But it’s increasingly clear that a small premium phone is not on the roadmap. So I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands. My goal with https://smallandroidphone.com is to rally other fans of small phones together and put pressure on Google/Samsung/Anyone to consider making a small phone.
I have a very specific set of skills and industry connections that I have acquired over a long career in the hardware business (my first startup was Pebble). I will put them to use in our shared quest to get the perfect small Android phone. If no one else builds one, and enough people sign up...maybe I will be forced to make it myself.
If you want a small premium Android phone, this may be your last chance (ever?) to help bring back the phone category that we love.
Hopefully by then there is something available which continues the form factor. 4a has been the perfect successor to the Nexus 4, it's a little taller but other than that has practically the same footprint.
With the 6a moving in a different direction (eg: removing the headphone jack) I'm just hoping someone else comes along as a spiritual successor for the Pixel Xa-series.
But I, like most people I expect, also use my phone for many other uses some of which make good use of a larger screen at higher resolution: in-car GPS and while running/walking out on the trails, web browsing and social media stuff that would not be pleasant on smaller screens, occasionally video. The better screen necessitates a bigger battery too, increasing the weight and size a bit more.
I'm not sure there is a solution for that, other than perhaps carrying two devices around. Most people would not be happy with that solution and tethering the bigger device to the smaller ones (so they share internet connectivity instead of both needing SIMs & paid accounts) will reduce the battery life of the small device noticeably (running the 4G/5G and WiFi radios constantly being quite a drain I find, when tethering a laptop to my main current phone).
For a lot of people who would want the smaller phone, there is a secondary need for which they want the larger one too, and putting up with a big device for everything is likely to be the preferable “compromise” compared to carrying two devices.
I've considered the two device approach, but the only really small phones (significantly smaller than my current main device) I found were cheap Chinese imports and one of the first corners cut on those is using a cheap battery that won't last long on active use. Battery life is why my current phone is large than the previous one (which was already larger than I'd prefer often) as it can last a goodly while in active use (GPS and screen on).
tl;cbatr: I suppose the point of this directionless rambling, is that I think the market for a smaller device, people who would actually buy one rather than just those who think it is something that should exist, is smaller than you hope.
iPhone Mini with its H/W & S/W integration barely manages 4Hrs of SoT. An 'Android Mini' phone with its mini batteries, how can it match upto iPhone Mini? And mind you, low sale of iPhone Mini is also due to the 'battery/range anxiety' that its users have.
Upon that any Mini form factor needs to be even less thinner, as visual perception of thickness is inversely proportional to a form's face/back surface area. So for this mini phone to be reasonably attractive (not chunky) it needs to have a very slim profile; which translate to small battery.
Palm phone fwiw also got discontinued for lack of interest as far as I know.
The Sony seems to be the best alternative though I have no idea of the software quality.
Unfortunately, it looks like it won't be sold in the US. Does it support US LTE bands so I can import it at least?
I think the last time I considered screen size a limiting factor for these activities was when the flagship phones had 4.5" screens or so. We've gone well beyond what's needed for me to find the screen large enough for regular activities, and well into the realm where I find using my phone with one hand to be uncomfortable.
A headphone jack is much more useful for me personally than 5G, so I happily saved the money.
It's gotten so bad I contemplated porting Android to the iPhone SE. Not the complete OS, just the userspace, enough to run SystemUI and apps.
Except: a headphone jack is a hard requirement. If a phone has no headphone jack, it could as well not exist for me.
But anyway good luck with the project! I backed the first Pebble and I'll probably use Beeper once it's fully available. You have a history of delivering on your promises. I just want to wait a bit to see how this one turns out in detail.
People do that all of the time and gladly pay the extra $10 for a smaller “phone” - the cellular Apple Watch.
I will leave my phone in a heartbeat when I’m going to the gym, the pool, or anywhere else where a large phone isn’t convenient and I still want to be able to keep in touch with people
I had the first Pebble and have fond memories. I have high hopes for this!!!! I also love hardware but I never made it stick for work. I was one of the first engineers at Mesur.io, but things didn't work out.
My other thought would be to make this highly configurable; there is a large cohort of HN crowd who also want an un-Googled Android phone, myself included. There are no un-Googled small android phones, however with Project Treble many of them can run GSIs such as this most popular one https://github.com/phhusson/treble_experimentations/releases . Of course Lineage OS deserves a mention, maybe you could ship with that, build on what the community already offers.
The Unihertz line of phones deserves mention, but also scorn; they do NOT support their old hardware at all. The Jelly had 1 update to Android 8.1 and was left for dead. Additionally the system updater software included in the stock ROM was spyware. So unfortunately they were written off in my book.
Finally, I would like to see band 71 LTE availability for T-Mobile in the US. It really makes a big difference in the sticks. Unihertz does not support that, and for that reason I am sticking with my iPhone SE 2016 for the moment (until I find a small Android phone....)
Can't wait to hear more!
I hope Eric eases up on the weirdly specific requirements, like dual rear cameras, symmetrical bezels, and a punchout front camera, and refocuses on features that make or break the phone to end users.
If the smaller screen wouldn't make the phone even thinner I probably wouldn't care enough to switch.
> Sub 6" display, matching size and design of iPhone 13 Mini
No, bad. What most of us want are the particular set of trade-offs made by phones around 2015. Design wise, that means that you've got to have another hole in the bezel, because there's going to be an earphone jack. That's apparently anathema for modern phones, but probably 90+% of us want it. Again, that's Hacker News specific. I haven't polled the market in general. I just know that I (and many others) won't consider buying your phone unless it has a jack.
Likewise, I have not much interest in a phone with a hole punched in the screen (?!) for a camera or an ugly "notch". I realize this is more controversial, but I don't know the last time I even used a front camera. I think it's more in keeping with the ideal 2015 design to make the bezel just large enough to contain a camera, speakers, light sensor, flash/LED, etc. I would reluctantly buy a phone with a camera hole if it was otherwise acceptable and there was no ideal option on the market.
I'd prefer if the back were completely flat as well, with no camera bump. That's totally just my aesthetic preference though, I don't know how others feel. I think it should be possible to achieve this if we're going back to not worshiping thinness, and making the small phone thicker for the sake of battery life.
I'd also prefer a 16x9 display to whatever Apple is doing now. So much web video is still 16x9.
If nobody makes something like this, I'll likely switch to iPhone 14 when it's released.
Your jump from "I want" to "90+% of us want" is an egregious failure in reasoning. You say that you haven't polled the greater market, but you also haven't even polled HN.
The iphone 13 mini works well for me. No idea if this represents anybody elso on HN...
I'm very sad they discountinued it. I hope mine lasts forever or that either Palm or someone else fills this market gap for a small phone. If this initiative does it, thank you!
My highest requirement for a phone is that it easily fits into the front pocket of tight jeans so I can't ever even feel that it is there. The Palm Phone meets this requirement, haven't found anything else that does.
People have somehow managed to forget this, but phones have been waterproof since ... basically forever without forgoing a headphone jack. I could link probably half the phones made between 2012-2017, but this phone is actually linked by the site itself: https://www.theverge.com/2015/10/16/9549247/sony-xperia-z5-r...
Honestly, I'm not sure what the issue is supposed to be here. I've literally never, in 12 years of owning a smartphone, dropped it in water. I have no clue how that's even supposed to happen short of it falling into a river.
Since this is a small phone, I suspect most people will probably not be using a case that adds significantly to the size. Just a guess on my part though. I can live with a camera bump if I have to, I just think a lot of us miss the candy bar designs of ~2014-2015.
My comment is asserting that if we're assuming that the narrative on HN around small phones is not just sampling bias, then it's also good to assume that the narrative around a headphone jack is not just sampling bias. That means we have to believe that a large percentage of users looking for a small phone are also looking for a headphone jack - basically, what I called a "2015" design.
I never had a problem using a GPS on a small iPhone hooked up to a magnet on my dash in my car before, I can't imagine an extra inch and a half of real estate making that much of a difference.
Unfortunately it seems that it's a niche that doesn't generate enough revenue to get broader support.
I would love a smaller phone then the pixel 3 but I'll stick with this for now, it's my absolute max size.
However, I think the era of small phones as we know it is over for now. The smallest we have is the Mini, and even that isn’t small.
In fact, I think the next version of the small phone will be flip phones. We already see this with the Samsung fold. I tried one and was pretty impressed, and I feel like this is the likely direction the industry may take.
However, I’m using my current phone for the next five or six years. I’m sure by then, the folding screen tech will improve a lot, and apple may even have their own version out by then.
[0] https://www.amazon.com/Palm-PVG100-Premium-Unlocked-Titanium...
All you need to do is look at iPhone sales metrics. The iPhone 12 mini and SE2 collectively were 10+% of iPhone sales in the second half of 2020 and first half of 2021. 10% of iPhone sales is 24 million phones per year.
> if we're assuming that the narrative on HN around small phones is not just sampling bias
_We_ aren't. You shouldn't be assuming anything about some supposed narrative on HN at all, and you definitely shouldn't trust your own perceptions of such a narrative when you've already shown that you mentally translate "I and also I saw some comments some times" into "90+% of everyone here".
Such a narrative not only doesn't really exist, even if it did exist it still wouldn't matter, because, again, we have sales numbers for small iPhones that prove that people buy tens of millions of them annually when available.
With each generational increase of display size, The number of times I drop the phone over its lifetime increases proportionally. I've used android phones from 2.8" to 5.7" display as daily drivers over the past decade.
I assume, Many with small hands(palms) do face the issue of dropping phones, So I finding it quite surprising that 'Easily Repairable' wasn't included in neither 'Must have' nor 'Nice to have'.
Repairability is so important to me that, I have stopped buying new smartphones since 2017. My last/current phone has full-metal construction, is easily repairable, has security updates(sans proprietary blobs) via LineageOS and I'm planning to switch to a postmarketOS device from near-same generation for better security(Only bootloader is proprietary).
IMO in the age of Fairphone, there's no excuse for a non easily-repairable phone; Especially one which has community interests in mind. I wish you the best on this endeavor.
But for a few different reasons I ended up just getting my wife an S22 (non plus) and then inherited her S20 (non plus), which has a very similar form factor.
Definitely felt the OPs frustration in looking for compact Android phones. They just plain don't exist.
I dislike Apple for a lot of things but in this duopoly the size of a phone is such a fundamental characteristic that you’re out of options anyway.
I think most of the people are “swiper users” — the “content consumers” — so they want big phones and OEMs are simply making what the near 100% majority (yup!) wants.
also, the physical buttons are way too easy to press. every time i hold it, i accidentally press something :(
5.5 inches is about the limit for me, with pretty avg hands, imo.
previous phones were sony xperia compacts. last one was xz2 compact and felt pretty good, though could have been a tad thinner/lighter.
I have an Xperia 10 II (or something like that, the slimmest Android device I could find back in early 2021). The back cover is cracked all over, to the point I sometimes get cuts on my fingers. Two of the corners have dents.
The back camera that takes the actual photo is several degrees off (like 10 or 15°) from whatever is used for the preview. Works perfectly in all the other ways. Probably isn't waterproof any more, but I never needed that before, either.
Pixel 5 - 144.7 x 70.4 x 8 mm
Samsung S22 - 146 x 70.6 x 7.6 mm
Zenfone 8 - 148 x 68.5 x 8.9 mm (could be higher thanks to narrower body)
Xiaomi 12X - 152.7 x 69.9 x 8.2 mm
Samsung S21 - 151.7 x 71.2 x 7.9 mm
S22 has almost identical dimensions as Pixel 5, so there is your upgrade. Personally I find all of these overpriced for what I need, I would be perfectly fine with 4A specs with better battery, so can't justify to upgrading to some of these.
Pixel 5 - 144.7 x 70.4 x 8 mm
Samsung S22 - 146 x 70.6 x 7.6 mm
Zenfone 8 - 148 x 68.5 x 8.9 mm (could be higher thanks to narrower body)
Xiaomi 12X - 152.7 x 69.9 x 8.2 mm
Samsung S21 - 151.7 x 71.2 x 7.9 mm
Sony doesn't produce phones, but remote controls. Their software is nice clean, but their camera is pretty bad, might as well buy Zenfone 8 if you don't mind camera.
List of smaller Android phones with decent specs:
Pixel 5 - 144.7 x 70.4 x 8 mm
Samsung S22 - 146 x 70.6 x 7.6 mm
Zenfone 8 - 148 x 68.5 x 8.9 mm (could be higher thanks to narrower body)
Xiaomi 12X - 152.7 x 69.9 x 8.2 mm
Samsung S21 - 151.7 x 71.2 x 7.9 mm
I'm not sure those other phones are any better in terms of running linux (termux) and those non-samsung ones don't even have dex so I don't even know what the high specs are for.
S22 should be good once it's no longer the latest phone and you can grab at a discount, and maybe Android 13 with KVM is out by then.
Pixel 7 Pro dimensions: 163 x 76.6 x 8.7mm
Pixel 6 dimensions: 158.6 x 74.8 x 8.9 mm
Pixel 6 Pro dimensions: 163.9 x 75.9 x 8.9 mm
It's not that I have never owned wireless headphones, in fact I am literally forced against my will to own and use them and am wearing them as I type. They have some convenience, but adding a headphone jack doesn't mean not being able to use bluetooth headphones - I should just be able to use both.
Security (no practical eavesdropping)
Simplicity (just plug the damn thing in and get a hard connection; the connected device is much simpler)
Options (nothing prevents having both Bluetooth AND headphone port)
The only reason it's eliminated is it's convenient for the manufacturers and they try to sell it as if we all want it, clearly a marketing lie.
It is, however, probably not a great idea to use a device that hasn't had a security update for several years.
Even if you were using a custom ROM and trusted that it was correctly patched (which is a big if) then there's hardware exploits on the Snapdragon 820, and I imagine there are probably similar on the Exynos 8890. Some of these can't be mitigated by software.
1. I already have nice earphones, I don't want to spend another $200-$250 for no reason (the going price of most wireless earbuds I've been interested in)
2. Way lower latency than bluetooth.
3. I have too many things to charge as it is. The reduced anxiety of having 1 less device to charge is worth something to me. I know USB-C to 3.5mm dongles exist, but a headphone jack is still better.
4. I oppose the idea of companies artificially taking out basic hardware features (that we've always had for 10+ years) just so they can force more disposable consumer goods to their users year after year.
On of the reasons I'd like a smaller device, though there is the already stated compromises around smaller battery too, and it being a general use device. If I had a small device with excellent battery life I could carry that normally and tether a larger device, in my backpack when not in such use, for mapping and other when needed (I'm not talking nipping out for 10K here, sometimes this is full- or multi-day walking-or-faster events).
> having to stick a gigantic slab in my pocket … reminds me that I've got a brick flopping around in my shorts.
While the perfect phone doesn't exist, I have found the holy grail of shorts: big enough pockets that the slab fits, but tight enough and small enough that it doesn't jiggle noticeably, but not tight to me such that is exacerbates sweat in that patch. Also, the phone for nav on long routes is tertiary, I have breadcrumb trail on my wrist and a printed map (on rip- & water-resistant paper), so if I'm going far enough to require a bag for water/foot/1st-aid/other then there is room for the slab in there too and it isn't too out of reach.
The Galaxy S22 has a similarly-sized screen, but the EU version is rubbish.
My phone requirements haven't changed much in the last ten years. I bought one of the first "phablet" phones with a comically oversized 5" screen that got me ribbed by friends ("compensating for something eh mate?") Now 5" is at the bottom of the available size range. I'm a smallish person/manlet and don't need a phone I'm going to drop, but I do need something big enough that I can reliably type on it.
I'll gladly support your endeavor. Thanks for taking the initiative.
edit: fine with me to make the phone thicc so it has a day+ battery life. A little thicker is far easier to hold on to, anyway!
edit2: I did own a Pixel 6 non-XL for about a day. It was large, but the bigger problem was that I found it incredibly topheavy, which made it difficult to hold on to. I swapped for a used 4a 5G, which is a well-balanced midsized device.
* Great cameras
* Stock Android OS
There are plenty of recent small smartphones with a display under 6". But most of them use Android Go and a not-great camera. I have recently tested one, the Logicom Le Wave, a 60€ phone with a 4" display sold in Europe.
During my test, i have find Android Go 11 very reliable. It's even more easy to avoid using Google applications and to not link the phone to a Google account (by using F-Droid & Aurora Store) than Stock Android. There are also nice features for managing battery usage. That said the two cameras are indeed crap (but i do not take photos with a phone, for this i use a real cameras). My main problem with this phone is that it's also bad for... phoning: I mean than the sound quality is crap too.
I was probably unlucky with my choice, but there are plenty of alternatives for 4" to 6" smartphones. Search for "teenage" or "unbreakable" phones.
If the real objective is to have a light phone, who fit nicely in the pocket, than can be used one-handed and who won't fall out of the pocket while bicycling, then this sort of phones are perfectly fine. So my question is why the need of a good camera and stock Android ?
(For the main point, i agree with you, smartphones are becoming ridiculously too big)
SHIFT5me - 141,5 mm x 71 mm x 9 mm
5% of people who buy an iPhone think that the mini is a good choice, but literally every review or discussion of it is positively hysterical about battery life. If you haven't picked one up and handled it, you'd think that it offered no merit and was going to shut down 2 hours into the day.
Have you come across pop sockets? Small collapsible self-adhesive handles for the back of your phone. They’ve made an absolutely massive usability difference to my phone usage (although I aim for the smallest handset I can get without compromising too much on quality anyway). Total game changer
I said "phones", without qualification. So while your factoid is interesting, it has little to do with what I wrote.
Yes, and now I ended up in an idiotic situation where I have to have a pair for every device I own, because switching bluetooth connections is an unbelivable pain in the ass. No such problems with wired - you only need one pair, you plug them in, they work, end of story.
Not to mention issues like audio sync, which is just broken as hell. As an example, using top of the line headphones(sony MX4s) + a top of the line phone(Galaxy S21), audio isn't in sync with anything other than youtube. Playing games? Enjoy hearing your shots 1s after you fire them. And using them with windows? Now everything is slightly out of sync, because windows is a flaming pile of garbage when it comes to bluetooth audio.
That being said... the Xperia compact series is all the proof you need that a small phone can have it all. Good battery life, flagship camera (though understandably you won't have as many sensors as a giant phone), a headphone jack, a microSD card, good battery life, waterproofing, a fingerprint sensor...
It's such a shame that people continually insist that technology we HAD in 2012-2016 is impossible today. All I want is an Xperia Z3 Compact with modern bands and software support.
A lot of people are willing to go without it because practically nobody makes smartphones with the jack any more. But given the choice of a phone with, say, 2% less battery and a jack vs. a phone with a slightly bigger battery and slightly better waterproofing... I'm pretty confident what more users would choose.
Btw checkout Swiftkey's one-hand mode for typing, If you haven't already.
I imagine few who have used one would ever be able to say this with a straight face. I never met an iPhone user who believed me when I told them all the photos I was showing them were taken with an Xperia XZc (1 and 2, respectively) and that's with every single one of them. There may be half a dozen compact smartphones that really compare to the XZ2c. Sony just gave up on them because the herd loves their phablets so much.
I am also a current owner of the Zenphone 8 and its camera is also decent. If it's really important that you be able to snap the best photos possible, though, they've been developing these discrete camera things for over a century (and the best of them will likely continue to outperform any general purpose device for the foreseeable future).
Fairphone, Founded on the principles of ethical consumerism have consistently delivered on their promises which by itself is an extraordinary feat in the world of smartphones (or) consumer electronics in general.
Occasional but common criticisms on their devices from HN include specs not being competitive with flagships and build quality not up to expected levels(But newer devices have got good feedbacks on the build quality).
They are only available in EU + few other countries, If you don't live in their supported countries list then getting their phone might not be advisable as getting the parts easily for repair is their main USP(Besides telecom radio support).
So if you use phone as a utility and not as sustenance then Fairphone is a good choice if you can get it, Besides money goes to a socially-invested business.
https://bestsecuritysearch.com/hackers-can-eavesdrop-victims...
There's really nothing small about any of the Androids.
With regards to Unihertz, I'll add on top of what you said, that they are hiding behind ""crowdfunding"" to give non-existent customer support, while devices have already passed Google certifications months ahead (so my guess is that the device is actually already produced when they start the crowdfunding). In my case, the smartphone I ordered never arrived, and I never got any compensation for it, even though
However, hardware-wise, they aren't too bad, so once you managed to receive it, and you flashed a GSI on it, it's a rather acceptable experience. I know someone daily-driving a GSI (I think it's ProtonAOSP?) on Unihertz Jelly 2, and they are happy with it.
In my opinion, Unihertz small phones are fun, but /too/ small. As the article says, target would be 5-5.5" borderless, 4.5" in Jelly2's format, and I couldn't find any model that match. Closest is Xiaomi Qin 2 Pro (I have it, the form factor is really awesome), but it is too thin and thus its battery is abysmal. (If anyone is interested in Xiaomi Qin 2 Pro, yes it can run GSI just fine, but it requires a bit of work - feel free to send me an email for help)
Eavesdropping on either the output of the headphones or the audio data before it leaves the computer/phone is the same for wired vs Bluetooth. The latter seems to be the mode used in the (pretty coo) hack you posted - it's software attacking the Realtek chip, which must be driven by the wire, so exploiting the quasi-equivalence/reversability of speakers/microphones and the back signal from the speaker diaphragms.
This still requires access to get malware onto the device itself, and I'm more considering 'drive-by' or remote attacks in my comment.
To do this against a ~1m wire with millivolt signals without putting a clamp around the wire seems pretty tough in contrast to cracking a signal that is explicitly broadcast with not great security. Not only that, while eavesdropping the signals on the headphone wires will yield only a conversation in the room, which can be much more easily gathered directly, cracking a Bluetooth 2-way comms channel will yield much greater access to the device.
For most of us, neither is a concern, but it certainly is for people who do have real security needs, e.g., I've read that the current VPOTUS specifically uses wired headphones for this reason. Many people who also work with Classified information, Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI), or just with business security issues have the same need. Failing to produce a device with this capability is a failure to address a key and leading market.
First of all I said 90% of people here who are interested in a small Android phone, not 90% of everyone here.
Second, I feel you're trying to make me feel like I've gone insane and can't trust my own eyes by pretending that threads about the lack of a headphone jack don't routinely make the front page here [1] [2] [3] and that comments about the lack of a headphone jack don't routinely become the highest voted comments in any thread related to phones.
I don't think your point about iPhone sales holds any water, because you could just as easily show that people buy phones that have headphone jacks. The 12 mini is a smaller phone than the 12, so you could argue that some people who don't care about the size of their phone might be preferentially buying the mini! There's no way to make an airtight argument for either a headphone jack or a small phone as someone arguing on a forum, but I believe there are a lot of people who want both.
Moreover, my argument is that the removal of the jack was not done for any engineering reason, but for profit and aesthetics. Even if you are right that 50% of people would use a headphone jack instead of 90%, that's still a perfectly legitimate reason to include one.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18538881
Weight is indeed and important factor. I recently held an iPhone13 Pro Max with acrylic case and was shocked by its weight,
iPhone13 Pro Max: 240g
Pixel 6: 207g
I hope that extra weight goes towards rigidity of the phone, Anyways its not intended for people with small hands.