I guess me and the remaining 41% of voters are still left wishing for 5" phones to make a comeback.
Since there's no new development happening with small phones, we'd have to settle for "older spec" screens (IE, new stock iPhone 5 screens, with none of the colour accuracy, frame-rate etc improvements from the last 10 years).
People don't like "old spec", so they'd probably not buy those devices.
If you're a small player, then you're downstream of the supply chain, you don't make the rules.
Chicken and Egg problem.
Ironically people think there's no market for small phones due to apple making a "small phone" which had a larger screen size than an iPhone 6.. which was when phones started getting too big for me, and many people I spoke to.
So, you make a small phone that isn't actually small, it sells like poop so you presume that people don't want small phones..
Absolutely irrelevant for what I do with a phone, and I'd wager that 90% of users would not notice the difference.
If your production volume isn’t high enough to justify a custom screen to be cut you are stuck with what is available on the market.
And even if 5” screens are available now in the form of NOS or upcycled refurbs that may not be the case 2 or 3 not to mention 5+ years down the line.
So you have to go with what not only is available today but with what is still likely to be available throughout the expected usable lifetime of your product.