese import sites, but most of them seem to run ancient android (like 4-5) and be really, really slow with bad battery life and questionable quality. Also if I buy from an unknown brand I'd want to run LineageOS to make sure I get updates and can remove potential spyware.
The palm is pretty cheap on ebay and works even if you don't have verizon (I'm in the EU and just removed the verizon apps and used a normal SIM).
In general there are no good options for small phones. The iphone mini is too large for my tastes, the jelly 2 is a bit too thick, and the palm is running old android and has too bad battery. Depending on your usage the palm or the jelly 2 are probably the least bad options.
In the end I simply searched for the narrowest possible, and ended with the Xperia 10 III. 68mm wide, Android 11 from 2021, and decently fast. It's looong however (21:9 screen) but very usable with one hand because you can grab it without issue.
I have to carry two phones for work and really like the second one to be small. Stuck it out with a 1st gen iPhone SE for a long time (headphone jack ftw), whereas the current gen SE is as big as a 6. Bah.
Seriously, there used to be decent Android phones fitting in a pocket but clearly the market seems to have sorted those out. It's one of the reasons I'm using an iPhone after having used Android phones all the time - can't stand precarious phablets. Missing Mobile FF with uBO, though it's not that much of a problem I thought it was given what little browsing I'm still doing, and Safari is working well enough to regain some privacy I guess.
https://www.motorola.com/us/smartphones-razr-gen-2
For myself, I love my iPhone 12 Mini, and will lament the loss, if the form factor is deprecated.
I was sorely tempted, but as I'm an inveterate web surfer, a conventional smartphone seemed a better choice.
Apple probably gets more value out of Android than anybody else since Android’s existence keeps Apple out of antitrust court.
I think people looking for smaller phones think of it more as a secondary device, they have bigger screens on their main devices (desktop/laptop/tablets).
I have an iPhone SE (2016) and I'm looking for a mid-range compact Android device that doesn't weigh ~200g, but I'm giving up. Between availability in my region (or the lack of), phones without development/custom ROM support, and cost/benefit ratio, I'm left mostly with imported Xiaomi devices that a few years back we'd call "phablets".
I've been wanting to replace my iPhone SE for more than a year, even tried a Samsung Galaxy S10e (Exynos version) for a week, but it didn't feel like it worth the price for what I wanted.
The only "compact" Android phone available officially in my region is the Asus Zenfone 8, which is the price of an iPhone 12 Mini, and then it doesn't feel like a good deal in comparison.
There are some seller refurbished Pixels (3, 3a, 4a) on AliExpress, but from some comments, it seems they're using parts with questionable quality.
> but it seems that phone makers who usually copy Apple on everything, just skip this idea at all. If anyone has thoughts on it or a compact model to recommend I'll be glad to hear.
I was also hoping that the iPhone Mini would influence Android manufacturers to make compact phones, since they seem to follow in almost everything else, but seems it won't be the case, unfortunately.
This is their computer, and YouTube terminal, and video game console, and camera, and texting device, and banking, and…people use the hell out of their phones. And bigger phones mean you get bigger screens, bigger batteries, and bigger camera assemblies.
Even my mom, who up until last year had an iPhone 5-style SE upgraded to the full-size 12 model, because she wanted the battery life, and the bigger screen that she could, in turn, use the screen zoom feature to help with her aging eyesight. Bigger phones solve lots and lots of problems, at the cost of being maybe 2–4cm taller than “compact” phones.
According to Wikipedia, the iPhone mini is 131.5 mm tall and 64.2 mm wide. Using the "Phone Finder" on GSMArena, the closest phone dimension-wise, released in 2021, is the Alcatel 1 (137.6 x 65.7). Of course, it runs Android 11 Go because it only has 1GB of RAM. There are also a couple of Samsungs (A01 and M01 Core) at 141.7 x 67.5, but they only go up to 2GB and run Android 10 Go.
So it doesn't look like there are any "premium" Android phones that are close in size to the iPhone mini. Which is a shame.
I wish others would make something decent, similar to iphone se.
Obviously, this wasn't an internet browsing device, although that was possible.
My current phone is a Galaxy S10e, which also has a smaller form factor and held onto a number of vanishing features (like a headphone jack and SD slot). It's smaller than my last phone, and I love it. I don't know what I'll do when Samsung stops sending it security updates, because they quite literally don't make them like this anymore.
My mini 12 has a 25% smaller battery than my last Android. I can easily stretch the mini multiple days on a charge, but the Android phone struggled to hit eighteen hours despite my best efforts.
Google is in the best position to drive improvement in this regard, but they've shown no interest. Indeed, it seems Pixel phones have a reputation for poor battery life.
It's much harder to source a 4.5" screen than a 5.7" screen these days. As a designer, that constrains what you can practically build.
It is amazing for digital detoxing.
I use a Galaxy S10e, which is a "flagship" compact phone from few years back, and it has been a great phone that I still use today, but even on the day I bought it, battery life has been much shorter than what I was used (an IP8) to I suspected I got a lemon...
My requirement is to be able to tap the top-left corner with one hand (for going back on iOS).
I've owned the original iPod touch as my first foray into smart phones, it was small (~4.3 inches tall) and it was cheap (something like $300 for an iphone without cell service). Upgraded to the nexus 5, even though both had bars on the tops and bottoms of the screen, the extra inch it offered felt magical at the time, not too big, not too small, and the price (used) felt reasonable as 'real' phone. On top of that, stock android felt so much better than iOS at the time. I then 'upgraded' to an s7 and regretted it for 4 years. The phone was similarly sized to the nexus, but it didn't feel any larger to me. Similar to the Nexus, it was a behemoth of a phone that for my tiny hands made it difficult to hold without dropping it. Unlike the nexus, which had an incredible easy snap-off rubberized casing, the s7 had this awful glass casing, which screamed 'put a big bulky case on me!'. I got the seemingly best thing I could find, a big bulky OtterBox for $50, which seemed great, but the rubber blew apart after a year. Between the case never fitting snugly and the sheer bulk of the phone+case, getting it in and out of pockets was a serious ordeal, it also made the wireless charging not work at all for me, this meant that I had to fiddle with the stupid cables constantly. On top of all that, the OS that Samsung shipped with the phone was utter crap. For such an expensive product, I was shocked by how bad it was, and sure you can mess around with roms and such, but who has time for that crap? But hey, at least the battery was massive and I only needed to plug it in once a day.
Que, iPhone 13 mini. The phone has a slightly smaller profile than the s7, but the screen feels (and is!) massive. It's still made of glass, so I had to put a case on it, but apple sells great thin cases (tbd on lifespan) that look good, slide in out of my pockets well, and do not interfere with wireless charging, better yet, the mag-safe cases made it WAY easier to do so. With that said, it's not like I even have to charge it very often, I'm getting multiple days between charges, 3-4 if I put it into battery saver mode. I have 0 worry about ever running out of energy and being unable to charge, something that on all previous phones, compelled me to stash chargers everywhere I went and carry one around. It's a shame about the recent turn wrt to privacy, but aside from that, the software is a magical delight, miles ahead of android in my opinion. Given that I paid essentially the same price for the 13 mini as I did for the s7, and that the trade-up rates are fantastic, I view the price as an absolute steal for the phone. I truly don't see myself going back to android in the future, Apple gave me exactly what I wanted out of a phone and I pray they keep this smaller line of them around.
As to why there are no big Android contenders in the mini-space, I'd guess it's a combination of apples hardware/software being ahead of the curve, and that the perception is that the average android consumer wants a bigger phone. If I'm being a bit more cynical, companies probably also assume they can charge higher prices for bigger devices/batteries. If I were to place a bet, I'd guess that there will be a slight rebound away from phablets in the coming years, Apple proved they can strike an incredible balance between size and battery performance at a price that is reasonable compared to other flagship phones on the market. They've set the trends/pacing in the phone space for years now, I don't have a reason to believe it's going to be any different in the coming decade.