Utterly insane.

I replaced my SE with a Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact yesterday. It has a 5" screen and decent specs (2018 flagship). About as small as you can get a mobile nowadays, sadly.

And wow how I've missed Android, the UX is soooo much better in most aspects. I can't believe I was stuck with iOS (as an experiment) for almost 1.5 years. Reason being that I hadn't been able to find anything below 5" in the Android world.

iOS has its problems, but every time I have to handle somebody's Android (i.e. to help them do something faster than telling them), I want to give it back as quickly as possible.

When someone asks me what phone to buy, my answer is always "what phone do you have now?" because frankly, there is no reason to switch from one to the other. It's just a waste of time and energy to go through that.

I don't remember the details of it, but android uses more ram for applications, because of the dalvik VM. The iPhones also have way more cache on dye in the A CPUs. And apple completely decimates the competition in browser benchmarks.

I had a z3 compact before and was happily using it for 4 years before that(when I bought it was already old). Someone patched the system so that the camera apps still work on an unlocked device and I used a custom ROM which was working well.

Here's the thing about android devices. When you can keep them up to date with custom roms you gain things like fine grained privacy settings and faster lean custom ROMS.

But ... Sony is notoriously bad at that. Not only did their software quality degrade. They added more DRM and security features to make sure your Camera and other DRM functionality will not work on your custom ROM.

Compare that to Xiaomis Poco spinoff where they recently send all the XDA custom rom developers a free device to get the community involved.

I like Sonys devices but the software is utter crap. They completely botched the Android 10 update for most of their devices. It took them 2 months to release a version that wouldn't randomly fail and even then gesture navigation is not working in the older flagships. With Sony devices you can estimate only getting 2 major update the second one likely being buggy. Compare that to the iPhone update strategy which is a million times better.

To some extent the Android 10 disaster is to be blamed on Google since apparently the fingerprint problems existed in almost every vendors Android 10 release. I guess that when google moved their pixel 4 to no fingerprint/only faceID(or google face unlock) they just didn't care enough about other Android OEMs.

Not sharing an opinion on anything written, however Dalvik was replaced with ART all the way back in Android 5.

I feel that it is sad that Google phones mostly follow iPhone trends. It's as if the Google phone team are iPhone fans. Heck, I saw an Android team video and most of the people in the background were using iPhones.

I think customers would be better serve if each company play to their strengths, not on carbon copying each other.

I highly doubt a top of the line phone like the Galaxy or the Pixel would have issues with input lag.

If anything, I get annoyed by how long animations on iOS take compared to Android. Everything feels like it's running in slow motion.

Happens in laptops too. Its just silly. Go in the same price range and then make a judgement.

I long for the freedom of android and use iPhones reluctantly only because i really think they are a good value at almost any price point.

Same with LG, Sony and others. The only smooth Android I have ever tried was Huawei's and I am reluctant to buy Chinese telco hardware.

You can compare iphone and android performance benchmarks here [0] and here [1].

Apple devices still come out ahead of top of the range models from other manufacturers.

Yes I know benchmarks can be gamed and don't mean everything, but there is still a performance difference between top of the line Android models today, vs not only top of the line iPhones, but also iPhones from a couple of years back.

0: https://browser.geekbench.com/ios-benchmarks 1: https://browser.geekbench.com/android-benchmarks

I favor the gesture input, and it's surprising how many words have similar swype patterns for the keys.

I don’t think that’s true if you work with sensitive data or are just generally privacy conscious. iOS is then recommended over the OS from the advertising company (eg by tptacek and other experts here, if I’m not mistaken).

On a Pixel, I can use Google Assistant like a secretary. It screens the calls, forces the caller to answer questions, then relays the answers to me to see if I want to talk to them. That's pretty damn awesome. But again, it's not everyone's priority.

Apple has the security advantage though if you disregard the information apps leak but then again on both OS's you can use Pi-Hole, or better yet NextDNS, to shut up some of the chatter.

And I say this as someone who runs Pi-Hole. But I feel like it is a battle I am using.

First day she got the S8 I set it up for her and showed her how to make calls and send text messages. Next day I got an MMS with a picture from the garden, she'd figured that out on her own.

Mainly I think things are just different, some things are easier on Android, some on iOS and vice versa.

Huge difference. You have fdroid, apk slicer and alternative stores without google gate-keeping. You can reflash your phone with ungoogled android or open source alternative gapps package. Use microG to sandbox google stuff.

There are ton of ways to contain googleware.

And I have a custom rom which gets update every month. Ungoogled. :)

My experience with custom ROMs was unfortunately a lot worse than yours. I had the original Galaxy Note, and picking a custom ROM for that was a "Updated, has features, doesn't kill your battery - pick 2" kind of deal.

I'm still under update coverage for my Pixel 2XL, haven't felt compelled to upgrade at all. i do wish more handsets supported using Lineage or another open variant/option for after coverage expires at least.

Google is very strong in the data heavy areas. GMail, Calendar and especially GBoard and are extremely hard to replace, as are YouTube and Translate.

If you have an iPhone and you use Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Microsoft Office, Google Photos/Docs, Spotify, the Dominos Pizza app, etc etc there are half a dozen companies holding your private information either way. If you want to go total lockdown, get an iPhone with a VPN and never use any social media or cloud apps, but don't pretend like having an iPhone alone is some huge change to your privacy problems.

Then google knows what? That you installed fastmail, firefox, and maps.me?

If you are technically minded, you can easily flash LineageOS + microg on your phone a use a virtually surveillance-free phone (as far as you can, ignoring stuff like cell tower tracking and opaque baseband, etc).

I have both an iPhone (work) and an Android (Nexus 2, personal) and use both daily.

I find (stock) Android to be a much more usable and capable operating system. Which is a shame because the iPhones really are better hardware, especially the smaller ones.

How else will you distinguish between them?

Love having a physical keyboard, and will gladly give up some screen size for a much comfier typing experience. That and the BlackBerry Hub is amazing and actually makes managing all my communication in a day much more effective. (Global shortcuts, gestured text navigation, a control key, etc):

At least Hub can be installed on other Android devices, for me a unified inbox is a killer feature.

Not to mention that you basically need to look at the latest iPhone to know what maybe 70% of Android hardware is going to look like for the next year or so (notch, cameras, software features like Animoji, even the absence of things like the headphone jack).

Both the state of smartphones and the state of laptops and OSs really make me want to get into that industry and make some better alternatives.

Another glaringly obvious thing with Android that frustrated me to no end with iOS: Why the fuck do you need to swipe twice to remove a notification. So many swipes wasted that I could've used for Tinder instead.

I have a boatload of stuff that annoys me about iOS, to the point where at one point thought about opening a Twitter account to send a daily tweet about something that sucks on iOS.

Emojis look good though.

And for the love of god why does your spellcheck keep trying to replace the word "talk" with "ya'll?" I've had to manually set text replacement for way too many word pairs like that, and if you do typo the word you're going for in a way that's not in the text replacement, it defaults to the weird choice anyway.

This is something Android messed up since Android 9 (IIRC). You used to have a small arrow below the Wifi and Bluetooth (and whatnot) icons where you could select what to connect to. Removing those since 9 was partially what drove me to angrily expore iOS.

Can't say about the spellcheck because I used Swiftkey on iOS but the Android version is miles ahead of it. In hindsight I should've probably just reverted to the iOS built-in one.

My ideal is that I can flip up and change the source in the time it takes for a song to change, which I used to be able to do seamlessly in Android. Though according to the sibling comment, Android got worse for that use since I switched too.

Just wish both had some kind of UI indicator that there's a long-press action available... it's not like people are reading mobile phone manuals nowadays, even if they existed.

[0] For example no mention here https://www.xda-developers.com/everything-new-android-p-deve...

Personally I think the down arrow is way too small for me to press so I always just long press the icon anyway.

They've actually made it worse in a way by removing the magnifying glass, but at least the new copy/paste/cut swipe gestures are handy, if a little odd on smaller screens.

The biggest loss for me on newer devices is 3D touch, since that's the best way to select text quickly and easily.

On many websites it will zoom around unpredictably.

Very awkward to select specific text in Notes etc. sometimes, especially around links and other clickable items.

I’ve found that if you try to move the cursor with the keyboard it’ll show up.

For the most part, I adapt along the way... I've felt similar with iOS, but refuse to buy from Apple.

It may also because idiots keep "innovating" with the home screen experience but for most androids the home screen is just another app you can replace with one not made by incompetents.

Nova is nice for example.

The first touch devices might've been around 3.5-4" (just guessing here) but they've since then been constantly growing to where 6" is nowadays considered normal. How far can you going up in size? It's definitely not comparable to finding the size of a seat, as a phone's "right size" depends on how you intend to use it. There are hundreds of phone models on the market but they all seem to revolve around price points (and hence features/specs). Why not expand the range size-wise as well while at it?

I have fairly large hands and I don't mind manhandling a 6" "phone" but I simply do not want to carry one in my pocket. I can't imagine I'm alone on this. Largest phone I've ever had was 5.5" and that one constantly fell out of my shorts pocket when sitting down and now with the 4" iPhone SE I've grown rather accustomed to the form factor and am willing to trade off usability (more difficult, precise typing required) for it.

And then you have people with small hands.

Edit: Easy one-handed usage is also important to me.

I beg to differ! Airlines have slowly crammed in more and more seats for years.

"Less legroom is now the industry norm. In the early-2000s, rows in economy used to be 34 inches (86 centimeters) to 35 inches apart; now 30 to 31 inches is typical, though 28 inches can be found on short flights, according to Washington D.C.-based advocacy group Flyers Rights. Seats have narrowed, too, from about 18.5 inches to 17 inches on average."

https://time.com/5636154/airplane-legroom-shrinking-asia/

Availability of smaller cars keeps going down (Honda Fit dropped in Canada, Toyota Prius C gone, etc.)

[1]: https://www.teoalida.com/cardatabase/images/Car-Classes.png

Every ergonomic setting on my car is at the extreme and it's still not right. I need the ceiling to be taller and the windshield to be taller and the steering column to be further from the floor.

The best car I ever drove was the silly VW New Beetle

It would definitely not make any sense to create a car with a seat where most people wouldn't reach the pedals or be able to look out the window. What you're looking for is customization. And yes, I think that car manufacturers should offer custom versions of their models tailored to people smaller or larger than average, I think that would be cool.

Airlines I've flown with Over the last few years haven’t been very accommodating...

Besides, even having the option to pay for extra legroom is what I'm missing altogether from the mobile phone market. Do you see my point? At least you have the option when it comes to legroom. I don't have any sub 5" options when it comes to Android phones, even though I would be prepared to pay extra for it.

And the cheapest pair of pants there is $75, Which is more than I pay for simple clothes like plain pants, and by the time you're getting a whole wardrobe, you're at least halfway to that phone. More if you value diversity in pant-styles.

I don't like having to pay more money because I was born a different size. Not to mention you are usually paying more than other customers for the added responsibility of accepting to help in case of an emergency.

This applies whether you're homosexual, heterosexual, or both.

Oh, and statistically you make more money as well. But you're less comfortable on airplanes, and Asian minibuses, so it's impossible to know if it's a net benefit or not...

Don't forget shorter lifespans, back issues, discomfort in most vehicles, difficulty finding clothes furniture and bedding (unless you're well off) and instant contempt from any male shorter than 5'9".

I'm also below the 99th percentile, which is where most of what you describe starts to kick in.

Lucky me, I guess. I do have to put up with my knees pressing into the back of airplane seats...

There are certainly benefits, but most people ignore the drawbacks when discussing height. I like to put it in perspective for shorter men who feel unlucky as well.

The argument about attraction makes no sense to me either. People reporting they like tall people also care about other traits. If you find a partner who fetishises you just for your height you really haven't gained anything, it's still just as hard to find actual love.

Let's not even get into the advanced math required to find positions that work with an average sized partner.

Truly... it's similar to how a dashingly handsome hollywood heartthrob has no real advantages over somebody who looks like Quasimodo with smallpox.

The former has to wonder if their beautiful successful wife decided to have the family he always wanted with him because she loves them or if they only did it because he's a sexual object.

Whereas the latter may face personal and professional consequences for making the exact same advances the former would be rewarded for and thus is prone to self-isolation for fear of societal reprimand. He gets to live in a wonderful world of woke cynicism.

Fetishizing height might be more of an issue at your lofty stature, along with the thin air and whatnot. It's not what I'm talking about. Height is like facial symmetry, there aren't any downsides (talking about 90-98% here) and it just means more occasions when your crush crushes back. At the margins, this is a plus.

Everyone makes up for their deficits by playing to their strengths. It's important to acknowledge which is which.

Worth noting that sexual attraction isn't the only place this comes up, there's robust evidence that everyone, male, female, and otherwise, considers taller men to be more trustworthy(!), better leaders, and the list goes on. It's deeply unfair of course, but it is what it is.

Want to know what is in our control? not charging extra money in order for someone to not hurt themselves on an airplane because they fall outside the bounds of average.

Reserving the good seats for the height-advantaged is discrimination against short people, who are already discriminated against for personal characteristics beyond their control.

Suck it up and pay extra.

There's no such thing as fair allocation of a scarce resource. Offering it at a surcharge is, in my not-disingenuous opinion, the least unfair option for this particular one.

Outright reserving it for tall people is discrimination against the short. There are other reasons someone might want the emergency row which are just as legitimate, knee surgery leaps to mind. Should we make a comprehensive list? How do we determine if someone is just lying to get the premium leg room?

I'm open to the argument that the federal government should mandate a larger minimum seat distance. But then, I'm not poor.

As I said, there's no fair way to allocate a scare resource, only degrees of unfairness.

But you're completely wrong on the "discrimination against the short" front. Imagine if everyone that can easily walk demanded a wheelchair and cried discrimination if they didn't get one.

Nah dude, the least unfair option is to make sure everyone isn't in pain. After that, charge money, do whatever...but your option to literally hurt people for the way they were born sucks and breeds contempt.

If you eat more than the average person do you also expect grocery stores to give you extra food at no extra cost?

But you're fine with paying extra for more screen estate on your phone?

I'd gladly pay less - or more (I don't care either way, I just want the option!) - for a smaller footprint phone.

That said, this boat has been sailed. Modern apps won't work on tiny screens because their developers optimize for large screens, so it's a pointless desire.

One would think that you'd test the whole iPhone range when developing, since it's actually doable (compared to the Android landscape with infinite resolutions) but no.

I'm not blaming Apple for that though.

It wouldn’t be so bad if the phone had a window manager and you could keep everything you wanted in a corner (although the iPhone 7 digitizer feels less accurate than the SE was so maybe that wouldn’t work so well.)

These options are available, there’s nothing for people who want to have a hand sized phone.

It seems that for support is not fully there yet for the XZ2 Compact, camera is still a work-in-progress, unfortunately: https://forum.xda-developers.com/xperia-xz2/development/rom-...

But once that's sorted out I might be tempted to switch, or at the latest when I run out of official Sony updates.

I used to run a Z3C, but after some of the seals got loose I upgraded to an XZ1C. It's near perfect for me, and I don't know where I'm going to go next for a compact phone.

z1c battery is cheap and not too hard to replace. all you need is a hair drier, credit card and adhesive to stick the back cover again.

i’ve replaced mine in like 10 minutes after watching instruction on yt

I did have the same issue on the z3c with the seals coming loose. Eventually the glass panels got loose too.

i'm waiting eagerly for the camera focus bug to be fixed in oemv6 firmware to flash TWRP & Lineage and try it as a daily driver:

https://forum.xda-developers.com/xperia-xz2/development/rom-...

for now, my Z5 Compact is still going strong but has known noise cancellation mic issues (hardware) that cause echo on the other end of some calls.

I know! I found a single online store in my country selling them. There were lots of listings but in all stores except one they were sold out.

I was just looking at that XDA thread today and yeah, once the camera issues are fixed I'll probably be looking at flashing Lineage. At the latest once the official Sony updates stop coming in. Or if the next one brings back the bloatware I've removed..

It does seem weird that instead of continuing to serve this market, Apple assumes everyone wants their same large form factor and it's only a matter of price.

On the other hand, maybe we're just in a bubble. Trying to avoid consumer tech even though you could easily afford it is a rather niche, privileged view of a subset of people that work in tech. Maybe outside this bubble there's a much larger group of people who do want the big, more up to date designs and price is the only consideration.

The problem there is that they can't get the smaller form factor, +nice specs, at that low price but at a higher price it would probably not sell as good because the SE line always had that air of "more affordable iPhone" to it.

That why this new SE is exactly iPhone 8 dimensions, to a point where Apple even confirmed that iPhone 8 cases will be compatible with the new SE.

So it stands to reason that they retooled a lot of their 4.7-inch production to make this "SE" as affordable as it is.

Trying to put all of that into a 4-inch screen form factor like the original SE, would require sourcing completely different parts, require much more retooling of already existing manufacturing processes, for many parts, there'd be zero overlaps with their other products.

So while people like me prioritize the 4-inch screen smaller form-factor, Apple chose to embrace the SE as a "budget iPhone" brand that makes all the other "budget" competition look like really outdated and lame ducks.

Which is most certainly a bigger market than people prioritizing size of the device over anything else.

In fairness, 4.7 inches is now a very small phone. So small in fact that you have basically no options that small in the Android line, and no recent iPhones that small either, if I'm not mistaken.

As a lifelong Android user, I'm very grateful that this exists. I detest just about everything about the Apple ecosystem and dislike the design of most of their products I've tried, but I will be getting an SE next time I have to get a new phone unless Android has responded, simply because that's the only way to get a quality phone that small. Even if it means giving up Firefox, for example.

You don't have to "give up" Firefox, per se. I use Firefox and "Firefox Focus" every day from my iPhone X. Sure, Firefox doesn't use Gecko on Mobile, but a ton of core Firefox features work great: Sync, Send Tab to Device, AirDrop, etc.

You have to look at the physical dimensions though. A 4.7 display edge-to-edge would be truly compact, but this one has a huge bezel so it's closer in size to the flagships and not really compact.

It's called an investment because they make more money on something than they put into it. That money is coming from you.

COVID-19 means that in the coming year a lot of people will have a lot less money to spend, not exactly the best time to cater to the luxury $1000+ phone sector branding yourself with exclusivity.

Size was a big part of it, but it was also that the SE was a really good design that should last for years. Up until this announcement, I was going to have the battery replaced on the SE. The bigger issue is if Apple will continue to support the 1st gen SE with iOS.

My wife prefer the bigger phones. She has aphantasia. I don't, and often hold visualizations of things I can't see.

It eventually dawned on me that people buy those things to attach to the back of their phone because you _couldn't_ safely hold and operate the bigger phone with a single hand without that attachment.

This made me think of another reason they are cutting smaller form factor phones, maybe not valid.

It could be that manufacturers of mobile phones are optimizing for engagement (see: apple switching revenue to services), and the engagement metrics on smaller form factor phones are lower, so they want people using less of them. They only want you to be able to buy a larger phone, because they want you to engage with your phone more.

I'm curious what the tradeoff is on increased energy consumption is with the larger screen / larger battery / thin phone setup.

I think the dominant market pressures so far has been practical concerns like phone thickness and battery life so manufacturers - who are all also competing with their past products - are forced to sacrifice screen size options to compete. Now screen size is becoming unwieldy and screens/batteries have steadily improved so we might swing back the other way.

I believe that's a reason why Screen Time is so bad - it's not a feature, it's just marketing's objection killer.

1. HEADPHONE JACK. Selling music- and media-centric devices without headphone jacks is stupid and offensive.

2. Ergonomics: FLAT SIDES. You can grip the old SE. Rounded edges are stupid, because the phone wants to flip sideways out of your grip.

And the new SE still uses the Lightning port, which is technically incompetent in addition to being proprietary.

The only good thing about 8 is that it's kind of water-resistant, so I can read books in my bath.

That said, the situation doesn't seem to be as dire as that. Last I checked there seem to be plenty of inexpensive phones that "still" have headphone jacks. It's ironically the top end of the market where people buy phones for signalling that you can't get them.

But I would pay good money for a new iPhone with a headphone jack, if anyone at Apple is listening. Make it the pro super-duper model, with a $200 premium: I’m in.

But alas, I’m stuck on 6s+ for what seems like a foreseeable future.

So it's quite a bit bigger than the original SE, though the biggest issue I had with the design (on a 6S anyway) was that the metal back and rounded edge made it much slippier than the old 4/5/SE design, much harder to hold securely.

Anyway the SE/2016 was 123.8mm x 58.6mm x 7.6mm and 114g with a 4" display, the 8 was 138.4mm x 67.3mm x 7.3mm and 148g with a 4.7" display.

Significantly heavier (+30%), noticeably wider (+12%) and taller (+15%) and about the same depth (-4%).

Are there any Android phones for sale that are smaller than 138.4mm x 67.3mm though? (That are 'standard' phones, not gimmicky super small ones like the unihertz).

Some of the Android phones that seem to be known for being 'compact' are the Samsung Galaxy S10e (142.2 x 69.9). Google Pixel 4 (147.1 x 68.8) (slightly smaller Google Pixel 3, 145.6 x 68.2).

I'm having trouble googling to figure out the smallest 'reasonable' android phone available, I'm not super familiar with the market.

Aha! Sony Xperia XZ2 Compact is only 135mm x 65mm. Found one! Few mm smaller.

But I think the new SE may still be one of the smallest phones out there, even if it's bigger than the old SE. The market seems to have moved... larger.

There are certainly people (including me) who would prefer it be the old SE size... but it's not like there's really anywhere else for us to go. Except experimenting with the specialized 'oddballs' like unihertz.

With the new SE, Apple has still put out one of the smallest phones on the market, so is still serving the smaller end of the market. Which, yeah, that is weird.

When I would get into the car, it would eject out of my pocket, as I closed the door.

So, it can definitely handle being smashed in a car door, but it did bend it, and it still worked.

Still have and use an SE w 128MB size for personal use.

Surely you mean 128 GB? ;)

iPhones went downwards as Jobs died.

It feels like really poor design unless that was the express intent.

Don’t know if it’s the phone or me but the 11 is fine so far.

I think it’s a mix of the 6-8 design being too thin for rounded borders and the metal back being super slippery compared to glass.

And yet I have still sold all of those dozen devices in flawless, virtually pristine condition when it became time to upgrade. I think the secret is to use a lightweight, thin textile sleeve [1] during transport, in your pocket or bag. Plus, it also serves as a soft bedding when your device is resting on a table or other hard surfaces. It also has a microfiber inner lining, which combined with the snug fit keeps the display clean.

Sorry for sounding so ecstatic about a sleeve, but I always wondered why temporary sleeve usage wasn’t more popular compared to those dreadful permanent cases.

[1] https://shop.fitbag.de/jive-grau-handytasche-nach-mass.html

edit: I thought I was replying to the grand parent. Well, it’s not a different perspective then.

I read and watch shows on my phone constantly, and screen size is a major factor for me. I specifically buy clothes with larger pockets to accommodate.

I agree that choice would be better - but I imagine that economies of scale sometimes means having only one size for everyone if you want to keep them cheaper than the competition.

If the situation was reversed I would not argue against larger phones, in fact, I was part of that generation when the iPhone 4, 4s, 5 et al. were being released and over in Android Land the OnePlus One was coming out (legitimately called a Phablet)- I welcomed the choice. It wasn't for me of course but more variety is great.

Unfortunately choice has been removed and I regret celebrating the new form factor thoroughly.

What I'm trying to convey is that: I'm glad you have choice, please give me back mine. And I would graciously ask that if you're ever in a conversation about large phones vs small phones you don't take the stance of arguing against the existence of smaller phones simply because you have a preference for the current standard of sizing.

But maybe I'm wrong, and you have your reasons.

I guess part of it is our impotence in the face of a multibillion-dollar ecosystem of mass-produced products, and the realization that we're (apparently) irrelevant (I share your distaste for large phones).

Anyway, I too hope smaller phones become commonplace again.

My Pixel 3 at the time I bought it was one of the smallest decent quality phones that wasn't iOS, and even after a year and a half I still notice how much my hand has to contort for basic usage.

You're upset that someone likes big phones because there are so many big phones?

This is really one of the most bizarre comments I've seen on this website.

We're not talking about rationing our food resources during a great depression where someone chimed in with "but I like excess rations!" while you get none. Nobody here has the power to change the size of manufactured phones with their two cent internet comments. What's the emotional bargaining for?

I really hope we can find a way to move beyond our hysterical fixation on gadgets and their grapple over our happiness. It's just a phone. It's just a laptop. It's just a smart toaster.

Yes, You really did just read this. But I think you took the wrong message away.

The parent "Would argue against" small phones, because they prefer larger phones.

I am asking him in the most sincere way I know to not argue against smaller phones because their preferences are currently well served. However mine haven't been nearly met in years.

I find the rest of your comment very bad faith, this is a first world problem _of course_ but this is a topic about a new phone and I haven't been able to buy a new phone in 4 years at this point. At some point the EOL will strike my phone and I'll be essentially forced (by application support, website performance, lack of browser updates whatever) to carry something that feels more like a mini ipad or tablet than a "phone".

Look, Phones are a central point of our lives today; I do my banking on it, I pay my bills on it, I order food with it. I literally pay for everything with it. It's not unreasonable that there is at least a modicum of variety that _isn't_ camera based.

Person A is enjoying the status quo.

Person B is having a hard time with the status quo.

Person B complains, asking to be included.

Person A complains, "I don't have a problem"

Producer (C) sees the bickering as a muddled frenzy, unable to understand if there is a need or people are being fussy.

--

If you are in a position to discuss phone sizes and someone floats the notion of a smaller phone. And you would "actively" argue against that- Then I would like you to not do that. Not because you're the CEO of samsung, but because someone who could convey critical information to the CEO of samsung might be swayed into inaction (because inaction is easier after all) by those comments.

My phone is simply the conduit that everything flows through - I have everything routed to Mac, iPad, etc. My phone is just on a table next to my keys so I don't forget to pick it up on the way out the door.

I tried to get this setup with a cellular Apple Watch and a cellular iPad but it ultimately meant I didn't have a cellular phone number that could enable the Watch to take calls.

Now I common carry an android and ipod touch tethered. Best of both worlds. The samsung is small too.

Besides that, have you thought that everyone’s lifestyle may not be just like yours?

https://www.adweek.com/tv-video/nielsen-estimates-that-119-9...

Are we really going to do the whole Slashdot meme “Do people still watch TV? I haven’t owned a TV in 10 years”.

Now I am more settled and have a family, I watch things on my phone a lot less.

Rather than using a tablet, I was using a Kindle Paperwhite so that I can take my library with me. I don't use it to browse the web.

I have quite a bit I use my SE, including Evernotes, my meditation timer, my Go client, etc. I don't actually need a tablet.

I have a tablet now. More because my wife and the T-mobile guy convinced me that I can use it as a backup 2FA device with Krypton. There are some use-cases that I am looking to incorporate things with... but again, I don't actually need it. I probably won't take it with me when I travel.

But it's more about do enough people want to watch video in public or on the go such that large phones became the dominating choice?

Given your handle I can understand your concern...

... Why?

I don't get it myself, but for whatever reason a lot of people do enjoy this. I'm guessing as a coping mechanism. Probably in the same vein as reading books/news, or playing video games etc.

I have an old friend who every night picks out some criterion collection DVD to watch, and posts about it on social media before/during/after.

That said, I have a tablet I use for long-form reading/youtube (90%+ reading) during train/ferry rides > 10 min, but obviously haven't had to use it much recently. Mostly reading.

But young people, especially teenagers, wow they can still focus at the ends of their noses.

I should try one of those pop-out deals and see if it makes using the iphone 7 with one hand practical.

Then I watched in disbelief as phones began getting more and more swollen every year and got too large to hold comfortably in one hand. (or fit in your top pocket)

Time and again the phone-shop salesmen would look sideways at me when I said I didn't want the latest and greatest offering, but one of the older and smaller phones. My current phone is an iPhone 5S that I have kept for several years.

My old iPod Touch 5th gen. was quite a shocker for everyone who nostalgically reminisced about the good old times of small screens. I guess it depends what one expects from the phone.

This home button/fingerprint reader combo is taking up so much precious real estate on what is a small device, and I just don't get it. It seems like bad design to me.

The jury is solidly still out on the "better" part. There's no consensus between customers on this topic. Manufacturers who placed the fingerprint sensor (and power button, earlier) on the back, or even the side despite the clear disadvantage of having a tiny sensor, did so to make the bottom bezel slightly smaller, not because of proven better ergonomics. And given the opportunity they switched back to the front, under the screen. Most also chase thinness at the price of smaller batteries which says nothing about the soundness of the decision.

> This home button/fingerprint reader combo is taking up so much precious real estate

The button is there because the design comes from a time when the screens were small so on-screen buttons were a waste, and the body needed to be large enough to accommodate everything else. This phone is an iPhone 8 with a better SoC. It's not a new design or even a redesign.

The design isn't bad, it's old. And it's old so it can be cheap. They achieved a worthwhile result a pricepoint where at the very least it provides exceptional software support and a current generation SoC. There are few phones that serve that segment (OP5 was pretty much the last one in the price range - good SoC, OKish support, regular old bezels). You can freely sacrifice this for better screen to body ratio phones if that quality is more appealing.

The design features relevant for this discussion (bezels, physical button) didn't come out with the iPhone 8. I'm counting the age of the design since it was first introduced, not since last use. It is an old, successful design which leads to a cheaper phone.

> It doesn't save money to do it this way.

Of course it does. Any new design and part made for this phone implies extra expenses - new tooling, assembly lines, supply chains, etc. This drives up the cost and price of the phone. And you can't save money by sharing/reusing too much of what you have in place for your flagship line because for every $400 phone you make you took capacity away from a $1000 phone. So old stuff gets reused. You get a much cheaper phone by slightly upgrading the $300 iPhone 8 than the $800 iPhone 11. Works like this in every industry.

They got rid of the button and the fingerprint sensor in one go, so there was never an opportunity to have just a fingerprint sensor on the back.

Sadly as I'm not getting any younger my SE 4" becomes harder on my eyes and my decision of having 16GB at the time got it to be filled. though it's really the best phone and most reliable phone I had. (that's btw a pro for using the iPhone 6s -> 8 design including fixes for bendgate/audio ic/etc at least I hope so)

That's the key thing about the SE and before it the 5S-- something that can be operated with one hand and that can fit in a pocket.

It's clear from the photo that it doesn't have a camera optic that's flush with the back, nor does it have that cool pseudo 1960's Philips-like metal case with flat beveled sides.

My love of SE comes from its small the size... So i'm disappointed.

It also bugs me that no one is showing a comparison of the new SE to the old SE, so here is an old article I found, 2nd photo is the 7 (5.5 in), 6 (4.7 in == new SE), and old SE (4 in).

https://www.imore.com/iphone-6s-vs-iphone-se-whats-different...

So the new SE is bigger, but still acceptably small for most people. It seems like Apple couldn't bring themselves to make it any smaller. And at this price with these features, it will be my next upgrade (in 2-3 years), and I predict it will sell like hot-cakes.

You can fit a bigger screen into the same space with the bezels removed. There is no compelling reason to have a 4.7" screen when a 5.something" can fit in the same form factor.

I absolutely want a smaller device, and the trend towards phablets becoming the new "normal" really annoys me. But why does this have to be so damn ugly?!

1: https://palm.com/products/palm-unlocked

This is not what tech is supposed to be about. There's supposed to be options, so all types of users can feel comfortable and at-home. Instead we force all users into a couple of comically-bad stereotypes based on market research pulled out of bullshit sales figures and a focus group's collective asses

Largely the same story for those waves of Android Lollipop "smart watches".

I'm very unhappy with the market for mobiles, it seems manufacturers have no balls, and are clueless about what I want / sensitive to what carriers are willing to sell en masse.

In a phrase, the stupid shitty financing options carriers provide seem to define the market for devices (supply, credit, marketing), not what actually makes a good device.

Shame all around.

This is not a new compact iPhone like the 4/4s/5/5S.

If you’re happy enough with your phone as is then you’re good for now.

I suspect you’re exactly the target audience for this phone though (happy enough to trade cutting edge specs you don’t need for better value - I’m the same).

In any case it’s probably good to know there’s a very familiar drop-in replacement for your existing phone when it gets unusable that isn’t going to break the bank though, right?

I haven't seen any new phone in that class since mid-2018.

Is it? The market shifts to where the money is.

There apparently isn't enough money to make it worth the OEMs' time. If there were, they'd capitalize on it.

While I abhor huge phones, I see more Plus model iPhones than I do the "smaller" models, in the wild.

It seems to be working from Apple though

Why does it mean that? They could have been building compact phones already and they weren't. Not sure why they're going to start now when Apple is clearly signalling to the industry that people don't want to buy small smartphones.

This.

There are plenty of compact and competent phones. A Samsung A40 for example is barely larger than this new iPhone SE, but has a 5.9 inch display. A friend wanted a smallish smartphone and she's quiet happy with the form factor.

That is not a compact phone.

I know I'm in the minority here, but the iPhone4, in my view, was the ideal form factor (3.5", I think). At least half of the time I glance at my phone, the informational payload is not even a full sentence and requires no interaction. Otherwise, I check mail and sometimes use maps. More or less, my phone occupies the niche that I'm supposed to want a digital watch for, but don't.

If I need more screen, there are a plethora of options. I really don't want a tablet in my pocket. And I don't keep it with me like anywhere nearly like I used to - it has turned in to more of a 'desk phone' that I check when I think about it.

4\S was perfection as far as ergonomics go. Timeless design. The natural 2:1 ratio was ruined in 5 by stretching in the vertical dimension. What they should have done was to expand the screen and have it eat the top bezel. They stopped pushing. Supersizing was the easy road.

3:2 ratio?

A major pro of having a smaller phone is being able to reach anywhere on the _screen_ with just a thumb. While A40 and SE may have the same physical form factor, the former does not achieve this.

Usually when using a phone one handed I'm not even touching the other side.