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..
Though I suspect I worked with many staff members at Nokia. Their former CTO was my boss.
Absolutely irrelevant for what I do with a phone, and I'd wager that 90% of users would not notice the difference.
I don't believe you if that's the case.
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.
Display is something I for sure started paying attention to when I was jumping back and forth between Android and Apple when I went from my OnePlus to Apple and then to Samsung noticed differences.
<rant>
Who made the decision? There are still so many of us wanting a compact phone, but the big tech companies (Google, Apple, etc.) said no, therefore we can't have it. Not only can we not have it, they also closed the door on everyone, now even if someone wants to service this section of the market, they can't. Because, yes, the supply chain has left us.
This is power - they are taking away our freedoms and anatomy. They are making decisions for us and we have absolutely no say.
</rant>
Compact phones is but one of examples. A more current example would be the rocketing DRAM price. We got do something to stop this, but I feel so powerless.
If it was the flagship laptop (t14s or x1 carbon) then, yeah.
Otherwise, no.
Lenovo is a smaller player by far than HP or Dell, and less focused than Microsoft or Apple (commanding lower prices on average also).
The most popular thinkpad is actually the E14, which is a budget notebook. Most finance departments can’t tell the difference and its usually developers getting the good hardware, so we have a warped perspective.
And why should I? Reading text on the web, calling, sms’ing, listening to music or using navigation does not require “next gen” hardware. Hell, it doesn’t even require current gen hardware. It would probably work just fine on 2000s era hardware.