I also happen to think small screens feel more elegant. The promise of technology has always been to amplify humans without detracting from the important parts of life. Big screen phones feel ideologically wrong to me in that people use them as a replacement for life.
I'm going to try out the new Digital Wellbeing stuff in Android Pie, which lets me set restrictions on app use. But it feels like a smaller phone is a much better solution, as it doesn't have any compromise in terms of portability - what's the point of having a big screen if I'm just going to disable the things that it's good at?
It would be nice if Apple or Google or anyone else could commit to serving the small phone market.
I kind of care about the design. It's elegant-- I like the flat camera, the chamfered edges and the brick-y form (which I appreciate they brought back with the new iPad Pro).
What I care most about though is the headphone jack. This is why I still keep mine around in spite of having another phone-- to listen to music.
EDIT: The fact that it's cheaper, so I could get more memory for the same price as a bigger model also contributes to it still sticking around primarily for music, but also with some games.
It's like when they started making laptop screen reflective. All my non-tech relatives were saying: "wow that screen is super nice" while I was thinking: "holy crap, the matte screen is disappearing, how I am going to work?"
they want the inexpensive option to not really fill a specific niche, they want it to be a little uncomfortable, that you're already making compromises so you'll pay a grand for the fancy one instead.
What i'm trying to say is, making a smaller option would be cheaper. That would cannibalize high end sales. From the seller's point of view, you want the best alternative to compromise all of your desires, so it's not that big of a deal to just upgrade. something inherently small violates that.
HNers can identify the tradeoffs. Apple probably understands the tradeoffs better though. Apple exploits them. (I say this as a loyal iphone owner.)
However, in a situation where you have ambient light from everywhere, like an open office with many windows, glossy screens are insanely distracting. I much prefer the matte screens for that. Yes things on the screen can be harder to read, but way better compared to the "looking into a mirror" effect of a glossy screen.
My luggable laptop for real work away from home or in equipment rooms has a 2010 4:3 matt screen
My portable laptop for quick emails while moving and occasional corporate stuff is a 13" gloss screen mac, but when it comes to productive work give me a good OS on a good laptop any day.
Recently got a 14” Zenbook for my daughter. Lovely machine honestly, but the screen ratio is annoying.
Having a large screen is also good for watching Netflix and YouTube. For many people, the phone has almost completely replaced the TV. I guess that explains why the screens keep getting bigger.
It is not "elegant" by any stretch of the imagination, but it is extremely small. Like you, I want something that is very small in my pocket and not distracting me from real life.
My theory is that big phones dominate because a lot of people don't have reliable/maintained computers other than their cellphone. If that was true of me, I'd want the biggest cellphone I could get, too.
Personally, I think if this is true, and phone companies figure it out, you'll see phones begin to be priced like turn-of-the-millennium laptops. The giant and clunky "desktop replacement" units should be giant and priced at the bottom of the market. The small units should have all the premium features and be way more expensive.
The fact that there are very few small smartphones being made and that none of those are 'premium' smartphones would indicate that either I am wrong or there's a market opportunity that the major cellphone manufacturers are missing.
The only consolation is that maybe I can better understand and relate to generation Z than my peers. Not much of a consolation.
-----
I spend ~6-7 hours each day on my phone. On weekends, this use increases. I am now averse even to work flows that are better suited for laptop use. I will use my too-big-to-use-with-one-hand phone for tasks that would take half the time on my laptop.
I had a 6+ for a while and got on with it fine but it’s a bit big. My 6s is just right. It is a little big for reaching on screen controls sometimes, but I’d hate to lose the readability so it’s a trade off.
I haven't read anything convincing on the subject.
https://opto.ca/health-library/the-20-20-20-rule
2018 thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16146106
I also have a compact and dSLR, but the best camera is the camera you have and that’s often my phone. I have a lot of pics of my kids that were unfortunately taken on an iPhone 4 or similar era touch and are noticeably terrible.
I do still prefer Android as an OS, though I am still getting used to iOS's quirks. I'm very happy with my purchase, though.
I have had one of the above for about a year. Battery life is not too great, but for my needs (occasional phone call, text, google maps) it works fine. Fits in the front coin pocket of my jeans.
I do use the phone itself for audiobooks and podcasts, but otherwise its basically a server (not the best term for that.. but you get what I mean.)
What I don't get about the larger phones is how people comfortably carry them around. Maybe its because I wear skinny jeans / pants, but there's absolutely no way I could fit a larger phone in the pockets of my pants, and I rarely have a jacket on.
But the love of the SE form-factor is not isolated to HN. I know a lot of people who love a smaller phone for various reasons.
As the tech gets thinner, I'm longing for the day when we get something similar to the folding phone from HER, but with a few modifications (e.g. memory LCD / eink for other side..)
Aside from a cellphone, I also carry a kindle all the time. I literally wear special pants so I can carry my kindle without a bag.
I mean, they aren't custom made or anything, but I do limit myself to baggy pants with giant cargo pockets. I keep saying I'm going to take all my electronics to a tailor and ask for less ridiculous pants that can carry all my stuff, but I haven't.
(that said, if apple released a new phone with new screen and network quality that was the size of the SE, I would buy it, just 'cause it's a lot easier to use with just one hand, and when I want to use both hands, I have bigger devices.)
My wife wants a phone that can fit into her jean pockets. Requiring handbags just to carry a phone around is absurd, and untenable for many people.
There's a difference between having a mobile device with you in the city and using a device comfortable at home where most people prefer a bigger screen.
Well only in the context of US, EU, Canada, AUS, and the like. Or if you consider China, India to be a poor 3rd world country.
There are more people using their Smartphone as their only computer devices in China / SEA than the whole of US and EU population combined. There are elderly who never had a computer in their life are now using Smartphone as their first "computer". You will be surprised how many people can't double click a mouse, and moving mouse cursor around is a daunting task. And how using iPhone is 10x more intuitive.
another case in point: parent only wants to change to smaller phone if all other specs are also improved.
I don’t think Xperia matters much here is it is sacrificing iOS and also to a lesser degree, an Android manufacturer that isn’t known for great software on that end.
Of course I'm not convinced Sony's learned anything from putting rootkits on their music CDs either.
But afaik it is the only phone out there with same specs as it's bigger brother. The phone is excellent too. I have the big one personally buy my hands are considerably larger than hers.
Also google took too long to come out wit Duo, so all the old people in my family learned how to use FaceTime, so now we all just stick with Apple products because it’s not worth switching to another environment, especially since Apple stuff changed much less and causes much less frustration.
I'm hoping to get the Sharp Aquos R2 compact announced back in November; but it doesn't seem to have hit the market yet. Probably will during MWC 2019?
Perhaps those people were serious, and now feel like they've been left out in the cold.
I find it somewhat fascinating that Apple has chosen to reproduce the mistakes of the Mac (in the late eighties/early nineties -> higher prices/margins at the expense of market shares) rather the success of the iPod (own all the market, with an iPod at every price point). I don't think it's a winning strategy in the long term, though it has worked so far.
If I posted "I loved it every time my phone screen got bigger" every time this discussion comes up, it won't add much to the discussion. Now imagine ten times of the complaint-comments are of this type, that's just spam.
There's definitely a potential market for smaller phones, but someone's gotta figure out how to market them.
I wonder how many of us, if asked, would say that we spend too much time on our phones? Probably higher than the population at large. A bigger screen is nicer to look at, I readily grant. But that's exactly the problem.
However I'd be surprised if that trend applies to the HN crowd, which probably considers their phones as a secondary device, at best. An extension of the multiple other computers they use more frequently, something you need on the go, a mobile device that's used for quick glances and short uses, which gets relegated to second or third device at home. At least that's how I see it and it is why I value a small, portable form factor. Plus, I have small hands.
Ergonomically speaking, 4 inches is the right size for a device that is meant to be operated by a human hand. Phones bigger that that are grossly oversized and anti-ergonomic.
That’s just common sense (cit. Apple): https://youtu.be/O99m7lebirE
[1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.xda.onehan...
[2]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.niftyui.re...
I think that's the nail in the coffin for me; the screens are just too damn big.
> Phones bigger that that are grossly oversized and anti-ergonomic.
Looks like he is, actually.
If it had nicer specs (e.g. hardware on par with iPhone 8 and a better display) that would a bonus. However, I wouldn't want a high-res display necessarily. I think they should keep the pixel density of the current SE. What I would found after briefly using an SE is that the low-res display coupled with the CPU/GPU from the 6S resulted in amazing UI performance -- much better than the 6S and maybe even the 7. Getting rid of the bezels would be nice, though that might detract from one of the advantages of the SE, that you can firmly grip the phone while being able to touch any part of the screen with your thumb, but it would be worth the trade-off I think.
I spent a week with an SE, after having used the 6 and the 6S before doing so, and I found I quickly adjusted to the smaller screen, and could even type faster since there was less finger travel needed (relying heavily on auto-correct).
Battery life on the SE is also great (at least it was for me), and I'd like to see that replicated on a newer small phone, with whatever tradeoff is necessary to accomplish it (e.g. low-res display, thicker phone).
iPhone X/XS/XR (bought & returned one of those in Sept.) are just too big i can not one hand text, surf, etc with any of those form factors or bigger.
I hope their future models offer iPhone 6/7/8 or smaller form factors with Touch ID!
Also, bring back the audio jack ... buying $180 airpods is ridiculous as previously i could buy $10 wired headset and listen privately. Removing the audio jack seems all to me about raking in cash(selling airpods) vs. providing customers with the best UX(making me buy crazy expensive airpods is not a good user/customer experience!).
The swipe gestures aren’t discoverable at all. But I noticed my 60-year-old aunt fluently using them, so I think the little tutorial they do in the Apple store when you buy one is effective.
Steve Jobs said : “Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.” Does a full blown hand-held tutorial form an Apple employee at the store count as a manual?
On the quote, a CNBC article seemed to attribute it to Jobs, but I suppose Musk said it - I stand corrected
You know you do have other choices when it comes to headphones besides AirPods? Including the lightning headphones that come with it, any BT headphones, or a $10 adapter that came with the phone until last year.
I miss having tough phones that lasted for days. All the current tough phones have really really crap specs and run Android that's multiple versions behind, and Apple hardware these days needs to be treated like a newborn baby.
(Of course it would be nice if a next-gen SE had IP67+ water/dust resistance and a larger battery, then all you'd need is to add a highly ruggedized case and you'd be golden.)
I recently upgraded my 7 to an 8 because my 7 was too easy to damage - even with a rather rugged case (a simple drop shattered the screen). I'm really uninterested in things like camera upgrades (male, early 30s). After this phone, this will be the first time I seriously entertain a non-Apple product for my computing hardware.
At the usual Apple price point, a military grade phone is what I should expect.
I got it off the kickstarter, but I think you can buy it retail now.
I’ve speculated this is perhaps more practical on newer laptops (e.g. 2016- MacBooks) where ports have consolidated to just all usb-c and presumably stay that way for longer than a typical 3-year physical design cycle.
Look at the constituent parts of an iPhone SE:
https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/cDmVFvtAKTZvjOBk.h...
An upgrade necessarily includes a new logic board and likely a new camera module. Once you're disassembling it, you'd inevitably be swap out the battery too. Most of the remaining parts have a distinctly limited service life—in particular the battery, physical buttons and connectors.
The front glass assembly with LCD screen might have a long theoretical life but these do deteriorate over time, they get damaged easily and replaced fairly often.
After excluding the above, there's not much left to salvage—mostly aluminium parts like the outer casing, and aluminium is already one of the most recyclable components of a phone anyway.
So there's really no point.
I'd like a foldable or furlable phone that offers the best of both worlds. You'd use it folded or furled most of the time and unfold or unfurl it when you want a bigger screen.
The current foldable phones seem to be a bit too thick when folded, but I've never seen one in person so that may be a false impression.