There are a few glimmers of hope around the edges. Palm was interesting but too small (the primary problem was the battery, not the screen size). Unihertz is doing some interesting stuff in the small phone arena, but their stuff is either too small and thick (the jelly) or too big (titan). Their styling is also a bit funky in a 90's tech vibe sort of way that I'm not a huge fan of.
What I want is an iphone 4-sized phone that I can keep in my pocket w/o noticing and that provides the basics of smart phones. Even better if it could be an e-ink screen so I don't have to charge it very often.
I have accepted that I am a market of one.
i have a litephone for my kids and it's too minimalistic, I'd still like maps, etc
if we could combine the styling of the palm, but a bit bigger and with much better battery w/ and e-ink display and decent battery life, I'd be in heaven
The litephone is too basic and the HiSense A5 etc do not work on US networks.
I looked at building a 5.2" e-ink phone for the US market and did some fun mock-ups, but it would be a huge undertaking with my limited hardware background. Smaller phones just have fundamental limits due to battery size that are difficult to work around, and Android has basically no e-ink support as it's such a niche type of display for a phone.