The phone market (where are the compact phones rant)

Am I alone in being disappointed with the direction of the phone market? Larger, higher resolution screens. Faster processors. Random selling point features that few have asked for and that seem to have little utility (e.g. edge display). Higher prices.

For me, the perfect phone would be 4.5 to 5' with slim bezel and have a great camera, battery life, and build quality. Enough processing power to be snappy but I don't need to run autocad on my phone. <$500. Bonus for good audio, but not imperative. That's it. That phone, unfortunately, does not exist.

I'm currently on my second Iphone SE (which has been discontinued). It's a little too small and the battery life is iffy, but otherwise it's perfect. The only alternative looks like the Sony compact series, but apparently their camera image processing is garbage. No good compacts on the horizon either.

Is there really so little demand for a quality compact phone?

(a little different, but this is intriguing: https://www.punkt.ch/en/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/)

 

I've been pissed since I had to get rid of RAZR V3 because of my job since it can't do Exchange ActiveSync, only POP and IMAP.

 

If you want a great camera, day long battery life, 5 inch screen with quick Android updates you have to go $650 for a Pixel 2. The Pixel 3 is about to come out so there may be some good discounts for Pixel 2's Google has left in stock next month. Unless you are only interested in iPhones of course.

 

That's what I was going to say. I bought one for my mother and she loves it. She's pretty tech savvy, and takes more pictures than a professional photographer.

The Essential phone also comes to mind.

 

I went through the Nexus 5, 5X, 6P. All because the hardware was nice, Android was stock.

Every phone failed at or within a year, and I'm fairly careful with phones. Each failure turned out to be down to a common 'known issue', with the 6P it's 'fixable' if you disable half the cores on the processor.

I think that Google's approach to selecting a different vendor to design and manufacture each generation of phone (or even two vendors within the same generation of phone) leads to inherent flaws in design. Maybe not something that will be immediately noticeable, but something that will reduce the short product lifecycles even further.

 

Sorry you had so much trouble with the earlier Google phones. When I bought the Pixel 2 I bought from Google Fi and pay $5/month to insure the phone. If I can get two years from the Pixel 2 I would be fine, three would be even better. Project Fi works great for me as I am always near a wi-fi hot spot and Google Fi cost for me with insurance is $30/month.

 

Multi-year phone insurance doesn't exist out in my part of the world, but even if it did, I would probably avoid, on principle, supporting that level of planned-obsolescence-through-design-flaw. I have to admit that Google customer support was really exceptional for the first couple of phones, but I got sick of it by the third and switched brands and didn't even bother with asking for a replacement.

If I got two years out of an expensive smartphone, I'd be pretty pissed. As it's been going, I've been getting one year.

Similarly, I am interested in the Massdrop Koss electrostat, but they have widely reported driver problems caused by manufacturing. They have a great lifetime warranty, but the widespread failure reports still puts me off owning a product with an almost expected failure mode.

On the bright side, my part of the world also makes thinking about phone contracts irrelevant. They are all cheap and fast, and data caps are simply not an issue unless you're in the habit of streaming TV shows all the time.

 

The Pixel 2 has a huge bezel and as a result isn't very compact. I've read the battery is so so too. And the Pixel 3 unfortunately looks like it's going to be 5.5 inches. There was a rumor of a revamped IPhone SE with a much smaller bezel and larger screen - that could have been perfect.

https://www.phonearena.com/phones/s...mpact,Google-Pixel-2/phones/10001,10650,10584

 

Here's an 'innovative' idea: A modern phone (good camera, web browser, music player, good battery, processing power) with freekin' physical buttons? Anyone?
The Punkt is one leg in, but still seemingly lacks lots of functionality.

 

For every blind or sight-challenged person out there HELL YES.

 

I take no offence in somebody saying I'm physically challenged, lol., although my eyesight is 2x better than normal person.
The problem is somewhat brawny hands/fingers and general hatred towards touch input devices I have acquired over the years. Everything with touchscreen is near unusable with cloves on and when it's wet. I suppose modern normal people don't have these problems.

Back to topic, which is size. Yes, 4.5'' diagonal is all that I'd ever need, despite big hands.

 

LOL you're just begging for an avatar signature about your big...hands. A couple friends of mine are blind and smartphones are a pain in the ass for them, even with voice interaction. Touch doesn't help when you can't feel what you're touching.

 

Give me a 5+ inch screen, decent camera and an OS that will get 3 years of updates and I'm good. Unfortunately that means I have to buy Google (Pixel) or Apple phones which sucks. Both are stupid expensive for the most useless gimmicks. Whatever happened to devices like the Nexus 5. That was a great phone. OnePlus is okay but they only guarantee 2 years of updates.

Right now I'm using a 6p which is on it's last legs. Have no idea what I'm going to get next. Might try and find a used Pixel 2 or XL.

The Pixel 3 has a bigger screen but it's roughly the same size as the Pixel 2, they just got rid of those giant bezels. Your right though, not very compact compared to the sub 5" phones out there.

 

In case it's not obvious, the advantages of a small phone are: one hand operation, pocketability/inconspicuousness, less temptation to be staring at it every waking hour.

 

Pick up an old-stock or refurbished TOTL phone that's one or two generations old (eg Galaxy S6 or S7). Smaller screens, mostly good audio quality (including from the HEADPHONE JACK), more often than not a replaceable battery and expandable storage. And of course much cheaper than this week's model. Sure, if Android, you might not get the latest OS - but if you care about that you can root it and flash an open-source one, or just use a custom launcher if you just want it to look like the later versions.

I'm still happily using an S4 (2013 model) which I got, refurbished, through my employer in 2014. Replaced the battery once.

 

Anybody have any unique ideas how to get a hand full of 128gb iPhone SE's, not used? Anybody think they will show up in Apple's refurb store?

 

Potentially relevant article: https://www.engadget.com/2018/09/03/will-2018-be-the-year-small-phones-die/

I actually think the iPhone 6S fits all of the criteria in the first post, so a used/refurb might be a good bet.

FWIW my 6S+ still lasts a day or two of moderate usage (highly YMMV from what I've heard from other users), it sounds great with Andromedas and the camera is decent outside of low-light situations.

I was particularly surprised that Sony has no plans for an Xperia XZ3 Compact, as FWIR the XZ2 Compact was quite well-received.

 

I am also wanting a smaller phone. I’m not necessarily looking for a tiny phone. I’d gladly trade my iPhone 7 Plus for a regular iPhone 7 or something similar. So tired of having a huge phone. I used to want to have a bigger screen, but I’d really prefer something that takes up less space in my pocket and is easier to use with one hand.

 

hello,
for some reason i break cellphones. also, i want one that is unlocked. i am intending to replace my (intermittent failures) Moto G4 with a Nokia 6.1. the Nokia is getting a lot of favorable press for a budget phone.

 

I just got an LG G7 for $50 (after bill credits) and really like it so far. LG just released an Android One version of the G7, so that's something to consider.

I expected LG's UI to be horrible, but after slapping Nova Launcher on it, installing Google Camera APKs and switching the UI theme, the experience is darn close to the Pixel 2 XL I just sold. The "hi-fi DAC" is surprisingly good, the speaker's very loud, the display's much better than the 2XL's subpar OLED counterpart, and I love having a headphone jack and microSD card slot again.