
Should more OEMs cater to the small smartphone segment? - walterbell
http://www.androidauthority.com/should-more-oems-make-small-phones-648610/
======
nostrademons
I love my 2013 Moto X, with its 4.7" screen. One of the main reasons I haven't
replaced it yet is I can't find anything on the market of a similar size, that
will actually fit into the palm of my hand comfortably. I may end up falling
back on a relative's secondhand iPhone 5 rather than buy a new phone, just
because it's small.

I can understand why it's happening, though. Netbooks disrupted laptops while
the smartphone entered as a new market. Tablets disrupted netbooks. Now
smartphones are moving up-market, with phablets, and disrupting tablet sales.
That's a large existing market for the taking, which will give much better
revenue growth than trying to carve out a niche in the small smartphone
segment.

I think we'll see smartphones continue growing into the 6-7" screensize range,
so that they're sized for a purse or (barely) a large pocket. And then
smartwatches will disrupt the low end, so that you don't need to take your
phone out of your purse/pocket as often. It's already happening - many
smartwatch models let you take calls & do anything voice-related on the watch,
so you only use your phone as an input device when you need to type.

~~~
ams6110
I have a Moto G and it's the biggest phone I could imagine wanting. I can hold
it in one hand and reach across the screen with my thumb. Ideally I'd like it
maybe an inch less "tall."

Ever since I started carrying a mobile phone I stopped wearing a watch. I
don't need or want both.

~~~
abrowne
Ditto for my Moto E (which is slightly smaller than the G).

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Avshalom
Also I don't know how common the sentiment is but I would happily take an
extra 1-2 millimeters in depth and the extra weight for more battery life in
said hypothetical smaller phones.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
I think most people would. The problem is the same with size, OEMs have to
retrain people that thinner is not better. Unfortunately, OEMs currently have
an oddly obsessive compulsion to make phones thinner and thinner. I honestly
don't fully understand this.

~~~
return0
OEM's follow what sells, which is probably whatever has been pushed to
consumers via big corp marketing. i wouldn't be surprised if "smaller is
better" is the next fad though.

~~~
TeMPOraL
And since marketing is a science of convincing people to buy absolutely
arbitrary stuff, it seems to me that what ultimately decides the direction of
the next trend is random fluctuations. When you can't win the market by making
your phone even thinner, some other - likely random - factor will temporarily
attract more customers, at which point the marketing machinery of _everyone_
will focus on it, and again push it into its limits.

------
rsync
My phone for the last 2-3 years was a very, very small Motorola F3 ("moto
fone")[1]. Beautiful phone, wonderful design, e-ink display, battery life
_forever_.

But it broke. And it was time to finally have a smartphone.

But I could not bring myself to carry around one of these huge obelisks... and
so was very, very happy to learn of the Neptune Pine phonewatch[2]. I never
attached it to the band and have no intention of ever using it as a watch.
It's just a very, very small, full featured android phone. I am using it right
now to provide wifi-tethering to my laptop in a coffee shop. Full, modern
features (bluetooth, speakerphone, etc.) and I have no complaints about the
telephone functions/quality.

Texting is a little difficult with such a small screen, but it's not _that
bad_. If I need to text, I can. I'm sure there's some speech to text app that
would fix this, but I don't care to look right now.

Yes - there should be more small phones. A lot more. There has been _zero
design_ in the smartphone space since the first iphone - they're still just
monolithic touchscreen tablets. We need new designs, not just minor iterations
on iphone 1.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Fone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Fone)

[2] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/neptune/neptune-pine-
sm...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/neptune/neptune-pine-smartwatch-
reinvented)

~~~
walterbell
Interesting, there's a suite of WiGig-networked thin clients for the
wristwatch Android LTE hub, [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/neptune-suite-
one-hub-inf...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/neptune-suite-one-hub-
infinite-possibilities#/) & [http://getneptune.com](http://getneptune.com) &
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9062482](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9062482).

~~~
rsync
That's for the neptune duo which is some kind of end-all-be-all modern
computing environment moonshot ...

Their first device, which I am referring to, is just a very, very small
android phone.

I wish they had just continued to iterate on that concept, which is plenty
unique and which they did very well with.

------
krisdol
I switched from android to Apple primarily because there wasn't a <5in phone
from Android that I personally liked. 4.7in is still large, and I would gladly
take something where I'm not at the risk of dropping the thing whenever I use
it one-handed (and I almost always use my phone one-handed, I have no need for
a phone that requires two hands).

~~~
vetinari
iPhone 6S is about the same size as Nexus 5, despite having smaller display.

If you compare it with another 4,7" android, such as Sony Xperia Z5 Compact,
that Xperia is significantly smaller.

~~~
krisdol
I was not a fan of the Xperia. I'll try it again when they stop using LCD. The
Nexus 5 looks larger than the iPhone 6/s, is it not?

My favorite phone of all time was the Google Play Edition Samsung Galaxy S4, I
wish they didn't nix that GPE program.

~~~
digi_owl
iPhone 6s:

    
    
      138.3 mm (5.44 in) H
      67.1 mm (2.64 in) W
      7.1 mm (0.28 in) D
    

Nexus 5:

    
    
      137.84 mm (5.427 in) H
      69.17 mm (2.723 in) W
      8.59 mm (0.338 in) D

~~~
krisdol
Yeah... the 5X looks really tempting

~~~
vetinari
Carefully, the 5X is significantly bigger - 147 x 72.6 x 7.9 mm (5.79 x 2.86 x
0.31 inches).

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colin_mccabe
I think it would be helpful if there were a way for users to tell the
smartphone browser to reflow text to fit the viewport size. As it is, we're
stuck looking at some very tiny text when people choose wide page sizes. That
is one reason we are seeing such large phone sizes.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Browsers are supposed to be doing this anyway. I can't comprehend why they
even allow some two-bit site designer to override the user experience and
force a useless layout to render. There should be a "Don't fuck up the layout"
option for Firefox mobile next to "Request Desktop Site".

------
JustSomeNobody
Yes, they should. But they won't until one decides to be different and ship a
smaller flagship that is massively popular. Then they all will.

Edit: I'd like to point out the iPhone 6s is not a small phone. Its the same
size as my LG G2 with a 5.2" screen vs 4.7 for the iPhone.

------
ck2
I have small hands and hate large smartphones.

Best smartphone I ever had was the Motorola Defy but unfortunately it is too
underpowered today being only single core and half gig ram.

Check out the size difference:

[http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size//phones/8908,8346,4875](http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size//phones/8908,8346,4875)

If I could have phone built to spec, 4 inch screen with edge-to-edge no-margin
1280x720, quad-core 1.5ghz+, 2gb+ ram and user-removable battery. Oh and
hardware button which are becoming extinct.

~~~
grujicd
Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini is not that far from your requirements. I'm very happy
with S4 Mini, S5 Mini wasn't that much of an improvement to make me upgrade.
Physical button, replaceable battery, SD cars slot, all must-have features in
my opinion but which are getting less and less common. Anyway, this size of
phone is maximum I can handle with one hand. It's easy to unlock on the
bottom, pull notification on the top and reach any corner of screen if needed.
With larger phones I either have to use both hands, or "scroll" phone if I
need other part of screen.

~~~
ck2
Still pretty big for a "mini"

[http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size//phones/4875,8573,7993](http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size//phones/4875,8573,7993)

4 inch screen is as big as I think would be perfect on any phone.

------
izacus
Is that segment even small? Because right now it pretty much seems like a
self-fulfilling prophecy - all good phones you can buy are huge so everyone
buys huge phones. Meanwhile our app stats don't even feature 50% of larger
5"\+ phones at all. Where does this meme that large phones are demanded come
from? Is it bandwagoning? Inability to put powerful hardware in small chasis?

~~~
JustSomeNobody
I'd like to hear from some actual marketing people on this. Is it because once
you've gone large you can't go back (I'll pause for the snickering to stop)?
What I mean is, after you've told consumers that larger screens are better, is
it really that hard to tell them, well, no, "right size" is best?

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ourmandave
I'm still looking for a pocketable android. I finally settled for the Kyrocera
Rise which is the smallest I could find that isn't super retro android. But
it's a slide open texting keyboard so it's still to fat. I even shopped on
eBay for crazy small Chinese phones but all the reviews said stay away.

------
samastur
I have Sony Z3 Compact for that very reason. I am much more attached to size
than to platform so if next time iPhones end up being smallest of the bunch,
then that's where I will go.

~~~
ck2
It's not really that "compact" though

[http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size//phones/4875,7993,8744...](http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size//phones/4875,7993,8744,8346)

Just smaller than a full 5 inch screen.

~~~
samastur
I agree. I'd prefer a smaller, but Z3 Compact was the best Android phone at
the time that had tolerable size and was locally available.

Anything bigger is what I would call a "winter" phone.

------
matzipan
I own a Nokia 515 and haven't been happier with any other phone. Maybe there
should be more competition in the high-end basic phones area. I'm willing to
pay a higher price (higher profit margin for the manufacturer) for a higher
build quality.

------
vannevar
I ran across the current generation iPod Touch while I was looking at the
iPhones and couldn't help wishing that Apple would make a phone in that form
factor. I understand the existence of tablet phones like the Plus: half the
population regularly carries a large bag capable of holding a small tablet,
and so they have little reason to buy a separate device. But even the 6s isn't
terribly practical to carry in a pocket, and the form factor is poor for its
intended purpose as a handheld device. It's too small to replace a tablet, and
too big to be comfortably used as a phone.

~~~
walterbell
There is a rumored 4" iPhone for 2016,
[http://www.macrumors.com/2015/11/03/kuo-4-inch-
iphone-2016-i...](http://www.macrumors.com/2015/11/03/kuo-4-inch-
iphone-2016-iphone-7-ram/)

------
heavenlyhash
Well this one's easy: Yes.

I wrote a crappy scraper for phone stats if anyone's interested in that: [1]
No warranty, just enough duck tape to suit my needs, etc; you'll need to patch
it to answer your own questions, but if it can save someone 5 minutes, go for
it. Currently it just scrapes the cyanogen wiki, but I think I'm going to
start yanking some other sources because the wiki content is... less than
fully reliable for mechanical parsing.

[1]
[https://github.com/heavenlyhash/phonequery](https://github.com/heavenlyhash/phonequery)

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bobajeff
Yes they should cater to the small phone segment. That or make standalone
smart watches that can be used in place of smart phones.

For me I don't want to carry around big objects in my pocket all day. So those
4" x 2" feature phones are way more comfortable to me.

~~~
krisdol
Agreed, they destroy tight pockets by stretching them out and leaving corner
imprints

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return0
It's outrageous you can't find a decent phone under 5 inches. I 'm very fine
with a small screen, i just need a big, very big battery. the best i could
find was lenovo p1m.

PS. It's rare to find an exception to Betteridge's law of headlines.

~~~
Symbiote
I'm pleased with my Sony Xperia Z3 Compact. It feels as fast as the larger
Xperia, and has very similar specs.

Depending how much I use it, I get 2 days with the battery in "stamina mode"
(no background data).

Newer model: [http://www.sonymobile.com/global-
en/products/phones/xperia-z...](http://www.sonymobile.com/global-
en/products/phones/xperia-z5-compact/) — 127×65×8.9 mm

