Surely with modern processor efficiency, they could get similar or better battery life as small phones of the 2010s? Thinking lovingly of the form factor of the 2013 Moto X.
The Moto X 2013 was awesome. It already had some modern smartphone features (AMOLED, always listen phrase) And it was so comfortable in-hand. The Moto X 2014 was already a pretty big regression in that regard (then Lenovo bought Motorola from Google and updates went down the drain as well).
Yes! That first generation Moto X was the premature peak of the small Android phone. After that everything just got bigger and increasingly less beautiful.