Any other current gen recommendations?
I understand that Apple did not make enough money to make it worth their while to continue the iphone mini line. However, it does seem like there is a profitable business for someone there given how beloved it was/is.
I only traded out my iphone 12 mini just recently for an iphone 16 pro (likely the last apple product I will ever buy but thats another story) and aside from the camera it is basically the same. Just heavier, awkward to hold and slightly worse designed.
No major player wants a smaller screen because it has downstream impacts on the pipeline of addictive material and ad pixels they can stuff into ocular nerves.
https://9to5mac.com/2025/04/28/iphone-18-fold-details-launch...
For you. As someone with large hands, I appreciate that phones grew in size and I swapped to larger devices as soon as I could.
Watching lots of Louis Rossmann has put me almost ideologically against Apple (even though they design great hardware and smooth UX within their ecosystem), but I'm not good at forming coherent points to present to Apple loving friends.
For me so far, I think it's about control over what I buy - but the rebuttal is always "you're buying a product from them, if you don't like it then tough".
I feel I am more frequently encountering software bugs, vaporware,(dESiGnEd fOr ApPle InTelLiGeNce), and ridiculous "innovation" (genmoji). I feel the hardware advances are not very relevant to me, I don't need VR or augmented reality. I want a computer to get out of my way and solve problems for me so I can spend time in plain old reality. The hardware upgrades I DO care about are ridiculously overpriced (Ram upgrades are abusively expensive).
While I prefer my computer to be a tool to get a job done and don't want the computer itself to be a hobby. I also do not want to be forced to use AI. I also dislike the rent seeking and toolbooth behavior of iMessage and the App store. Now that linux has more paved paths, things increasingly "just work" and hardware has basically caught up I don't see a good reason to support Apple's non-vision with my money.
As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard.
And you still end up getting most apps from the Google Play Store.
By the way, iMessage supports SMS/MMS/RCS for interoperability. What else do you want?
M1 Air or M2 Air, running Asahi Linux. I am posting this using my M1 Air, running Fedora Asahi.
> As far as phones - your alternative is to buy an Android phone with an operating system by an ad company that is also pushing AI just as hard.
I use Fairphone 4 with Ubuntu Touch.
That’s cool, but you represent a tiny slice of the market that as devices get more powerful, isn’t addressable in the low volumes needed to make you happy.
When the chips needed to make a phone are priced like toys, maybe you’ll find the product for you.
I remember when Samsung had removable batteries, I went in to a Samsung store to buy a replacement for my S5 battery and they told me they didn't sell them, only new phones. Meanwhile I can take my iPhone in to any Apple store and they will replace the battery for me.
So yeah Apple does need to be forced to massively improve their practices but so does pretty much the entire tech industry aside from a few small projects that focus on being repairable.
Also the longer I used my iphone mini and the rest of the world moved to comically large phones the more it became apparent that nobody is thinking about small screen form factors in design and when they do its only around ad placement.
There are lots of phone manufacturers who have no ads business. They just make phones so why would they care?
Size is dictated by trouser pocket size/handbag size and usage. Editing photos and movies to upload onto social media is probably better on a big screen.
Also screen size is dictated by common panel sizes, as low volume will mean a higher price.
Folding screens and iPad Mini's existence suggests people want larger screen real estate.
And so while there are people who want "small screen + nice camera". There are people who want "small screen + small price". There are many people who _don't want the small screen_. So you have this phone that can cost a lot of money (in a pretty messy market where most phone models seem to not make money anyways), and you're going to cut off chunks of the market?
So we end up with small screen + shitty camera and specs etc. And people here who want a small phone (but really want a small phone that isn't miserable to use) still are unsatisfied.
There are still bound to the screen resolution dictated by the platforms/environment. A maker selling an android phone with a 480x640px screen would face a huge uphill battle to see any sales.
Going for a smaller physical screen means higher DPI, so higher production costs and quality control issues. It can make more sense to buy cheaper, low DPI screen and make the whole device bigger to match the needed pixel count.
But then it hit the practicable limits of what people can pocket/hold-comfortably.
If you make a phone with a smaller screen but want to call it "flagship" then you'd better have some good marketing to reverse the perception.
Just did the exact same thing 5 months ago.. I still miss my 12 mini. Would strongly consider buying a 13 mini instead of its even being sold anymore.
As far as the mini phones - because physics - the battery life is atrocious. That was one of the main drivers for me to get a larger phone. Well that and because I can pull down the Control Center and use the widget to make everything on my phone larger and still be able to use it without wearing my glasses. With my glasses, I keep everything the smallest size
Now even at 80% original capacity, a Samsung can still last me throughout the day given that I am not watching videos constantly. The Iphone 6 back in the day would go to 40% in 3 hours, then suddenly to 5% in minutes.
Plus most people replace their laptop with a phone now. So the big screen size is a must.
Normal people didn’t love small phones. They loved their small iPhones.
When it comes down to it they will not love the Pine Phone Mini.
For the vast majority of people, the key feature is that it’s an iPhone not that it’s small.
The first phablets were probably the Galaxy Note line starting in 2011 which was met with some skepticism due to the size of them. These were well before the edge to edge screen days. So you had 5.7 inch screens with a bezel.
They were huge but I would routinely see small women pull these things out of their hand bags and press a device that obscured almost their whole face and start chatting.
Things steadily got bigger from there. The general population WANTED this.
> women
To note, the initial smartphones were already too big for he taste of many: a clamshell feature phone was almost a third of the size of the original iPhone. From that POV, going to a phone that is twice as big is less of a barrier, as they had to keep it in a bag/purse in the first place.
The return of foldables is also pretty well received in that regard.
(Tangential: of course I don't blame anyone for bringing their phone with them everywhere but if you're going to go to a friend group hangout, consider how annoying it is when you're trying to talk to someone and they're clearly checked out browsing some slop on Twitter or talking to someone else entirely. Take a damn break from the phone!)
Phone screen sizes grew as the applications that could use screen space grew in demand.
People are watching 1080p films on the train now. The people who want smaller screens are usually willing to deal with a larger one. People who want larger screens usually cant operate their use cases on a smaller screen. Larger screens also tend to mask larger case meaning less miniaturisation required for the components.
There is demand for larger phones, yes, but manufacturers also charge more for bigger devices and most of that is margin. Following their own logic, they also charge less for smaller phones.
If your customers are sticky, then many of the people who buy the smaller phone would have otherwise bought a bigger phone for more money. Introducing a smaller phone brings down profits.
I owned an iPhone 13 mini. Basically the perfect small phone if there ever was one.
The downsides are extensive and the upsides are few.
- Battery life sucked. Since a phone is a 3D object making it bigger substantially increases battery capacity. It also makes packaging difficult especially if the goal is a flagship-quality phone. Good luck fitting in good hardware with a lot of features.
- Eyestrain. It’s small.
- Typing. It sucks. The phone is small.
And it turns out the upside of one-handed operation is limited. A simple PopSocket or OhSnap! will make large phones easy to use in one hand.
Plus, if pocketability is your issue, you can buy a folding phone like a Motorola Razr and still get a nice big screen when you pull it out.
Now i'm on SE 2020, but every day i miss original SE form-factor.
When idle GSM uses a lot of power. Listening for a wakeup signal doesnt seem expensive at all. It even seems one could pull off the trick for free.
Free < bluetooth < wifi < gsm
There shall be e-paper ofc
The brick can have a battery like that of a quality powerbank. For emergency charging the display snaps on top with some magnets.
There will be heavy cpu loads with lots of reads and writes.
Think a room full of people hammering the media server.
Host websites on it. Imagine the fun!
GPUs may work quite hard to decode and fit the picture on the screen. How to do io better is left as an exersize for the reader. (这意味着你)
Whatever components we can get rid of buys extra space for the battery.
It also makes the handheld device cheaper to replace.
You may swap the battery or have a spare.(slide the empty one into the brick)
You may also break or lose it. It can conveniently be replaced. Nothing important is stored on it.
Lets make them with and without cameras. Imagine the opportunity to not make photos :)
That's a landline phone, you can buy it for cheap.
And, this is trivially satisfied with a $10 extension cord.
I believe the big manufacturers don't want to make a small phone (as other users have indicated) because of the big screen's addictiveness. Also, they can't fit a large battery in them so battery life would be a few hours with 1000mp 16k cameras.
I'd rather carry a 1" thick, 4" tall phone than a 0.3" thick 8" tall phone. No pants pockets look normal anymore, and it is even more awkward to walk with tight pants.
You can believe whatever you want, but it doesn’t make it true. We know exactly why they make larger devices and it’s not a secret, it’s what consumers by and large want. It’s not a conspiracy.
Every time a vendor falls for the “we want small phones” thing, they sell poorly thus proving the point again and again that it’s a minority at best that are interested.
I have it since more than a year. I had the first one two weeks because I lost it as it fall through a hole in my pocket. So fix your pockets and buy this phone. I'm really happy with it :) And didn't found bugs since I have it.
I was convinced you were wrong but that's correct. The Mini is much smaller and the Zenfone is about the same size as the regular iPhone.
Zenphones until the 10 had easy to unlock bootloaders, leading to long in official support by the community. However with the 10 ASUS stopped that tool and they've been lying ever since that they're still working on it.
My zenfone is now on its final major android update, the rather minor android 15 version, and I've only got two years of security updates left until I need to look for a new phone. That's one thousand euros for barely four years of software support, it's such a disappointment.
That aside the camera is lackluster, it's auto whitebalance is horrific, turning the same snowy scene into a sunset or illuminated by fluorescent light depending on the phase of the moon and it's sampling questionable making images much more blurry in a surreal way. But the optical stabilisation is seriously impressive. Overall I preferred the pixel 4a's images though. A smaller phone and my zenfone's predecessor.
At least I get to just plug it into my stereo thanks to the 3.5mm jack though.
iPhone 16/Zenfone/13 Mini (in mm)
Height: 147.6/146.5/131.5 - the mini is 15mm shorter than the Zenfone which is only 1.1mm shorter than an iPhone.
Width: 71.6/68.1/64.2 - the mini is 3.9mm thinner than the Zenfone which is 3.5mm thinner than an iPhone
Depth: 7.8/9.4/7.7 - the Zenfone is significantly thicker than the iPhones.
Volume: 82.4/93.8/65.0 cubic cm - the Zenfone is physically larger than an iPhone 16 by a decent margin.
The Zenfone simply isn't close to an iPhone mini size. It's larger than an iPhone by volume and the depth does matter when holding it. If we're talking about front-edge to opposite front-edge, we're talking about 87.2mm for the iPhone vs 86.9mm for the Zenfone and 79.6 for the Mini. The Zenfone saves you 0.3mm in grip-distance over an iPhone, but a Mini saves you 7.6mm in grip-distance.
Heck, let's look at weight. A Zenfone is 172g, iPhone 170g, iPhone mini 141g. The Zenfone is the heaviest of the three.
One of the big limiting factors for Android phone manufacturers is the battery. iOS is a ton more efficient. The Zenfone is thicker to accommodate a 4300mAh battery compared to the iPhone 16's 3561mAh (21% larger battery). And the Zenfone's battery is kinda small by Android standards.
People often don't think about the challenges of making a small phone. The electronics don't shrink. If you need a certain square mm for those electronics, they take up a larger percentage of the interior on your mini. You don't need as large a battery because the screen it is powering is smaller, but not proportional to its size - you're still drawing the same power for all the electronics. So you have a smaller percentage of interior space for the battery and you need a larger battery relative to the interior space - or you need to sacrifice battery life as Apple did with the mini.
For example, the iPhone 13 mini is 84.4 sq cm and has a 2438mAh battery. The iPhone 13 is 104.9 sq cm with a 3240mAh battery. The iPhone 13 is 24% larger, but can accommodate a 33% larger battery - because the electronics take up basically the same space regardless of form factor.
So to make an Android mini, you'd be sacrificing a lot of battery life. The Zenfone is not a mini. Its grip-size is basically identical to an iPhone. In every way, it's much more an iPhone than a mini.
As a bonus, your phone number wouldn't be bound to that device, but instead would exist everywhere you can install the same softphone app.
And if it did keep running, I'm pretty sure it consumed decently more energy than a dedicated telephony module. And yeah as mentioned, even with a "real" local phone number ported to voipms, I wasn't able to get sms codes from some services.
I used the Palm Phone (PVG100) (3.3" screen) (basically the size of a credit card) [ https://www.ricklohre.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/dsc_097... ] as long as I could until it became too slow to use as software got slower and increasingly battery-hungry and I had to give it up last year.
Right now I have a Soyes S10Max, which has a 3.5" screen (same screen size as the original iPhone), but it's kinda chunky. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRZ47T53?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_...
The specs are more than strong enough to handle whatever I need on a daily basis. But I miss the slimmer size of the Palm Phone.
Right now I've pre-ordered this phone https://aiphor.com/products/bluefox-nx1-4-0-android-smartpho... with the 8gigram+128gig storage capacity. Has an even stronger cpu than the Soyes, but I am slightly worried about the resolution of 540x1168px because some elements may end up overlapping.
Even though it's 4", it has a tiny bezel so it's only slightly bigger than the Palm Phone, although a bit thicker cuz of a bigger battery. But still relatively slim, especially compared to the Soyes.
Front comparison: https://preview.redd.it/dtwnubx05scf1.png?width=3840&format=...
https://preview.redd.it/s2391amd7hbf1.png?width=320&crop=sma...
Will see!
(By the way from some reason aiphor.com automatically redirects me to google.com unless I disable Javascript.)
But I'll write a review on reddit once I've used it for a week or two.
No clue on aiphor.com, webdevs (or their managers) love javascript lol
I beg to differ. How much marketing money did Apple spend on the mini line, in comparison to the "standard" size ?
> And when launched - no one buys it.
Pixel 3 and 4a are still the most sold phones in the Pixel line.
The news when Pixel7 was launched:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/gadgets-news/this-is-the...
I want an iPhone Mini-sized Android phone - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31411191 - May 2022 (1053 comments)
I'm resigned to getting a new iPhone in Sept - reluctantly.
I loved it for being so small and light. The last few years it became too slow for regular use (and many apps refused to install) so I put it in airplane mode and used it as an mp3 player.
I'd still be using it today, but I lost it! I was very sad.
I also loved the LG K8 (2017), wonderful device. That one was a touch bigger, but had a really nice curved screen.
I used an iPhone SE (2016) until last year actually, which was even smaller.
It worked fine, until software updates made it useless. That's a recurring theme with my phones!
Very similar story with me. The iPhone SE 1st gen was peak iPhone. Small, had a headphone jack (and could charge while using headphones), nice display, decent battery life. I absolutely loved that phone. I miss having it every day (when I have to use two hands to use this clunker of a phone I have now, when I sit down and feel this gigantic phone in my pocket, etc).
I used my iPhone 4 until the cellular radio wasn't supported anymore. Then I moved into an iPhone SE 1st gen. When the battery bulged I killed it trying to replace the battery (I am not suited to small electronics repair). I gave up, at that point, and moved to a janky Android phone because I couldn't get any phone I wanted from Apple (small and with a headphone jack).
I wish I could have enthusiasm for phones again. Everything isn't what I want.
I certainly won't make the mistake of making a phone integral to my personal workflows and habits again. I certainly won't come to rely on any native apps anymore, either.
I recognize I'm a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of the market. Very few people regard their technology like I do. I feel like the computers (and, at one time, the phones) I use are extensions of myself. I think it's a little like how a musician might regard a beloved instrument, or a craftsman might regard a well-used tool. Very few people get bent out of shape about subtle changes in UI, appearance, latency, or functionality the way I do.
I understand technology today isn't "for me".
It makes me really sad, though.
My favorite to take with me is the 13 Mini. Would love an iPhone 18 mini.
https://blog.bschwind.com/2025/01/11/the-original-iphone-se-...
I found using the browser is a good enough alternative for many apps, and it also makes them less addictive because they aren’t as slick. Particularly handy for work apps.
There are so many Android phone models, but not a single one that's a reasonable size?
The foldables are such an interesting concept. I actually had a Surface Duo for a while (though a different style of foldable) and really liked it, but I only had one after they were a year old and I could try it out with a used phone for ~$200.
I have multiple screen with me, so my 13 mini is great.
Most people only use computers at work, solely relying on smartphones for communication, media, shopping, etc.
It makes sense to have a big screen at inconvenience of having to carry it around.
What surprises me is how small the demand for small phones is. I have absolutely no need for a big screen - I have a monitor.
Give them a permanent place in the lineup, treating phones like every other very personal device meant for humans. Small, medium, and large.
If you do that, and give people time to see exactly why 5.42 screens are superior to 6.1"+ sizes, then I think the numbers will start to change from what we saw with the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini, which were both launched when people were less on the go than in 100 years.
I recommend the pixel 4a 5g with LineageOS installed, or the Q9 mini.
https://www.gizchina.com/2013/11/07/jiayu-g5-unboxing-hands-...
https://www.gizchina.com/2013/09/18/exclusive-hands-video-st...
https://www.gizmochina.com/2013/09/22/teardown-picture-jiayu...
That was the "peak smartphone" era for me; lots of companies making slightly different variations on Androids, at relatively low prices, but almost all of them with the same basic set of practical features which are nearly extinct today. Now it seems all we get are faster CPUs and RAM, more (non-removable) storage and battery capacity, no headphone jacks, a very limited choice of screen sizes, and far too many cameras along with the obligatory unremovable spyware and locked-down OS.
Also, you can buy reasonably sized Android phones. They're still big-ish compared to say, 2008, but not huge considering the lack of bezel.
hammyhavoc•3h ago
Smaller size means smaller battery, but that's mitigated by the above. I want utilitarian. I don't want a phablet. I want practical and unobtrusive. The smartwatch was meant to replace the phone, but doesn't hit the right notes for me.
micromacrofoot•3h ago
hammyhavoc•3h ago
dimitri_deploys•3h ago
Liftyee•3h ago
I wonder if any were ever designed with a ThinkPad like aesthetic.
jauntywundrkind•3h ago
Today, bluetooth works quite well for me (I love not having cables... but it sucks that performance with a microphone is trashfire). 3.5mm adapters are cheap and easy when needed (rarely. I also have a $10 bluetooth->3.5mm in my travel kit that does get used once a year!). And with usb-c providing fast charging, I rarely feel like I'd benefit from battery swaps. I can give myself 50%+ in 30 minutes, with a portable battery that will power not just my phone, but any other device I run into. With Qi 2.2 releasing with 25W wireless charging, and magnetic coupling being standard now, you don't even need wires anymore. Carrying a bespoke phone-only battery seems like a massive downgrade today. (It also felt like a massive fire hazard!) Time to update your expectations!
Worth mentioning that battery swaps make water-resistance much much trickier to pull off. There' a real cost to battery-swappability.
I do wish we saw something like Ara, some phone modularity & extensibility. Fairphone has some modular parts, but it doesn't feel like an open ecosystem, and the parts dont seem super designed for expansion but more just replacement. I guess maybe Framework is doing the best work, albeit in a bigger form factor space, with their Expansion Cards, which are basically just a card form factor USB-C. Licensed CC-BY-4. https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionCards
grishka•2h ago
So, uh, can I please have that but with a more modern SoC and a non-potato camera?
rtpg•2h ago
Still want my phone battery to be replaceable, but I'm pretty fine with not being able to do it myself.