Comment by the__alchemist
Comment by the__alchemist 5 days ago
Looks like they're still only available in "Huge" and "comically oversized". I guess I can keep buying Pixel 4s until new ones (req for battery) are no longer available.
Comment by the__alchemist 5 days ago
Looks like they're still only available in "Huge" and "comically oversized". I guess I can keep buying Pixel 4s until new ones (req for battery) are no longer available.
Apple said the mini iPhones underperformed, but they were not some sort of commercial failure. They sold millions of units. Numbers most Android OEMs could only dream of for a single flagship model. Current day Apple is all about optimizing and determined that still wasn't enough, and I imagine the manufacturing for small, specialized display panels certainly took a chunk out of those margins, so Apple decided to pull the plug.
Myself and the people who said we wanted a smaller phone may be a vocal minority but we did buy the small phone when we were offered it. After I used the 12 mini for 2 years, I bought a 14 Pro since no mini was offered in the 14 generation, but I returned it a week later cause it was too big/heavy and bought a 13 mini. These days I'm using a 16 Pro since no mini is offered and the titanium did help a lot with the weight issue, but if they brought back mini phones I'd happily sacrifice the camera for a reasonably sized screen.
The number of people who aren't vocal tech people who actually want a smaller phone is a very small part of the market. In HN-like circles they're a notable minority but among the general population they are a smaller percentage. Especially when you consider huge segments of the market where your phone is your only computing device: a smaller phone is a massive anti-feature in large parts of the world.
Plus almost everyone who says they want a smaller phone will just buy a larger one anyway.
The sales numbers just don't justify it. Like people who pine for manual transmissions: they're vocal in car forums and publications but they're a tiny minority and making one is a money-loser even in the sports car segment.
Manual transmissions have no practical benefit aside from arguably being easier to repair. A better car analogy is pickup trucks (and cars in generally really) — they've gotten huge over the years, compact pickups have disappeared, and you hear the same arguments about it being a niche audience. The reality is that as soon as something sells well (big trucks in this case), these big corporations go all in on it and alienate large segments. Now 25 year old compact Tacomas are selling for as much as their MSRP and manufacturers (Toyota, Ford, Hyundai) are all scrambling to ship a compact. It's the same with small phones — the industry over-rotated on big phones and as soon as someone ships a good small phone, it'll be a hit and small phones will come back. iPhone Mini was a crippled device compared to the Pro line and it still sold millions. Google and Samsung haven't even tried to make something compact, let alone compact and good.
> Manual transmissions have no practical benefit aside from arguably being easier to repair
I'm not much of a car person but I thought stick shift also had the benefits of:
1. engine braking
2. being able to jump start a car with a dead battery by pushing it down a hill while turning the ignition and shifting into 2nd gear (which my sister successfully did after school one day).> almost everyone who says they want a smaller phone will just buy a larger one anyway
The problem is that smaller phones are usually fundamentally flawed in ways that aren’t about the smaller screen. Whether it’s a worse CPU, worse camera or smaller battery, people are almost never making their purchasing decision based on screen size with all else being equal. I don’t think we can conclude that most people who ask for a smaller screen don’t really want one because many just don’t want a slow phone that takes worse photos and dies by midafternoon.
I think there needs to be a recognition that bigger screens aren’t only about the bigger screens. They’re also about giving phone designers more internal space to cram in components and a larger battery.
The iPhone minis were the first one to not sacrifice on those things, except for battery life compared to other iPhones. Same great display tech as the normal sized iPhone of that year, same SoC, same camera.
Even with the smaller battery, iOS is so aggressive with background tasks anyway, the iPhone 12 mini was my first iPhone and I got better battery life with it than any of my Androids I used over the span of a decade, even giant ones like the Nexus 6P, despite obsessively trying to install background task killer solutions and whatnot that were supposed to save on battery.
There was very little sacrifice with the mini iPhones, for the first time in modern "small" smartphones
I directly addressed the hard sales numbers, we don't need to talk about overrepresentation in HN/tech circles. The napkin math off public numbers tells us the iPhone mini sold 6 million units in the same year Google sold 10 million Pixels total, across all devices. So if 6 million units isn't enough to indicate demand for a niche phone, then there isn't enough demand for the Pixel lineup to exist either, only marginally more.
It's only a small number compared to Apple's total number of iPhones sold which is an astronomical stat to compare to. I don't think it's fair to compare mini phone demand against total iPhone sales.
My wife carries an iPhone 13 mini and hates the new frickin' huge iPhones. If it breaks I suppose I'll buy her a new one of those. If the OS refuses to update because the phone is too old, I guess we'll get a new frickin' huge iPhone, but only under protest.
> Plus almost everyone who says they want a smaller phone will just buy a larger one anyway.
The last time I bought a phone I chose Samsung S22, which was way out of my initially intended budget, for the sole reason that there were not any smaller options available below its price range.
Interestingly I have seen a high share of iPhone Minis in my tech-affine bubble around Berlin / Amsterdam etc. - also my grandma switched from SE to 13 Mini.
Also bought used iPhone SE (2016) in 2019 and 2020 - both time from (UX) designers - but the same people also ride bicycles, trains - or if car, really reflect their user requirements - be it a small EV or a van for vanlife.
Average consumers just buy the largest, most marketed (high margin) or "whatever the neighbour has" option - aka SUV or Pro Max.
> yet smaller phones have an extremely hard time actually selling enough units to justify making more of them
I don't buy this. The iPhone 13 Mini all by itself sold 6 million units in a year. That's about half the rate of Google's entire Pixel lineup. The market is small, yeah, but it definitely exists. I think a company could quietly make a high quality, straightforward, small Android device with maybe every-other-year hardware updates, and run away with a whole corner of the market all to itself.
You can't just look at units sold, you have to look at net units sold because the version of the product existed.
For example, if 5.9 million of those 6 million people would have bought the larger iPhone model anyway, then you didn't actually gain much by offering the Mini unit.
I have no idea what those numbers are, though.
> You can't just look at hamburger sales to judge hamburger demand. You have to consider an alternate universe where hamburgers aren't on the menu, then subtract all the people who would have ordered something else for lunch vs going hungry.
I know this probably is how the decisions get made. Especially if the alternative has a higher profit margin. I just have to say I think the world is worse for it.
That's an important analysis but it's answering a different question from whether the product would sell enough to make a nice profit.
And it only works when there are notable deficits in competition. Otherwise a company with less to cannibalize would make the smaller model and get themselves 3-6 million sales.
> For example, if 5.9 million of those 6 million people would have bought the larger iPhone model anyway, then you didn't actually gain much by offering the Mini unit.
If nothing else, you could still give the mini a higher margin and make some gains that way.
Smaller phones tend to have a lower price point.
If they don't offer a smaller phone, you'll eventually buy a bigger phone. Once you are in camp big phone, you'll probably be back on the 2-5 year device treadmill. And you'll be spending more on the big phones.
Apple is in a continuous state of not giving their customers what they want.
A convertible Macbook with a touch screen and dual MacOS/IOS personalities would sell out. They will never make it because no one will ever buy an iPad again.
A high quality TV with Apple TV built in at a premium but reasonable price would sell like hotcakes. It would compete with Apple Cinema displays, however.
A basic "good enough" 5 inch phone for $499 would also sell fast.
Apple won't do these things because you'd be happier but spend less.
> A high quality TV with Apple TV built in at a premium but reasonable price would sell like hotcakes. It would compete with Apple Cinema displays, however.
With HDMI CEC controls, there is no benefit to anyone by combining Apple TV with a display. Plus almost all displays support Airplay these days.
> A basic "good enough" 5 inch phone for $499 would also sell fast.
This was the iPhone SE sold for many years until Feb 2025. It started at $430. It’s unfortunate they got rid of it for a 6inch 16E, but it is pretty reasonable on price at $600.
This thread seems to have a lot of people that love the iPhone mini (me included - I still use my 12 mini).
But from all reports that you can find with a quick search it seems clear that it did not sell well by Apple standards.
I would love them to bring it back and I’m not sure what it is about the Hacker News crowd that makes this phone over-represented. Maybe the tech crowd also uses laptops more, so we think of phones as our “small device” and use other devices more as appropriate?
> by Apple standards
Yeah. The question I'm trying to answer is not "does it make sense for Apple to make a small phone?", but rather "does it make sense for anyone to make a small phone?" I'm using the 13 Mini's sales data as evidence, because it is the one and only small phone made in the past decade or so.
Bigger phones encourage more user engagement and more screen space to show ads.
Smaller phones are used by people who use it less.
I have only anecdotal data, pretty sure google has the analytics to find that out.
I put Bloomberg TV on the other day, just because it's one of the easy to access channels on a Roku I was setting up, and that experience makes me agree with your statement about space to show ads. It wasn't full of ads (yet?), but the tiny actual video surrounded by huge amounts of other content reminded me strongly of the TV future shown in Idiocracy.
Bloomberg's ads are slightly separate from their regular ads; the "other content" is still news most of the time - Bloomberg is at its heart a data and news feed company (the video news is mostly an add-on for them), so they are doing what they do best anyway. "Idiocracy" is an interesting example; while the style is similar, the side content on BTV, while a pale shadow of the actual terminal, is actually quite information-rich (especially on BTV+); the actual terminal is entirely populated by feed/data/whatever function you're using.
I am on an iPhone SE 3rd gen. due to the small form factor. It is already annoying to surf the web even with an adblocker, lots of cookie banners, notes, requests to install app/signup etc. take so much screen space that you can see no content. Clearly developers do not test or care for small screens anymore.
I recently had to replace my Pixel 7 Pro and went with the Galaxy S25. My hands are much larger than average and it is amazing how unweildy I find the Pixel 7 Pro is in comparison to the S25 even though the size difference doesn't seem that big when compared side to side. Makes me wonder how people with normal sized hands deal with the massive phones.
Probably. I don't expect the market to cater to me when I don't cater to it. The only reason I ditched my iPhone 5 in 2019 was the carrier entirely stopped service for it. I don't like my new 12 mini as much.
I don't see what I feel is the obligatory "I want a small Android phone!" post here yet: https://smallandroidphone.com/
It’s a HN meme at this point. For as long as I can remember, almost every single phone announcement on this site inevitably gets a bunch of comments about how it’s too big and how a smaller version would sell like hotcakes. You would think that phone manufacturers would have figured this out by now, but what do they know.
I replaced my 4a (which is not particularly small) after Google nerfed the battery into oblivion, but every once in a while I get it out of its drawer and am always immediately struck by how much better the form factor is. Using a modern phone with a 6+ inch screen feels like trying to tie a knot with one hand.
I agree with you, but I like the reminder that I probably shouldn't be using my phone for whatever I'm doing anyway.
If I'm at home, I should make the small effort to get a tablet or a laptop. If I'm out, should I just set a reminder and do it later and listen to something instead?
I realise that for many people, that time might be their only time available for doing whatever they were going to do, but on the other hand when I look at what other people use their phones for when they're out, it rarely looks important to me. Even the stuff people are doing for fun doesn't look much fun. Definitely not compared with the people who have also lugged a Switch/e-reader/actual book.
Yup - I think that's fair. It is completely a value judgement. But without ill will, and not particularly heartfelt.
Regarding your point about things that are actually work in disguise, I basically look at browsing web pages as productive work these days compared to alternatives. There are only so many people who can be moderators working for TikTok, or researching endless-scroll or content recommendation algorithms. :)
But even taking what people are doing at face-value, perhaps TikTok/Reels/Shorts is actually important for their wellbeing. I think it is more likely harmful, but I'm guessing.
I think it would be better if people spent less time looking at phone screens (no matter how big), but as long as it's their choice, people should do what they want to do! I have a vague concern that people might be increasingly doing something that they want to do in the short term, but not in the long term, but probably that's always been the way.
My 4a didn't have the battery issue due to GrapheneOS, however, it the screen died recently (twice), so I got a pixel 9 with GrapheneOS. But yeah, it is uncomfortable to use the phone with one hand - I miss the small sized 4a.
On the other hand, it would be fun to explore these on device SLMs on a more capable phone with extra ram/storage.
twins!
I miss it so much. I bought a replacement one after it got cracked, only to have the battery AND Sim get nerfed a month later. Putting a custom ROM seemed to work for a while, and then it just got too unstable with sim card turning off randomly and silently. So now it sits in a drawer and used as a kids camera and I am so jealous of them. My google pixel 8 is bigger, but somehow nowhere needs as performant for my needs (camera + voice calls is basically it).
I just went from a Z Fold 5 to a Z Fold 7 and I hate it for this exact reason.
Z Fold 6 and earlier were slim, one handed use phones when folded, small tablet when opened.
Now it's just a regular phone, and a medium tablet when I open it.
First phone I've ever regretted upgrading to.
Consumers have spoken though. Same as dropping the stylus...
My understanding is that smaller phones get less screen time. Thus if you have some interest in increasing it, better to push bigger ones. But I don’t know if those perverted incentives make it back to the manufacturers. Do they make the most money from sale itself or after from the various ad-/data brokers?
Best phone I've ever owned and it's not close. Every phone since then has been a compromise, to the point that (in a sunk cost fallacy kind of way) I've just quit caring about phones and just buy whatever the cheapest available unlocked device is. I run them into the ground (way past the end-of-service date) because I know the next one is going to be worse.
The Nexus 4 was a nice phone but I thought the battery life was bad and it also ran hot.
My Moto-X was truly next level. It was oled and could do always on display that didn't need to power the blacks pixels on the screen. It was the first phone to do this. It has voice recognition for unlocking (getting info that you couldn't when the phone was locked). First to do this too since I believe it uses dedicated hardware at the time. It also knew when I was driving to unlock the phone for voice commands also. It was small.
I loved my nexus 4! It's a pity that I at one point could not use it anymore because the updates made it unusable slow.
I agree, but I got the Pixel 5 instead; the 5 is actually smaller while the screen size is larger due to the curved screen corners. It also has a fingerprint sensor, unlike the 4. That being said, I still miss the squeeze-activated flashlight on the 4.
There are no alternatives. S25 is 6.2, and Pixels put the Pro/best version in 6.3, while on Samsung you get a step up to 6.7 and 6.9. Much better specs on almost the same size.
s25 is super manageable, it's the most comfy phone I've had since ever.
I keep thinking of how the Nexus 7 has a 7.02" screen. And how modern phones tend to be 6.1 - 6.9". But never quite 7!
I still carry my Pixel 5 for this reason. 2 replacement batteries in now and I have a spare sitting on a shelf. That said the Pixel 9A is tempting as it's not much larger than my Pixel 5. I hate that the finger print readers have moved to the front though. The sensor on the back of my 5 is perfectly postioned and also acts like a little track-pad for opening the notification tray. It was a perfect design IMO.
I've had a "spare" smartphone kept in a drawer for a year and when I needed it it was impossible to charge and I've never been able to wake it up.
You just blew my mind on the pixel 3 with the alternative way to open the pulldown menu.
I agree that I prefer the fingerprint sensor on the back. Very convenient and natural for the pocket grab and unlock maneuver.
I think they moved the fingerprint sensor because of all the magnetic mount and covers acting as a stand being trendy these days.
i would still use my px5 if it were not for 2 stupid problem: The promixity sensor does not work, thus the phone still think it's in pocket and won't wake the screen. Another problem is my power button has been missing.
I love my 13 mini but its battery is just too anemic. Slapping a MagSafe battery on it defeats the purpose of having a small phone. My 16 Pro lasts me all day, but I absolutely hate using it, as I don't do very much with my phone in the first place. I feel stuck.
Two reasons.
First is age. These devices are 5-7 years old. Many are using their original batteries, which have several dead cells. So they literally have less capacity than they did back then.
Second is JavaScript, in my opinion. I can often see my battery drain in real time when I use the browser, even when Low Power Mode is on. Demanding client side JavaScript is a big reason for that.
You also have extensions doing stuff on pre/post-load that also contribute to power usage.
Finally, so many web developers test against modern devices, and there isn't enough demand to warrant accommodating less powerful CPUs/SOCs. You can try to use the web without JS, but you'll find that many websites will think that you're a bot and block you.
I'm afraid you might be right.
Former user of 3a, I upgraded to 6 but it was way too big and heavy, and had a weird mass balance.
I'm now on 8 and it has perfect size and weight IMO (using it with a recommended Spigen case).
Looks like 10 is +17g heavier than 8 and 1-2 mm bigger. Not as big as 6 but almost as heavy.
https://m.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=13979&idPhone2=...
Samsung S25 is just 3 mm bigger than Pixel 4a. Is that too much of a difference?
I got a Motorola Razr 2025 Ultra. You can use it closed. Open it is narrower but taller than a Pixel. It fits in my pocket easily.
The size is about what every manufacturer settled on, and what most people want, it is unfortunate that smaller phones are not an option but it doesn't sell.
What bugs me however is that thin body with a huge camera bulge. Do anybody actually like that? It looks ridiculous, and the bulge defeats the point of having a thin phone. If you can't make the camera thinner, make the phone thicker, there is plenty of things you can do with more space: bigger battery, better speaker, more powerful vibration, more robust, etc...
There is a market, it is just not lucrative enough for big players to take it.
There is however a company that caters to these niches: Unihertz
The have small phones, massive phones with huge batteries, rugged phones, phones with keyboards,...
From what I have seen, not great on the software side though, and they have entry-level specs, with prices to match. It is a Chinese company.
I really liked my Pixel4 but in 2025 the hardware and software are getting too out of date.
I just hope that all the newer body models I purchase have bigger hands.
https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/095D6...
Shot of humans from the future.
It's interesting how this type of feedback always comes up for phones yet smaller phones have an extremely hard time actually selling enough units to justify making more of them. It seems part of it may be folks remaining in this group seem much more willing to stick with old devices anyways, helping drive less priority for small sizes on top of already being a smaller market segment. Perhaps there are some other big factors beyond those two things too.