Comment by roelschroeven
4 years ago
A problem is that even within the niche of small phones, not everybody has the same wishes.
Compared to your ideal specifications, my wishes are: support for microSD card storage; battery that easily and reliably lasts a full day with moderate phone usage; fingerprint sensor, not necessarily on the power button; camera decent, not necessarily great (I don't care that much about low light performance, for example).
I'm tempted to sign up even with the specifications as you list them though. Missing microSD card support could be the major dealbreaker. Or alternatively some other user-friendly reliable method of getting lots of files from my PC to the phone's storage, but so far I haven't found any. Early Android versions supporter USB mass storage and that worked pretty well, but the transfer method implemented on newer versions is very slow and never works reliably for me.
> Missing microSD card support could be the major dealbreaker
And for the other guy a 3.5mm jack and for a third a physical off switch and look at that we have too many dealbreaker features for the form factor.
Power users tend to have more dealbreakers than the average consumer. Anecdotally, it seems power users prefer smaller phones. This might be what kills the small phone factor.
I believe the bit about power users is the HN effect at work, the main customers for small phones are people with small hands and/or pockets, who are disproportionally women.
Women are also overrepresented in the Really Big Phone market, and wield them two-handed.
They also trend heavily iPhone in the US market, but that leaves plenty of alpha for the manufacturer who serves the actual market for small-form-factor Android phones.
I agree with this. Power users are a tiny market compared to “people who can’t reasonably fit a modern phone in their pocket.”
But if you have to keep your phone in a purse anyways, why not just get a big one?
So mostly the people in that market who still care are the ones who can’t or don’t want to carry a purse, which is also a smaller market. (I’m in this market though, so i am sad)
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As a non-power-user, I mostly keep my phone in the pocket, where I’d like it to be small.
I’d almost go for a dumb phone, almost... but then I need emails, maps and WhatsApp.
I don’t need 50 filters, 3 cameras, razor-thin (yet somehow enormous) body, more Storage than my laptop, etc etc...
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Android manufacturers besides Samsung already don’t make any money. The last thing they are going to do is go after an even smaller niche.
The Moto G (2013) had a microSD slot, a 3.5" port and all of it in a 4.5" form factor.
Why can't we just get an updated version of that?
I started with one of those, and every two-three years I upgrade to the most recently available one.
Over time the MotoG phones have been getting larger - to the extent that now the one I have doesn't fit in my sporran, if I go out wearing a kilt.
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It didn't have an SD card slot of any kind!
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I definitely want a smaller phone but I don't know that I'd call myself a power user given that I use my phone less now than I have in the past 5 years - but it has been a total replacement for things like photography.
No, just do all three of those things. Add a couple millimeters to the thickness.
I disagree. I bet many average consumers would want a small phone for work, travel, etc.
IMHO vendors try not to sell small flagship phones so you have to buy a foldable phone, which is way more expensive.
> I bet many average consumers would want a small phone for work, travel, etc.
They neither say they do nor buy those which are available.
Maybe they'd like a smaller phone for a limited set of situations (though there’s no evidence of that) but they’re not going to buy two phones, so that’s not relevant.
It's like asking a single-issue voter their preference on other subjects.
You shouldn't be downvoted. It's exactly the problem. My main factors are: Replaceable battery, headphone jack, LineageOS (or other custom rom) support. If those are matched the smaller the better - I loved my HP Veer, which I admit did not meet these requirements - but without them size is not the main factor.
Those additional requirements further splinter the market.
But what's the point in buying a small phone if it does not meet these standards, which are all about longevity? Then it will just be unusable in ~2 years. Which would make it no better than the otherwise perfect small phone I already have at home, the Veer.
> user-friendly reliable method of getting lots of files from my PC to the phone's storage
Have you tried KDE Connect? (Hint: It's not only for KDE desktop users.)
https://kdeconnect.kde.org/
> Early Android versions supporter USB mass storage and that worked pretty well, but the transfer method implemented on newer versions is very slow and never works reliably for me.
Sounds like you haven't been using ADB. Normally, like you've seen, getting files on or off a modern Android handset is a terrible experience. Considering I only do bulk transfers from my own PC, I just apt install adb, then adb push $files $destination. Highly recommend - it's one of the few ways Android is still dramatically better for techy users.
>Or alternatively some other user-friendly reliable method of getting lots of files from my PC to the phone's storage, but so far I haven't found any.
SyncThing, sftp from a termux shell, or primitive ftpd.
You want a small phone. But you want one with better battery life and you want an Android?
Between the inefficiency of non Apple ARM chipsets and the inefficiency of Android, that’s not likely to happen.
> that’s not likely to happen.
Why not? It has happened before.
My Xperia XZ1 Compact:
- runs Android (I'm on Android 10, but might upgrade)
- measures about 14cm diagonally and 8-9mm thick
- uses around 10-15% charge per day of light use (without Google services)
- has a standard headphone jack
- has stereo speakers
- has decent front and back cameras, with no bump
- has a microSD slot
- has a USB type C port
- has a fingerprint sensor (I disabled mine)
- is water-tight and dust-tight (IP68)
- supports VoLTE
- supports WiFi calling
My previous phone was similar, and a bit slimmer. The one before that didn't get such good battery life, but its physical keyboard, swappable battery, and even smaller size made up for having to charge more often.
Obviously, these devices are not common, but they are made from time to time. I'm looking at hardware right now that proves there is no technical barrier. I don't see any reason to dissuade people from asking for a new model.
It’s also a phone that was first announced in 2016, by a company that has lost money for the past 5 years and is basically retreating from the global market.
https://www.androidheadlines.com/2019/05/sony-mobile-strateg...
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of its mobile phone strategy.
And it last a long time not using any services that make Android what it is to most users (ie using Google service) is not a mass market selling point.
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> Early Android versions supporter USB mass storage and that worked pretty well, but the transfer method implemented on newer versions is very slow and never works reliably for me.
Have you tried both connecting your phone to your computer via USB and connecting your phone to a USB stick?
Connecting my phone to a USB stick is not something I have tried yet. I wasn't even aware that that's supposed to work.Thanks, I'll give that a try.
I use Total Commander to transfer files. It has plugins for many different kinds of transfer, but I mainly use SMB for computers on my lan and sometimes sftp for others.