Comment by sandreas
20 hours ago
If anyone from Motorola is reading this: Please add a smaller device to your Portfolio, about max the size of a Pixel 8. I'm not hoping for an audio jack any more but at least small it could be.
All in all: Thank you for making this possible.
The small form factor phones simply do not sell. Some great thoughts on the topic:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR9zBsKELVs * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZdbbN3FCzE Not about small form factor, rather enthusiast phones don't last
Currently running a Sony Xperia 5 V which farm factor is acceptable, and still will get a number of months of updates. And the winning point is that the bootloader can be unlocked and is supported by LineageOS.
The issue of "enthusiast phones" is not the same as for small phones. The problem that MKBHD is describing is that a company that starts as an enthusiast phone can not grow by getting the niche larger, so they need to start competing in the "average consumer" market. But a large, established company like Motorola and Samsung can for sure segment their product line to serve a particular demand.
I think the issue of small phones is that, while there people saying they would buy if it was available, no one is saying "I would buy one small phone at flagship prices, even if they don't have flagship features".
I suspect there's a large overlap between people who want a small phone and people who only upgrade their phone when there's a pressing need. I am in both groups.
The root cause is that the phone is not a primary device for me. It's what I use when bringing a PC is too much trouble.
I'm not necessarily asking for a "small" phone as in 4.5" or less.
I'd like to have an Option around 6" and 150x70x9mm, which is not really small. Surprisingly the Pixel 8 has a smaller footprint than the Pixel *a variants while having a bigger display.
So my request would be a device around the size of the Pixel 8, having a similar battery size and if possible a headphone jack at a reasonable price point (350 bucks).
I consider the pixel 8 as really solid device for graphene OS.
They don't even need to fix the longpress for headphone remotes... Just a device that is the right size.
> The small form factor phones simply do not sell.
And still in every phone topic people complain about phones being too big... I'd love to have a smaller affordable smartphone.
Same here. And I have a friend who keeps his small IPhone because they stopped building smaller phones, too. There is a demand, maybe not that big.
For me, I want to be able to operate the phone with one hand, and the large screen makes it difficult to reach all the spots on the screen even with large hands. I do operate my Fairphone 5 with one hand, but it is super awkward and at some point, the phone will fall into a gully because I cannot hold it tight while navigating.
And I wouldn't mind 2mm more thickness if this means the cameras are flush with the back and the battery is larger.
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I was in the same boat and literally this week bought a Pixel 8. It's a 2 year old phone but with the extended support period that's no longer a problem, and being old means you can get it new for about €300 or refurbished for even less.
The other option is the Samsung S2x line, which you can apply the same strategy to.
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I watched the first video. One point they didn't mentioned is that their android example of the "last small flagship phone", asus zenfone 9/10, is about the same size as an iphone 12/13, not the mini.
Do regular iphones sell well? If so, the small flagship phones are not dead, because iphones are not dead. If iphones are not counted as small phones, then the small android flagship phones are dead long time ago.
I run a Xperia 10 V. Great phone, great form factor, easy to unlock. It runs for days, almost a week, on one battery charge. Sony is doing something right here.
I got the same or similar but let's not kid ourselves that this is in any way small. It would have been giant by 2015 standards. That's how much the overton window has shifted.
> small form factor phones simply do not sell
Are we really sure "nobody actually wants it"? I need to help my family select the smallest possible phone every time. Meanwhile choices are dwindling and the remaining 2 models are either overpriced or outdated and so I need to tell them it's better to take a (whatever currently goes for) "medium sized" model, which shifts upwards every time I/they need a new one. No wonder that people don't buy small phones anymore if they don't exist
I don't buy this nonsense about small phones being a niche when so many people are actively seeking them out, both online and offline in my practical experience
It's just harder to make, heat dissipation or battery will be restricted, doubly so if you're a niche manufacturer without a big budget, or one who tries to keep it repairable and needs the extra space for screws. So I can understand that Fairphone doesn't release a small model (even if it means I simply cannot use it: I actually put my money down and bought one, but sadly had to sell it onwards after a few weeks of trying) but for Graphenorola I'm not sure that restriction exists. It may just not please everyone if the chip is underclocked for heat and battery efficiency reasons and so they're not likely to. Doesn't mean there's no market for a small variant for any manufacturer that has more than one device on the market
My mom's and my current phone (same model) is what I'd call medium sized (per 2019 standards, when it was new) and the battery life sucks, but I'd buy this model again anyway if it came out with a ≥2025 SoC because I can actually use it unlike nearly any other phone on the market. Not properly reach the top, but at least the left side so that'll have to do
>And the winning point is that the bootloader can be unlocked and is supported by LineageOS
Don't banking, security and payment apps detect the unlocked bootloader and prevent them from working on lineageos? At least that's what happened to me after i flashed lineage on my old tablet.
Because then what's the point of a smartphone if it can't do banking, payment, shopping, ticketing, etc? Use it as a gimped pocket web browser and ebook reader? There's not gonna be any mass market adoption for such "smartphones" until they can run all apps out of the box like vanilla androids and IOS phones.
Your average consumer isn't gonna wanna fuck around with signing keys and bootloader relock. Hell, even this tech savvy HN user doesn't want to do that because he has better things to do with his time. The days from my childhood when I always rooted my Android phone, installed custom ROMs with custom kernels, magisk, titanium backup, cerberus to make the phone "my own" are long behind me.
There is the option to register the signing key of the ROM with the bootloader and then relocking it, thereby making those apps happy again.
The biggest issue is that there is a different way to do this for every device, so most custom ROMs don't bother. It's relatively simple and automatable for Pixel devices, so the GrapheneOS installer takes care of it. e/OS/, which is based on Lineage, allows this for some devices, iirc.
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(at least on pixels and apparently this future motorolla,) it can be re-locked, so it passes the integrity check; however there is an additional layer that needs google signing keys, which of course means you can't pass that one if you can't ship the keys
funnily enough my banking app works but the mcdonalds app doesn't, lol
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Switch to a bank that offers a fully functional web or Android app, as opposed to only allowing Google Android
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What we need is a way for the OS to trick banking apps into thinking they are running on the platform they expect.
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Ironically I always find when these new devices like the fairphone come out, I'm disappointed and don't buy it because the screens are actually too small. They tend to focus on an unuseable middle point (probably in an attempt to please everyone).
All the flagships have huge screens, the big guys would have paid millions on market research, I can't understand why they arent just trying to achieve flagship parity (in terms of specs not price or software). No one is going to say it's unreasonable and they save themselves the market research
Oh, the guy who is still mentally on the level when he started his channel. And these shenanigans.... putting a phone in a mini coffin. sigh
Why it has to be a flagship? Sell them cheap. It's like AAA game makers cry about ballooning costs, and they make 60 hour games that literally nobody plays through....
> The small form factor phones simply do not sell.
yeah, clearly nobody buys Samsung Galaxy S series for years, they are like the least popular Android phone model... /s
I'm running Pixel 6a (which was followed bu successors with worse screen:body ratio for years and only now the new Pixels finally matched and slightly improved the ratio, what a progress), but considering all the HW issues (baterries and displays) with Pixels I'd rather avoid it, the worst case will buy as next phone Xiaomi and hopefully somehow unlock it, if there is no suitable Motorola
edit: added HW issues explanation since I am rate limited on comments
yeah pixel used to be great. probably the best phone I ever owned after iPhone SE was a Pixel 3a.
till I got the abomination that was a pixel 6a. fucking overheated - then finally battery exploded. Other pixels suffer the same problems as well - overheating n display being finnicky.
What are the HW issues with Pixels?
> yeah, clearly nobody buys Samsung Galaxy S series for years, they are like the least popular Android phone model... /s
I don't think the smaller Galaxy S models are what people generally mean when they talk about small phones, those are still much bigger than the iPhone Mini was.
https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Samsung-Galaxy-S26,Ap...
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The whole Moto G series has audio jacks, at least as of a year or so ago. I hope that Graphene makes it to those affordable models. I don't need high end cameras or AI on my phone. In fact AI is quite unwanted.
I think I went through the first ~3 or so generations of the Motorola Moto G, and they were great for the price, besides the fact that each generation it got bigger and bigger, defeating the original motivation I bought them in the first place. Eventually the iPhone 12 Mini was released and I moved to iPhone at that point.
I also hope that the new GrapheneOS device from Motorola will be in the "smaller" size factor so it actually fits in my (apparently) tiny hands, but to be honest I'm probably getting one regardless, as iOS gets worse and worse every time I update it.
Lol, no, according to graphene, an aux jack is a security problem. So is a microsd. But the hole punch with the camera pointed at your face, that's just fine.
When my current phone dies, I'm basically returning to a dumb phone with a removable battery. Now that Xperia dropped open source, every phone out there is terrible and I just don't want any of them. Anything that would support a ROM has features to make my skin crawl.
Their hardware requirements do not say this, where'd you get that idea? Graphene has stated they'll work with the Motorola team on supporting their devices, starting with the successors of the Razr foldable and the signature line, but there really hasn't been any talk about how additional peripherals like aux would be a no-go. USB is also a security concern, which is why they give you the option to disable it outright, disable data or disable until after-first-unlock. I don't see what would keep them from implementing this for aux, although since it's unidirectional I'm not sure if it even makes sense to compare aux to USB. They've supported pixels with aux ports in the past, and I don't think it's inclusion would be a blocking criteria. The comment about the camera is also kinda misguided. They zero out the camera input if you disable it, unlike traditional android. You can have a camera toggle in your quick settings and keep it disabled literally all the time. Enabling it when you bring up any camera related app takes either pin or biometrics, having the hardware here really shouldn't be a concern since you can look at how the code handling it works yourself. I'm not trying to convince you to use a pixel or a Motorola phone, do what you want, but at least be informed about stuff like this when you state things as if they are facts.
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It sounds bizarre to me that an analog aux port is a security problem and that bluetooth audio is not, or that the phone's built in microphone is not. I never want to use bluetooth and tbh I've sometimes wanted a phone with no microphone, so that if I wanted to make a phone call I'd have to plug in my wired headset. That gets rid of the microphone as a listening device.
why do you say "according to graphene?" have they said those things? or do you just mean the currently supported devices don't have these
It's a shame that modern banking (and communication with my family) needs a smartphone.
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> When my current phone dies, I'm basically returning to a dumb phone with a removable battery.
Why not a smartphone with the jack, microsd, and a hardware kill switch for camera?
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Modern dumb phones are just smartphones with a dumb UI.
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I was thinking the same thing. My smartphone is reaching the end of its life, and I really like something smaller.
Also Motorola, make this phone available in the US: https://m.gsmarena.com/motorola_edge_50_neo-13224.php
It's the smallest phone available with a real telephoto lens. I think it was only available in India, but I got one on eBay because it has those two features (not huge with telephoto) I was looking for. I moved to it from a Pixel 6a because I refuse to go any bigger in physical size.
+1 from me.
Motorola has such great quality/price ratio and the user experience is decent. There's still some nagging and such but overall it's much better than the competition.
But I still can't get over my old iPhone 6. That phone size was just perfect. Easy to hold and do everything with one hand, easy to fit into any pocket.
I really want an Android like that. I don't need 3 cameras and bunch of other nonsense.
That's "small"? Here I am with my 5.2" Xperia XA2 thinking I'll be forced to go back to dumbphones in the future... along with many others, I guess.
No, it's not small, but it's afaik the smallest model you can find that's still unlockable and runs any ungoogled OS
> I'll be forced to go back to dumbphones in the future... along with many others, I guess.
Going back to a dumbphone for me would mean changing my outdoor hobbies (like contributing to openstreetmap), so I'll take my losses and continue on a smartphone, but I share the sentiment. Power to you if you do it!
Check out their Razr Plus or Razr Ultra. The external display is 4" and fully functional, and it unfolds into a full-size phablet for when you need that. I'm a small-phone-liker and I've found it to be a great device, I'm very happy with mine.
Would a flip phone suffice?
wouldn't trust a flip phone with a display fold. i want small, thin and light.