The average consumer likes a bigger screen, but I get a (truthy) feeling that production doesn't match demand.

- Smartphone design goals are to cram as much into a phone as possible, so engineers prefer having more space to work with.

- If I'm a designer for a smartphone, I'm probably pushing for more screen real estate to work with

- If you can only pick 2-3 form factors to build with massive economies of scale (as Apple in particular has to do), the demand for a smaller screen might not align with the relative cost to produce

- I wouldn't be surprised if the "it's smaller so it should be cheaper" mindset that people have in other markets (cars come to mind) plays a factor here. The reverse would be true true: A company can charge more for a bigger phone because it's bigger.

So if, say, 20% of the market wants a smaller screen size but wants it done cheaply, there might not be enough incentives to mass-produce such a device in a way that makes enough money to be worth it.

The small phones usually have much worse cameras than the big ones. Sometimes the mid-sized ones also have worse cameras than the really big ones. I'd love an SE-sized phone with a great camera, but that wasn't an option, so I bought a Plus, solely for the better camera, not for the screen size.

Agree; the only reason I own a Pixel 3 is that the camera in it was so much better than the competition's. Otherwise I would be using a $100 chinese brand phone. Google now sells a second phone that is cheaper but with the same camera; I'd buy that if this one broke.

The only thing impacting my phone purchases these days is the camera, which like you said, the good ones only come in 5"+ screen sizes.

The Palm phone? It’s crazy what you get when you search. I must have bigger hands than normal (I’m 195cm tall) and can’t reach across an iPhone 8 single handed. This phone is repeated called small in reviews.

> Here are some of the problems with the Palm phone: the camera is terrible, the operating system doesn’t have the latest Digital Wellbeing features that are ostensibly the whole point of getting this phone, the face unlock feature is likely insecure, there are no physical volume buttons, its custom software only occasionally helps with its tiny screen, it’s preloaded with a fair bit of bloatware, it’s terrifically slow, and (most of all) the battery life is downright atrocious.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/6/18212311/palm-phone-review...

> This phone is repeated called small in reviews.

It's repeatedly called a few more things in reviews as well.

I wasn’t asked to find a good one.