Ask HN: What happened to normal-sized smartphones?
But it's short of impossible to find a phone that wouldn't be a huge hassle to hold in my hand. I don't want to have to use two hands to write a message, I just a smartphone that is the same size as they used to be, instead of these over-sized abominations that are currently popular.
But the only ones who seem to be releasing smartphones in the same size (or below) as the iPhone 12 Mini seems to be shady brands one never heard of before, or really cheap ones with very low specifications.
So what happened to the smartphones you could hold in one hand? Why did they disappear? And why is no company no longer offering these sizes and instead go for "bigger is better"?
I cannot possibly be the only one with my size of hands + want to be able to use my phone with one hand?
106 comments
[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 174 ms ] threadWe're in the minority, though. The market has spoken, and it prefers larger phones.
Apple dropped the Mini line after two models and replaced it with the largest screen ever (Max line) because the Mini wasn't selling.
I think people prefer larger screens and larger batteries over the ability to use the phone with one hand.
The Zenfone 10 is one of the few decent "small" phones from a major brand: https://youtu.be/6aK407STsGA
I don’t buy your self-reinforcing cycle. I think it’s pure demand — consumers want bigger phones, scale economies mean small phones cost more per unit to produce, nobody wants to make an unprofitable niche device.
Re consumer demand. Would most care? I would guess 50% of phone buyers only actually use basic functionality, but then those aren't the ones spending loads for the latest model, so that would seem to be more fashion/economics, rather than demand per se.
Yes it was.
Per [1] the Mini makes up about 3% of iPhone sales. Per [2] there are about 200M iPhones sold every year. That means there were about 6 million iPhone minis sold in one year. Per [3] the Google Pixel sold about 10 million units in one year, and that was a record sales year. The iPhone Mini alone sold almost half as much as Google's entire Pixel lineup!
Small phones do sell. If someone reputable made one, they could completely corner a market almost as big as the Google Pixel.
[1] https://9to5mac.com/2022/04/21/cirp-iphone-13-best-selling-l...
[2] https://www.demandsage.com/iphone-user-statistics/
[3] https://www.gizchina.com/2023/10/08/google-pixel-phones/
Yet, somehow, Club Mate didn't get the memo and is still being manufactured.
I think people wanted bigger screens, but what they wanted more was battery life which requires that you scale up the phone.
Personally, I was really happy with the original iPhone size of 3.5”.
(Unfortunately my XZ1 Compact broke, still just the right size!).
I wanted a smaller phone. I'd be happy to compromise on screen size if the phone was small enough for me to use with in a single hand. Unfortunately the Mini was never small enough so I never saw the reason to compromise on screen size.
I suspect a lot of people who want smaller phones are in this category.
Apple was all about making things smaller and thinner. It was the non-Apple phones that started the trend of bigness. In part it was because they weren't advanced enough to be able to produce smaller devices without sacrificing battery life, cooling, performance, etc. Smaller is harder to do! They turned what would otherwise be a competitive disadvantage into an advantage by promoting their larger screens.
It was only later that Apple said, welp, people want bigger screens, so they gave in and also made larger iPhones. They then tried the mini one more time, to give us a real shot to prove there was demand. There apparently wasn't enough. And that's that.
Though I think I'd miss the ability to tether, which the Apple Watch doesn't do (understandably with such a small battery).
Still a good question though!
For example, what I'm trying to setup is forward specific SMS messages to a specific Telegram channel (or just do a HTTP POST, worst case scenario), and for those flows, Apple require user interaction to run automatically.
Give it a try yourself to setup a automation like that :)
Can’t speak to the specifics of what you want to do WRT Telegram.
But as a programmer, it’s not something I’d be attempting on-device.
Unless of course it absolutely had to be done with my own main number that is tied to my eSIM….
But at that point I’d begin questioning my life choices that led me to this situation! ;-)
Everything is working as a "Shortcut", the only thing missing is Apple allowing me to run this shortcut automatically without user interaction. Which for some annoying reason is missing. If I just can get rid of the step where I absolutely have to interact with the phone to trigger the "automation"...
https://apps.apple.com/app/id1405459188
What are some examples of how you can trigger it without user interactions?
I looked through the docs and found nothing about triggering stuff when receiving SMS text messages for example.
I'm sticking with this iPhone mini until they no longer support it with iOS updates.
Being a computer person I have many devices. My phone is only used when I'm out and about. And I only use it for out and about sort of tasks. I don't watch videos on it. I rarely use it to write or read anything of significant length. Therefore, it's more important for me that the phone be small and portable.
If my phone was the only device I had, I would absolutely get the biggest highest spec phone. Maybe even one of those folding ones. All kinds of tasks I currently do using other devices with very large screens would be a tremendous pain on my iPhone mini.
No shit it didn't sell.
It's not that much of a trade-off in terms of features or capability and it has the small size you'd expect.
Yes, yes it is. This is the problem. If you want to automate something based on received text messages, you cannot.
I don't think it's that hard - 'the market' doesn't want them. Not enough people bought them to warrant companies splintering their product lines for them.
Pick another phone maker besides Samsung and Apple and I bet the mini sold more than their products during the same period mini was sold. Google Pixel? Probably. Asus' phones? Probably.
The problem is that every single phone out there is made for people for whom their phone is their primary, or maybe only, gateway to the internet. This means watching videos on it and all that stuff. There don't seem to be any phones for people like me, who don't even remember they have a phone most of the time when they're home.
Give us back 5 inch phones.
People say it's due to "what the market wants", but it's more to do with what the car manufacturers decide they want people to buy, advertising it appropriately.
With you on wanting a small phone, though.
Eg, the golf used to be a small car, now there's multiple models smaller than it.
[0] https://xkcd.com/1940/
"…if I wanted an iPad, I would buy an iPad."
My favorite review of the iPhone mini.
Love mine, lightning port doesn't work anymore and it'll be coming up on 4 years old when the next iPhones release, but I'd hate to replace it with a larger one
If you disagree, touch the bottom of your screen, then touch the top, I promise it wasn’t effortless.
Steve Jobs was very careful about designing the first iPhone to mold into our hands. It’s no surprise they immediately got bigger once he passed.
Unfortunately, people want it because as you say “bigger is better”. Call me elitist, but they don’t know what they want. A phone isn’t the size of a tv. Making it 2 inches larger doesn’t really solve anything when it’s already so small.
Same goes for reducing the bezel, another obvious “solution” that wasn’t needed. The bezel was meant to give your palm some room so it doesn’t touch the screen.
When you see people put handles on the back of their phones, we have a problem with function. Steve Jobs is rolling in his grave at the sight of these flip flop phones.
This is painful even on an iPhone Mini.
https://www.unihertz.com/products/jelly-2
The small Chinese companies tend to be less affected by marketing trends and just make what users really want. That's why they still have plenty of models with small screens, removable batteries, expandable storage, etc.
For Android, which is my preference personally, there has not been a normal-sized phone since like the Pixel 3A in 2019, and even that was getting pretty huge. There is https://smallandroidphone.com/ , but it seems like a dead project.
I too was surprised about how shitty the software is compared to how excellent the hardware is.
Well, I guess nothing is perfect...
It will supposedly be about the size of the regular Pixel 7 which is reasonable size but not as compact as something like the Pixel 2.
I hope that if it sells well it'll encourage them to make more premium small phones.