zlacker

"the trade-offs in battery life and camera quality are too significant" - a small but thicker phone would have no trouble with battery life and could for sure have the same good cameras as larger phones – and could possibly even ditch the camera bump if it just made the entire phone as thick as the camera bump to fit a larger battery.

(After all, easiest way to increase battery size is to increase the smallest dimension. Add 1mm to a 4-4.5mm thick battery and you'll increase the battery size by 22-25%. Make the iPhone 13 Mini as thick as its camera bump and you would probably add ≈2.4mm, which would make the battery 60% larger)

>>VoxPel+(OP)
If one were to make a iPhone 17 Pro Mini as thick as the iPhone 4 then it would:

- Likely still weigh less than a Pro Max - Have a battery with a capacity larger than the Pro Max - Have the pro cameras stick out about as much as they did on the iPhone 6

And it would feel as robust and solid as an iPhone 4 – my favorite iPhone so far