No kidding. I just want one that I can use one handed again. I’m on the IPhone SE, have hands that can play an octave + 2 additional keys on a piano, and I can’t reach the whole screen with a single hand.
The trick to this is to attach a handle to the back of it. I'm using one that telescopes from the "popsockets" brand (I'm unaffiliated and have no idea how it compares with other brands). It makes it possible for me to access all parts of my screen holding it one handed. It should be a standard feature.
I want a handle on the back of my phone even less than I want a larger phone. I also refuse to use cases and any other contraption that adds further bulk.
I have had an excellent experience with the OhSnap grip. https://ohsnap.com/products/snap-grip It is significantly smaller than the popsocket and adds a strong magnet which can attach your phone to magnetic surfaces. It looks flimsy, but I've had it two years and even moved phones and it shows no signs of breaking.
That helps with reaching up, but my thumb also doesn't reach the far bottom corner either. I don't have a super-octave handspan but I don't have small hands either.
Thanks to their incredibly poor demos I believed until THIS MORNING that to do that maneuver, you had to start your downward swipe ON the little bar that's about 2px from the bottom of the screen (which works, but is nearly impossible with a case).
I'm glad other people have chimed in. It drives me insane that no one thought to make one-hand mode not change the width as well or be a total aspect change.
We're in the minority. The iPhone Minis did not sell well. I think women especially do not want a small phone because they carry it in a purse anyway (and slap a case on it with an extra handle to make it easier to hold).
The Mini didn’t fail because it was too small. It failed because it wasn’t small enough.
I want a small phone that I can use single-handedly. A smaller screen is a tradeoff. The Mini had the disadvantage of a smaller screen plus the disadvantage of not being usable with a single hand. Because of that, I never bought one - if I’m going to be handicapped anyway, I’d rather have a larger screen.
I've never seen a preference like this, in real life. Usually the thing closest to what you want is the preferred option. You're suggesting there's a hump in the preference curve, pushing people away from their preference, buying a larger phone than the smallest, when they "want" a smaller one.
I have trouble believing this is true. Do you have any other example of this type of preference curve? I suppose the "uncanny valley" may be one, but that seems more understandable.
Small phone vs. larger phone is a very simple tradeoffs calculation.
Large phone: good screen, bad ergonomics
Small phone: small (thus worse) screen, best ergonomics
I'm willing to pick the second option above.
Unfortunately the Mini is somewhere in the middle: smaller screen than the larger phone - thus worse in that aspect -, combined with worse ergonomics than an actually small phone. It's the worst of both worlds.
I don't know about other things, but ever since the iPhone 5 I've been wanting another model that I could use with a single hand. The Mini was never that, so why would I sacrifice a good feature (larger screen) for... nothing in return?
The iPhone Mini size isn't to bad, but I agree to some extent - I think perfect size phone for me would be about original iPhone SE size. It could have a 5" screen if you made it edge-to-edge (for ref the iPhone Mini has a 5.4" screen).
Actually, yes. The mini already has limited space to work with, they had already to shrink the MB, the battery. It would take much more effort to put a pro camera into it. Also those camera do heat up.
Personally, i think the camera setup on ip13mini is fine.
This is a very funny typo, considering the topic at hand.
But yeah, I think I stopped being happy with phone sizes when they started going beyond 4" or so. It's hilarious to me that they can make a phone that's ~5.5" and call it "mini".
I'm an Android guy, and had high hopes for https://smallandroidphone.com/, but the guy who was originally driving it is running his resurrected Pebble company now, and there's been basically no useful activity in the Discord for at least a couple years now, so I assume it's dead.
Insightful! That's a great point: A period where a lot of people (especially the average-higher-income Apple demographic) were more likely to be sitting at home all day. Having a phone that is heavy and barely pocketable is nbd if you just have it sit on the coffee table or desk all day.
> I think women especially do not want a small phone because they carry it in a purse anyway
Yeah, I've noticed this. Many women also wear clothing where they either have no pockets at all, or the pockets are more decorative than functional, small enough that a truly small phone would have trouble fitting (certainly not the 5.5" iPhone "mini", which is hardly mini at all).
I honestly think they didn't sell well because they were called 'mini'. They should have just marketed them as the base level iPhone and it might have had a chance.
I recently doubled the thickness of my iPhone SE by adding an external battery. Fits in my jeans pocket fine along with several other things in the same pocket. If they can get it that thin, why don't they just add more battery and take us back to the time when we could run phones for weeks between charges.
[edit] I'll answer my own question. Nobody is going to replace an iPhone because it drops from 21 days battery to 14 days battery, but they probably will replace an iPhone that drops from 21 hours battery to 14 hours.
My battery was going out on my 12 and I got an SE. It's a good experience. If you can get a thumb print one, I personally like it a lot more than face ID.
I like the size of a regular iPhone. What I really want is a lighter phone.
Unfortunately, compared to the iPhone 17, the Air is about 30% thinner, with worse battery life, camera, etc, but only around 7% lighter. I was expecting at least 20% lighter if it's called "Air".
You have to sacrifice screen size to shrink the other dimensions, and they already have smaller screen iPhones. It seems most people care more about big screens than size in that dimension
They don't have smaller screen iPhones anymore lol what? the iPhone 13 Mini is the last phone that can be in that category. Does anyone really think that 6.1 inches is a "small" device?
The 17 does technically have a smaller screen than the Air, but only by 0.2". Not exactly a small phone. They don't even have a 6.1" phone anymore - smallest now is going to be 6.3".
I remember a coworker getting a Dell Streak Android phone in 2010 and it was enormous. Definitely felt more like a small tablet.
The GSM Arena review is mostly about the confusion of whether it should still be considered a phone at this size. Ultimately they decide it's just too damn big for a phone.[1].
Even with a 5" screen, it was bigger than for example iPhone 17 in every single dimension due to its hefty bezels (and not insignificantly so; iPhone 17 is closer in width to iPhone 13 Mini than a Dell Streak).
Screen diameter is in general a bit misleading figure for phones from different generations as "full screen" phones tend to have a taller aspect ratio and hence larger diameter even with same body dimensions.
Only a little bigger but you're right, I didn't think the bezels on the Streak looked that big but I see they're really pretty substantial. It's the dimensions of a modern 6.5" phone, basically.
Does it have all the normal US bands? their site doesn't give much assurance, and they have a graphic with every non-US carrier's logo and no US carrier logos.
I’ve been a little concerned that the (non-transparent) back is “protected” by glass. I understand that Marketing has to work with what they’re given, but that’s a bit much.
You need it to be glass and not plastic because otherwise it would cut in half the number of expensive repairs, which would likely tempt people to risk not having AppleCare, a very profitable business.
I got the Samsung 25 Edge and did move from a the regular sized phone to "plus" without the constraints and weight that usually follows. I can reach the screen edges that I can't on the same size plus version. Added bonus that i don't get a strain in my pinky from the weight and its still very pocketable. So I'm sold on thinner phones except the wobble from hell when its laying on the table.
It’s because they’re working on a foldable phone. And to make that work you need to phone half as thin first. This is not because they think people want thinner phones. It’s because they think people will want bigger screens and this will get them there.
The reason why we have such big smartphones is that the ratio of screensize (2d area) to battery size (3d volume) is better for smart phones with a bigger screen.
Every time a new iPhone comes up people on hacker news pine for a new mini, which I understand. But everytime someone has to bring back up that the 12 and 13 minis were the worst selling sku two gens in a row, with at one point the 13 mini only attributing to 3% of 13 sales [1].
I'm sorry, but the market has spoken. And there's Android phones in that form factor if you really want it.
When I looked for a new phone on gsmarena with a similar form factor as my old one, there were pretty much no options. So few even, my old phone appeared in the results. I too would be interested.
People underestimate what you can do with trillions of dollars at your disposal.
They could build a small town with all things you can imagine, cars, cinemas, hospitals, schools, whatever then get people to live there for months and use whatever new device prototypes they plan to launch a year later, and have an army of analysts even looking at their damn micro-expressions each time they pick up their phones in different ways and all of that might come down to like 50 million a year, which is like 0.05% of their revenue.
Apple is not anymore a startup where two/three guys make major decisions out of intuition (they ousted Ive because of that), again, this is a 2 trillion dollar company, they're not just vibing, lmao.
