this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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Because people don't buy them.
Maybe because people aren't given a choice as everything is dictated by the manufacturers.
Slapping 10 year old hardware into a phone with a small screen is a guaranteed way to make people not buy your phone but that doesn't mean people don't want small screens, headphone jacks, replaceable batteries, etc. They just don't want the garbage manufacturers lump in with these great features so that these phones don't cut into their high-margin device sales.
You forget that all phones used to be small.
Also all those examples you gave apply to all phones, not just small ones.
Apple sold a 13 Mini, which was nearly identical to the 13, as much as is physically possible, and it was a dud.
I had a 13 mini until a month ago. It's one hell of a phone, and honestly, I'd still be using it if iPhones didn't keep their value so well and Apple weren't such a shit company.
Cool.
I haven't forgotten that. You may have forgotten that all phones came with swappable batteries, small screens, and headphone jacks and they sold millions of them for decades. That proves these are important features because they sold well, right?
What does that even mean? All phones come with old hardware and are poorly built outside of a couple key features?
So identical that they were nearly the same price which could put a lot of buyers off if they feel like they're getting less value for their money. Consumers also think that 1/4lb burgers are better than 1/3lb burgers because they're bigger as A&W found out in the 1980s when trying to compete against McDonalds. "The market deciding" doesn't mean anything rational happened or that it reflects reality. You're simply cherrypicking the result you want and shaping it to fit your argument.
You said people don't have a choice. I'm telling you it used to be the only choice they had. Then OEMs started offering other options and everyone wanted those. No point in making devices the market has proven time and time again that they don't want.
Important to consumers, yes. Important to OEMs? No, quite the opposite. I don't think that applies to screen size.
What did you even mean if not to imply that people weren't buying specifically large phones because they didn't include these anti-features?
Why would they feel like they were getting lass value when it was the size they wanted, and had everything else also?
So then you agree consumers want bigger phones?
Pot meet kettle.
If you believe this then why even argue against us with this "the market decided" BS argument in the first place? You're arguing out of both sides of your mouth and contradicting your previous comments.
I wasn't implying anything. I stated that manufacturers put things like a headphone jack into a phone that seems like it was built by Fisher Price and then point to it's lack of sales and claim "people don't want headphone jacks"
Uh, no, I'm saying that consumers don't always act rationally and make the best decisions which is why "market trends" can't just be taken at face value. 1/4lb is actually smaller than 1/3lb if you weren't aware, but consumers saw the bigger number and thought the smaller burger was the better value even though reality says otherwise.
I'm not, and I explained exactly how I'm not in the section you quoted.
What does any of that have to do with small phones, though? You seem to be implying OEMs have a some sort of agenda against small phones. But why?
Why does that matter? OEMs are not going to continue manufacturing phones that consumers aren't buying because they're irrational. That would, in itself, be irrational.
“Dud” is really strong language. These companies have distorted metrics for what is a successful product.
Google has a reputation for killing products because of similar wild expectations for ROI.
Is it "strong language" when they made up 3% of iphone sales?
Well, Um. There are 3% of us!
My point is I assume they didn’t lose money on them. They feel the scale of profit needs to be higher, else it’s not worth their time. And I think it’s a bummer that they run things this way.
That 3% would be a lot of customers to other reasonably sized companies. Right?
When was the last time a small phone that didn't also focus on being budget friendly and feature-limited hit the market? I don't think this argument holds water since the market hasn't been adequately tested. There are plenty of us lurking in dark corners waiting for a small but powerful phone. We are willing to sacrifice some battery life as that is a physical barrier, but there's really no necessity to skimp on anything else. Eventually an option will present itself, but I agree with the article, the Jetstream is not blowing that direction. I don't anticipate such an option will present anytime soon. All pendulums swing back eventually though.
You forget that the entire market used to be comprised of exclusively "small" phones, and we moved away from that.
The iPhone 13 Mini and ASUS Zenfone, not so long ago.