When I accidentally broke my original iPhone SE, I switched to an X and ended up having to use it caseless just to make it easier to use with one hand.
Hated the size of the X enough I bought an iPhone Mini the first day it came out, my first brand new iPhone purchase since 2013.
I have no interest in adding even a mm of size to my phone. The battery lasts all day and it can fast charge anyways.
Such a shame. Original SE size was near perfect.
How does thinness decrease screen protection? On the contrary a reduction in thickness also usually involves a reduction in weight, which decreases the impact force from a drop.
Personally, I'm fine with protection through external, replaceable accessories. No matter how sturdy, scratches on the screen are inevitable. With a glass screen protector, you can throw your $500+ device around carelessly, and replace the $15 protection after a few years or if it breaks.
But anyone with a purse can just stick this battery in their purse and make sure their phone lands next to it when they put it away, gaining the benefits of the extra battery with none of the drawbacks of having to hold the extra weight most of the time. I would expect it's not quite thin enough for men's jeans pockets to tolerate this use case (and so this will be completely overlooked by all reviews and press), but this is definitely an object that looks designed for purses rather than pockets.
I think you miss the point of maximizing the customization of the phone. Because phones have to be in a single unit, user customization can only be done through external peripherals (vs. desktop PC where individual components can be customized).
To make the external peripherals as non-invasive as possible, the phone should be as small as possible while still being usable for most use cases. For example, if battery is your priority, get a case that has a built in external battery; many exist. Then you can have your extended battery, while a user who doesn't care about it, can have a smaller phone.
I just think the companies are delivering the equivalent of a baby with no skin and a tiny stomach. It's a precious thing you want to hold every day, but it doesn't come with even basic outer protections from damage, and it can't stomach enough food to produce the energy it needs to live throughout the day. BUT, Johnson and Johnson (inventor of babies) will be glad to sell you a silicone baby skin or the waterproof baby case. And there's Ultra-Tum®-- a stomach addon with normal baby-stomach capacity to keep your little tyke chugging along all day! Like, bitch, just make a damn baby with skin and a normally sized stomach!
Obviously the above is hyperbole (and I'm trying to do my best Keaton Patti impression), but I really think the designers are in a special position where they're the best-suited party to just make a damn phone with a case built in and a high-capacity battery, even at the cost of sleekness.
Although I don't think bigger inherently means more durable/more protection. Bigger means when dropped, whatever part of the chassis hits the ground first has a lot more energy to absorb.
Replaceable battery.
Anyway, this argument has been made plenty of times. Apple prefers to sell you a new phone and an external battery.
When the Xbox 360 came out, it was substantially smaller than the original Xbox. But, most of the space savings came from moving a huge chunk of the power supply unit into the power cable! So now you had a massive cable and a smaller device, so it was really just for show. The overall system itself was still the same damn size!
Another consequence of thinner phones is less protection. Drop your phone once, and the chances you shatter the screen are high. There's an entire protection economy around phones-- everything from insurance to cases to glass screen protectors. All of these expenses and "opportunities" could be circumvented if they just made a fat, ugly, functional phone.