I know I have small hands but c’mon. Flagship phones these days are strait up small tablets, not even what we’d have called on phablets 15 years ago.
I know it’s what people buy, but I’m still sad that if I want a phone that small then I have to deal with camera and display a couple gens old
As you add more compute per user interaction (“smart” features), you increase power consumption. To keep an 18hour discharge cycle, you have to have more battery. Since phone thickness is a negative marketing feature but increased screen size is a positive marketing feature, you end up with bigger phones.
Every time they reduce compute power consumption, feature inflation overtakes the gain and more power is needed over time. Try turning on battery saver in the morning… even with “normal” use the battery will last significantly longer due to disabling background power consumption.
What, Flagship? There’s no small phones anymore.
https://lemmy.world/c/compactphones - the activity here reflects this x_x
I miss when flagship phone were affordable and worth the cost
This is the real problem.
They do NOTHING to improve or innovate. In fact, we’ve lost most great features over the years. The headphone jack for high quality audio, the micro SD card slot for easy upgrades and migrations, the IR blasters, the replaceable batteries…
It’s a fucking joke. Peak phone tech was the Samsung Galaxy S4.
Sorry, you gotta upgrade everything every 5 years, because otherwise there’s a security vulnerability! Sorry, looks like there will be no new updates on your software, no compatibility! Surely, things have become so much more efficient in the last 5 years as a result of processing gains, and surely that will be passed onto the consumer rather than eaten up in the middle, and surely we need that increased processing power so you can run the increasingly dwindling number of social media sites that are actually relevant!
Sorry, looks like we got rid of the headphone jack because it takes up too much space and it’s too hard to make the phone water resistant! The IR blaster isn’t relevant anymore because everyone has unilaterally switched to wifi operated smart TVs! Surely! Sorry, the micro SD card slot took up too much space, we need to use that space for processing power! Same with irreplaceable batteries! Sorry, the 16:9 aspect ratio we used to have for phones isn’t available in any phone anymore, because we decided to replace the physical buttons and ugly bezels with basically unusable screen space! But we’re still gonna have a hole punched in the screen for the camera!
I dunno. Modern phones are fucking dogshit now, I hate them so much it’s unreal. Even the software is progressively getting worse year over year. Shit used to be so basically functional and it’s become so horrible.
You no longer need to have flagship phone, to have good experience though. I am rocking my Samsung Galaxy A52 and it does everything I want it to. Only current localization and direction seem to behave weirdly and not accurate when navigating using Google Maps (especially when walking) but on other apps it’s perfectly fine, so go figure, lol.
I wish I could get a flagship phone with a swappable battery, headphone jack, SD slot and allow my apps to interface with each other’s files when I want without having to fuck around with permission bullshit… I don’t care if it’s the size of a dinner plate
Fairphone might be somewhat closer for what you want
HMD Skyline and Fusion also
Edit: Skyline doesn’t have headphone jack
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People simply did not buy the small phones.
I bought them until they stopped making them… My favorite phone was the Sony Xperia X Compact with a 4.6" screen. It had decent midrange specs and a great camera.
You sound like you need the new Razr or the Z Flip
I love the idea of foldable phones but I cannot trust myself with something so fragile. I can hardly even take care of a traditional phone.
I’m lucky the Pixel 6 is as easy to repair as it is I’m on my third screen in like 2 years. Though I do kinda wish I did the 6a since it’s smaller.
You never heard of a phone case? It also comes with a pre installed screen protector.
Yes I have but they aren’t much help against an SUV
Why are you running your phones over?
It’s a long story
I have the opposite viewpoint. I miss big phones that were actually big, and not just really tall.
I miss my Nexus 6.
Those were the days
I would vomit if I had to look at the Windows logo every time I pulled out my phone. Google is not perfect and they’ve made mistakes with Android, but at least it’s Open Source. Microsoft has a much worse record of opposing Open Source initiatives…
The problem is they took it too far.
Plus, the larger phones do actually fit in my hands, so…
I have large hands and I don’t like having to make the compromise of features or size. I prefer phones around 5in or a smidge under. But to have a modern camera I have an almost 7in phone. It’s really frustrating.
every time i “upgrade” my phone it gets bigger, i hate it. the perfect size was what whatever iPhone 5 was doing, i want to go back to that
Wider, longer, flatter, thinner, and harder to hold without touching shit at the edge of the screen. I miss being able to grip a phone by its buttons.
iPhone 12 or 13 mini is similar to that size
i don’t use iPhones anymore, that was the one time i tried them and aside from the size and some features i much prefer the openess of android
I’ve never owned an iPhone, and wouldn’t normally recommend them at all, but looks to me like its one of the only recent smartphones that is small 😞
Actually looking into it a bit more: there’s some smallish ones such as the Asus Zenphone 10 and foldables such as the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra.
https://www.tomsguide.com/best-picks/best-small-phones
https://m.gsmarena.com/best_compact_phones_buyers_guide-review-2029.php
But yeah they’re still not as small as the iPhone 5
I loved my iPhone 5 more than any other device I’ve owned. Perfect size.
The box for HTC HD2 had
<---- BIG ---->as dimensions of the phone. It had a 4.3" screen that actually was huge at the time (2009), but it’s hilarious from today’s perspective.
Companies trying to make foldable phones happen are going the wrong way.
They are making giant phones that unfold into tablets when really they should be making small phones that unfold into something just large enough you can watch Netflix on.
You mean like this? https://www.samsung.com/us/smartphones/galaxy-z-flip6/
I miss phones that experimented.
I had the Motorola backflip (that was a fun one) and had one of the first phones with a fingerprint sensor that everyone said was a gimmick, had the one with the “indestructible screen” (Motorola Z2 force iirc) that I had a lot of fun throwing around till I broke it (But not the screen! I’ll give them that lmao), had every Nexus device until the bitter end (I cursed Google for a long time when they decided Pixels was the way forward, I didn’t pick up a pixel again until the Pixel Fold 0G) and so so many others over the years.
Until one day they just stopped being cool for years, hell the Foldy phone has been the coolest innovation they’ve put out in years and we’re already back to nothing but iterations again
You would really enjoy the When Phones Were Fun series on YouTube if you haven’t seen them
