Same here. I cannot stand the size of phone's today. Mine is 6" and I hate it. My old Motorola G3 was the perfect size. I'd still use it, if it didn't eat SD cards (and only have a 4GB hard drive).
Yeah. I just got a new phone last week and after a bunch of research ended up settling on a Pixel 3a, which is even larger than the already-too-large 1st gen Pixel that it replaced. I hate it. There are no decent small (<5") phones on the market, and haven't been for half a decade. Sony's Xperia Compact line was the closest, but it 1) doesn't come with stock Android, 2) doesn't have a headphone jack, and 3) has been discontinued, which I guess indicates that these don't sell. Sigh.
> There are no decent small (<5") phones on the market,
True.
> and haven't been for half a decade.
The iPhone SE is less than 5 years old, and it's terrific. I've had mine for nearly three years and I just got the battery replaced. I'm not sure I'd buy an SE new today if I needed a new phone, but I'm going to hold onto it until it dies or another good small phone comes out.
I have an SE as well, but the camera is a potato, roughly on par with $200 Android phones from 3 years ago. Ok outside with good lighting, but a muddy mess everywhere else.
I also find typing on it to be much more inaccurate than larger phones (even with swipe typing).
The battery life and everything else is great, though.
I just bought a "new" SE refurbished for $100. It's still fantastic and runs iOS 13 marvelously. It's really your only option for a small device that runs a modern phone OS.
> There are no decent small (<5") phones on the market
This is a major reason behind why I've stuck with my iPhone 5S since the end of 2013. Unfortunately, after 6 years, the battery life is now really suffering, and it's starting to feel a little sluggish. Up until the last 6 - 12 months it's been a great phone though.
An SE would be good for you if you can find a used one for a good price. It has the guts of the 6s in the body of the 5s so it should last you a few more years at least
I was surprised to discover recently that you can still buy a new (not reconditioned) iPhone SE direct from Apple but the link to them is on the refurbished part of the site.
The Nexus 5 is an amazing phone around that size, although the newest AOSP that they'll run is Hammerhead and it's EOL as far as official security updates go.
The Pixel 3a has teeny tiny bezels, and now my fingers accidentally activate stuff at the screen edges while I'm holding it. This is progress, I guess.
The Pixel 2 is almost perfect, and I have no real problems with it, although I'm not sure if I'll ever stop missing my beloved Nexus 5X. That phone was perfect in every way, except for some fatal flaw that randomly killed it. It was made from durable plastics and light enough that it didn't easily damage itself when dropped. All the current thin, dense phones made of painted metal will show permanent scars from almost any physical interaction with another solid surface.
Then you'll _really_ love the Galaxy S9 with the curved edges, where the natural resting spot for your fingers is on the curved edges of the actual screen.
There is excellent touch rejection on the edges when the contact patch originates from the edge. You can even customize touch rejection with a good lock plugin.
I would love a 6" screen if it had any breadth. My Samsung Note 3 just had a hardware failure forcing me to "upgrade". Even though the Note 10 has a 6.3 inch screen instead of the Note 3's 5.7 inch screen, the Note 10's screen is _narrower_ due to the change from an 16:9 aspect ratio to 19:9.
I've run it across every phone on the market and no phone is available that has a screen as wide as the Note 3 had six years ago. But phone _height_ has increased over 30% on average.
My thoughts exactly. I've been thinking about going back to a flip phone and using on of these pocket computers or a tablet for my computing. Sometimes I have my phone for the sole reason of needing to be available for family or work. Sometimes I have my phone because I want to read or kill time. I like to think if I split these devices up, I could free up some pocket space and disconnect a little more. I've already closed down all my social media except for my pseudonymous twitter account. Even that has been up for the chopping block with all this impeach pit chatter.
I miss being able to reach the upper half of my phone's screen with one hand. We've normalized it a lot now, but compared to older smartphone generations it is downright awkward to hold a phone today.
But I don't really miss flip phones per se. Just smaller smartphones. The galaxy s4 was around the upper limit of how big I'd like my phone to be.
The Galaxy S4 was pretty much the perfect phone for me. Just the right size for my small hands, replaceable battery, rootable OS, and plenty of power and storage expandability for the time.
I think most people just use the pinky shelf, or some other method of reaching the top of the screen. Iphones have that gesture to shrink the screen instead or something
I bought a thick, heavy duty case for my phone to make up for the lack of thickness/durability. Few if any mobile phones will stand up to average day to day knocks, drops and bumps.
Unsure why phone manufacturers insist on trying to make their phones thinner and more fragile when everyone wraps them in a case of some description.
> Unsure why phone manufacturers insist on trying to make their phones thinner and more fragile when everyone wraps them in a case of some description.
Because consumers don't actually buy what they say they want.
I'm always seeing people demand more durable screens and longer battery life, and Motorola made the Droid Turbo 2 with a massive 3750 mAh battery and a truly shatter-proof screen. People dropped it from a drone onto concrete from over 500 feet and it survived [0]. It takes more than one smack with a hammer to break the screen. [1]
And yet, nobody bought it, because when it comes to make a purchase, people still want phones that look sleek and modern, which means thin and a back made out of glass, because plastic is ugly, and metal interferes with wireless charging.
Motorola's been producing phones for years that have the features people actually ask for. They made Android phones with physical keyboards up to 2012 [2]. I remember seeing polls about phones with QWERTY keyboards back then and so many people saying they want one, but when it came to actually buy, they'd rather get an iPhone with a screen that shatters if you sneeze.
The point is that the fold causes a trade-off - x/y for z.
I've got some pants with deep pockets but tight enough that my cased iPhone is too thick to comfortably fit. A folding phone like this wouldn't work at all.
