[thaumasiotes]

In the beginning, smartphones were all tiny, because it was universally agreed that smaller cell phones were better.

Then there was a huge, neverending push to make phones as large as possible, or larger. Sometimes smaller phones have been offered as an unpopular option, but more often "enormous" is the minimum size.

And as long as that's been going on, people have been complaining that they want their phone to fit in their hand.

Stipulate that a majority seems to feel that there's no need for a phone to fit in your hand. Why are the manufacturers so insistent on not providing small phones? Shirts come in all different sizes. How much does it cost to design an additional size of phone?

(Related: ever since the switch to 16:9 laptop screens, everyone has been complaining to no avail about the inferior dimensions of the screen. Why are manufacturers still cramming them down our throats? This one isn't even a case where people prefer 16:9 to 16:10.)

The best form factor of any smartphone I've owned is the first one, the Nexus S: 63mm wide, 124mm tall, and the back popped off to make replacing the battery convenient.

Phones have gotten steadily worse, as far as usability goes, ever since. There's more computing power, but I have trouble believing that's what's driving the shape.

[nasdaq-txn]

>Why are the manufacturers so insistent on not providing small phones?

They don't sell.

Apple killed the iPhone mini due to low sales. Asus replaced the universally lauded Zenfone 10 with a very large Zenfone 11. Google increased the size of the Pixel 6 when compared to its predecessor. Sales also increased.

[Nition]

It's weird though that there apparently isn't a market for even one high-end small phone, from any manufacturer.

I wonder if to some extent they're not different enough. The iPhone mini has a 5.4" screen. Not so long ago we managed well enough with 4" iPhone screens. I wonder how a 4.5" version would sell - call it the iPhone Nano.

Unfortunately a lot of apps don't support those smaller screen sizes so well anymore. But people who want a small phone that's easy to carry around, who won't be using it for hours a day, don't always need many apps.

[ninkendo]

Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll occasionally re-introduce a mini phone like McDonald's does with the McRib.

Somewhere there's gotta be numbers that show "there are people who buy minis, but they only buy a phone every few years, so let's make a mini every third model year" or something.

[thaumasiotes]

> They don't sell.

This isn't an answer, unless you believe it's impossible to make more than one size of phone at a time.

I specifically asked what might be pushing manufacturers toward such a viewpoint. How does the existence of an iPhone mini reduce total iPhone sales?

[shiroiushi]

It costs a lot of money to make multiple versions of something, compared to having just one version. The amount of profit they were getting from the mini wasn't enough compared to the regular model, and they correctly deduced that if they eliminated the mini, everyone would just buy the larger model instead so they could decrease their manufacturing and design costs.

If you're an Apple user, would you switch to Android just to get a smaller phone? Or would you just bite the bullet and get the larger iPhone after the mini is discontinued? Apple knows that 99.99% of Apple users are in the second group.

[thaumasiotes]

> If you're an Apple user, would you switch to Android just to get a smaller phone?

I would never be an Apple user.

And that's relevant here, because this argument doesn't apply to Android users, and yet Android phone manufacturers are just as insistent on not making smaller phones.

> It costs a lot of money to make multiple versions of something, compared to having just one version.

Oh? Ballpark it for me.

[brewdad]

I really wanted a 12 mini but the shortened battery life made it a no-go for me. Ended up with a standard 12 and am still happy with it years later aside from it being slightly larger than I would like.

[doublepg23]

16:9 is a compromise ratio for content viewing. It fits both 4:3 TV content and 2.40:1 movie content. Once 16:9 widescreen was popular media started adopting it natively https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16:9_aspect_ratio#History

[thaumasiotes]

That link is quite explicit that the idea of making 16:9 screens is to save money because they're smaller than 16:10s:

> In 2011, Bennie Budler, product manager of IT products at Samsung South Africa, confirmed that monitors with a native resolution of 1920 × 1200 were not being manufactured anymore. "It is all about reducing manufacturing costs. The new 16:9 aspect ratio panels are more cost-effective to manufacture locally than the previous 16:10 panels".

> since a 16:9 is narrower than a 16:10 panel of the same length, more panels can be created per sheet of glass

This is why people complain. "We've decided to charge the same amount for a worse product" isn't a winning message.

It also does some weird editorializing:

> By July 2022, 16:9 resolutions are preferred by 77% of users (1920 × 1080 with 67%; 2560 × 1440 with 10%). [In the Steam Hardware Survey]

Steam's hardware survey, of course, doesn't even address the question of what users prefer.

[mihaaly]

https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-i...