[simonmales]

The small form factor phones simply do not sell. Some great thoughts on the topic:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR9zBsKELVs * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZdbbN3FCzE Not about small form factor, rather enthusiast phones don't last

Currently running a Sony Xperia 5 V which farm factor is acceptable, and still will get a number of months of updates. And the winning point is that the bootloader can be unlocked and is supported by LineageOS.

[rglullis]

The issue of "enthusiast phones" is not the same as for small phones. The problem that MKBHD is describing is that a company that starts as an enthusiast phone can not grow by getting the niche larger, so they need to start competing in the "average consumer" market. But a large, established company like Motorola and Samsung can for sure segment their product line to serve a particular demand.

I think the issue of small phones is that, while there people saying they would buy if it was available, no one is saying "I would buy one small phone at flagship prices, even if they don't have flagship features".

[Zak]

I suspect there's a large overlap between people who want a small phone and people who only upgrade their phone when there's a pressing need. I am in both groups.

The root cause is that the phone is not a primary device for me. It's what I use when bringing a PC is too much trouble.

[Milpotel]

> The small form factor phones simply do not sell.

And still in every phone topic people complain about phones being too big... I'd love to have a smaller affordable smartphone.

[beeforpork]

Same here. And I have a friend who keeps his small IPhone because they stopped building smaller phones, too. There is a demand, maybe not that big.

For me, I want to be able to operate the phone with one hand, and the large screen makes it difficult to reach all the spots on the screen even with large hands. I do operate my Fairphone 5 with one hand, but it is super awkward and at some point, the phone will fall into a gully because I cannot hold it tight while navigating.

And I wouldn't mind 2mm more thickness if this means the cameras are flush with the back and the battery is larger.

[happymellon]

> There is a demand, maybe not that big.

Whenever I see this when talking about small phones, I'm reminded of the stats, where the iPhone minis were a small proportion of iPhone sales but still by themselves outsold most manufacturers.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39104057

[kirito1337]

my sm-a260f is too smoll

[paol]

I was in the same boat and literally this week bought a Pixel 8. It's a 2 year old phone but with the extended support period that's no longer a problem, and being old means you can get it new for about €300 or refurbished for even less.

The other option is the Samsung S2x line, which you can apply the same strategy to.

[simonmales]

The Pixel 8 might be my next "upgrade" (sidegrade?)

[sandreas]

I'm not necessarily asking for a "small" phone as in 4.5" or less.

I'd like to have an Option around 6" and 150x70x9mm, which is not really small. Surprisingly the Pixel 8 has a smaller footprint than the Pixel *a variants while having a bigger display.

So my request would be a device around the size of the Pixel 8, having a similar battery size and if possible a headphone jack at a reasonable price point (350 bucks).

I consider the pixel 8 as really solid device for graphene OS.

They don't even need to fix the longpress for headphone remotes... Just a device that is the right size.

[TwoFerMaggie]

I watched the first video. One point they didn't mentioned is that their android example of the "last small flagship phone", asus zenfone 9/10, is about the same size as an iphone 12/13, not the mini.

Do regular iphones sell well? If so, the small flagship phones are not dead, because iphones are not dead. If iphones are not counted as small phones, then the small android flagship phones are dead long time ago.

[joe_mamba]

>And the winning point is that the bootloader can be unlocked and is supported by LineageOS

Don't banking, security and payment apps detect the unlocked bootloader and prevent them from working on lineageos? At least that's what happened to me after i flashed lineage on my old tablet.

Because then what's the point of a smartphone if it can't do banking, payment, shopping, ticketing, etc? Use it as a gimped pocket web browser and ebook reader? There's not gonna be any mass market adoption for such "smartphones" until they can run all apps out of the box like vanilla androids and IOS phones.

Your average consumer isn't gonna wanna fuck around with signing keys and bootloader relock. Hell, even this tech savvy HN user doesn't want to do that because he has better things to do with his time. The days from my childhood when I always rooted my Android phone, installed custom ROMs with custom kernels, magisk, titanium backup, cerberus to make the phone "my own" are long behind me.

[carpenecopinum]

There is the option to register the signing key of the ROM with the bootloader and then relocking it, thereby making those apps happy again.

The biggest issue is that there is a different way to do this for every device, so most custom ROMs don't bother. It's relatively simple and automatable for Pixel devices, so the GrapheneOS installer takes care of it. e/OS/, which is based on Lineage, allows this for some devices, iirc.

[notpushkin]

DivestOS supported it, too. Probably the closest thing to LineageOS with a relockable bootloader (and it worked with microG!).

[throawayonthe]

(at least on pixels and apparently this future motorolla,) it can be re-locked, so it passes the integrity check; however there is an additional layer that needs google signing keys, which of course means you can't pass that one if you can't ship the keys

funnily enough my banking app works but the mcdonalds app doesn't, lol

[szszrk]

Mcdonalds decided it's "unsafe" to run their app in private space of Android. In literally the most locked down part :) Marketing must have gotten a nice bonus for that mental effort.

I can run banking apps like that, corporate apps like that, but I can't show a QR code to order happy meal.

[sunaookami]

You can't even use the McDonald's app if you have an overlay. I use KineStop and in the car I'm already choosing what to order and I can't click anything until I turn off KineStop...

In comparison the Burger King app works without problems and is very fast.

[bzzzt]

I've read about a few incidents where people could order for free or below cost so I'm not surprised their app developers are a little paranoid.

[szszrk]

Could be related.

It was likely their management doing random shit to fix it. Instead of fixing real problem, which was bogus campaign rules. Reddit was full of people abusing their app discounts and ordering insane amount of food for free. It was well described.

None of that was due to app security holes. It was an issue in their promotional campaign. It was still working after those "secure" app limitations appeared.

[joking]

if you can order for free or below cost doing anything in the app, you are not paranoid, you are directly stupid, is like being able to modify the shopping cart total in the browser and the server accepting that as the correct price. Everything should be server side validated where you have the full control of it.

[bzzzt]

Tell that to marketing types running coupon campaigns not realizing coupons are essentially money...

[kopirgan]

So you can send a remittance for $1m but not order fries. It believes that health is wealth.

[jbstack]

What we need is a way for the OS to trick banking apps into thinking they are running on the platform they expect.

[microtonal]

You cannot, the OS does not have that level of access. Attestation is anchored in a (typically) non-replaceable bootloader and trusted execution environment, both of which the OS does not have access to. A remote server can verify that the attestation chain is signed by a hardware-backed key and contains the verified boot status and verification key. If you would change this information, it would be detected by the remote server, since the signature would not be valid anymore.

[lifis]

Switch to a bank that offers a fully functional web or Android app, as opposed to only allowing Google Android

[microtonal]

I'm all in favor of voting with your wallet, though easier said then done when your mortgage, long-term saving accounts, etc. are tied up with your bank account.

That said, my banking and credit card apps work fine on GrapheneOS.

[Narushia]

Not possible in Finland. :( I'm using the one bank (OP) that used to allow rooted devices to use their app, but even they eventually blocked it via SafetyNet.

[joe_mamba]

>they eventually blocked it via SafetyNet

That's the kicker, they will all eventually block it, so it's not worth your time and sanity constantly swapping banks on the hopes this one will keep lax security.

[Propelloni]

I run a Xperia 10 V. Great phone, great form factor, easy to unlock. It runs for days, almost a week, on one battery charge. Sony is doing something right here.

[Tarsul]

I got the same or similar but let's not kid ourselves that this is in any way small. It would have been giant by 2015 standards. That's how much the overton window has shifted.

[Propelloni]

I have several points to say to that.

1) 2015 saw the iPhone 6s, which was only 15 mm shorter than the Xperia 5 or 10 V, while being about the same width and thickness. It had a tiny screen in comparison. The 6s Plus was larger, and heavier, than the Xperia 10 V, in all dimensions (OK, not thickness, this was the time of "paperthin" phones) while still having a smaller screen.

2) I don't want a tiny 2008 smartphone, I want a phone I can use with one hand. A width of 70 mm or less lets me do that. Today, that is small, in 2015 it was about normal.

3) My perfect phone was the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge from 2015, which has about the same dimensions like the Xperia 10 V but the rounded screen edges made it easier to use with one hand.

[simonmales]

Here is my recent history of phones: https://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=8972&idPhone2...

The Nokia 6.1 now feels like a monster in my hand at 75mm.

I agree that 70mm is sweet spot.

[lofaszvanitt]

Oh, the guy who is still mentally on the level when he started his channel. And these shenanigans.... putting a phone in a mini coffin. sigh

Why it has to be a flagship? Sell them cheap. It's like AAA game makers cry about ballooning costs, and they make 60 hour games that literally nobody plays through....

[Aachen]

> small form factor phones simply do not sell

Are we really sure "nobody actually wants it"? I need to help my family select the smallest possible phone every time. Meanwhile choices are dwindling and the remaining 2 models are either overpriced or outdated and so I need to tell them it's better to take a (whatever currently goes for) "medium sized" model, which shifts upwards every time I/they need a new one. No wonder that people don't buy small phones anymore if they don't exist

I don't buy this nonsense about small phones being a niche when so many people are actively seeking them out, both online and offline in my practical experience

It's just harder to make, heat dissipation or battery will be restricted, doubly so if you're a niche manufacturer without a big budget, or one who tries to keep it repairable and needs the extra space for screws. So I can understand that Fairphone doesn't release a small model (even if it means I simply cannot use it: I actually put my money down and bought one, but sadly had to sell it onwards after a few weeks of trying) but for Graphenorola I'm not sure that restriction exists. It may just not please everyone if the chip is underclocked for heat and battery efficiency reasons and so they're not likely to. Doesn't mean there's no market for a small variant for any manufacturer that has more than one device on the market

My mom's and my current phone (same model) is what I'd call medium sized (per 2019 standards, when it was new) and the battery life sucks, but I'd buy this model again anyway if it came out with a ≥2025 SoC because I can actually use it unlike nearly any other phone on the market. Not properly reach the top, but at least the left side so that'll have to do

[KoolKat23]

Ironically I always find when these new devices like the fairphone come out, I'm disappointed and don't buy it because the screens are actually too small. They tend to focus on an unuseable middle point (probably in an attempt to please everyone).

All the flagships have huge screens, the big guys would have paid millions on market research, I can't understand why they arent just trying to achieve flagship parity (in terms of specs not price or software). No one is going to say it's unreasonable and they save themselves the market research

[Markoff]

> The small form factor phones simply do not sell.

yeah, clearly nobody buys Samsung Galaxy S series for years, they are like the least popular Android phone model... /s

I'm running Pixel 6a (which was followed bu successors with worse screen:body ratio for years and only now the new Pixels finally matched and slightly improved the ratio, what a progress), but considering all the HW issues (baterries and displays) with Pixels I'd rather avoid it, the worst case will buy as next phone Xiaomi and hopefully somehow unlock it, if there is no suitable Motorola

edit: added HW issues explanation since I am rate limited on comments

[dzonga]

yeah pixel used to be great. probably the best phone I ever owned after iPhone SE was a Pixel 3a.

till I got the abomination that was a pixel 6a. fucking overheated - then finally battery exploded. Other pixels suffer the same problems as well - overheating n display being finnicky.

[arboles]

What are the HW issues with Pixels?

[jsheard]

> yeah, clearly nobody buys Samsung Galaxy S series for years, they are like the least popular Android phone model... /s

I don't think the smaller Galaxy S models are what people generally mean when they talk about small phones, those are still much bigger than the iPhone Mini was.

https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Samsung-Galaxy-S26,Ap...

[Markoff]

it's literally one of the smallest Android phones with good specs

here you have filtered Android phones since 2020 under 71mm with OIS camera

https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?nYearMin=2020&nWidthMa...

it's basically just Samsung S series, Pixels, overpriced bad value Sony and few exotic/abandoned phones (Asus is done with phones, they had always horrible SW, Xiaomi only model 12 many years ago, Meizu not available outside China)