Comment on Why can't we go back to small phones?
tal@lemmy.today 1 month ago
Why can’t we go back to small phones?
The iPhone SE is dead,
Is there any chance that you chose to lock yourself into a very small walled garden with a vendor who might make decisions about product that you might not agree with?
Apple is the only one making iOS phones, and Apple doesn’t seem interested in small devices anymore, so that door is shut.
Right. You stick yourself in that garden, you are gambling that the vendor is going to come out with the product that you want.
There are still a few niche companies working on smaller devices, like Unihertz, but those phones almost always have low-end hardware and limited software support.
Well, size is kind of a constraint on what hardware you can put in the thing.; I’d think that he’d be okay
If what you mean by “limited software support” is “apps are going to be optimized for the bulk of users and will probably feel small if the great bulk of users are using larger screens”, well…I mean, yeah.
The iPhone 3 SE you have:
4.7-inch (diagonal) widescreen LCD Multi‑Touch display with IPS technology
1334-by-750-pixel resolution at 326 ppi
Memory 4 GB LPDDR4X RAM
www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?nYearMin=2022&nRamM…
Let’s grab one from that list:
gsmarena.com/ulefone_armor_mini_20t_pro-13298.php
Size 4.7 inches, 53.3 cm2 (~63.1% screen-to-body ratio)
Same screen size as your phone.
Resolution 720 x 1600 pixels, 20:9 ratio (~373 ppi density)
30 pixels narrower, but 266 pixels taller than your phone.
8GB RAM
Twice the memory of your phone.
Can buy online in the US:
Now, you may not be able to get an iOS phone that fits your hardware wants, but them’s the breaks when you go with a platform that has only a single vendor making hardware for it.
The truth is though that it’s not an apple-specific thing. On the android side Asus was the last large phone maker to ship modern small phones, and even they have taken over their zenfone line (small phones line) with a large phone for the ZenFone 11.
Based on reports from companies, it sounds like the market is just not there, at least not big enough to warrant the R&D compared to “regular” phones which make them good money.
I agree, it’s like the author is saying “why did public-market company I trusted blindly is not doing what I (minority) want?”
I think it’s a valid criticism that should be welcomed. You could make this argument for any company when they make a bad decision.
“Oh well you trusted this company blindly so why are you upset and criticizing this design choice you don’t agree with.”
I also am not convinced a criticism is less meaningful if it’s the minority opinion. Many such cases in the world where the minority opinion is proven to be better for the majority.
“walled garden” - how many 5.4” android phones can you name from the current decade?
That phone isn’t actually small. It has a small screen, but it’s 25mm thick and weighs 300g.
And it has a flir camera. Not super useful for the masses, but flippin awesome nonetheless
Flip phones with 7 day battery life, including 20 hours of talk time?
I assume that the author specifically wants a smartphone.
Sustolic@lemmy.world 1 month ago
RAM is a horrible indication of phone performance imo.
The A15 chip in the iPhone 3 SE absolutely destroys the Dimensity 6300 chip in the 8GB phone you linked
A lot of people had liked iPhone because for the longest time android phones were not able to compete in the cpu/gpu space especially around the time of the iPhone 11.
Although now at the high end android phones are much closer together in performance so it’s more about what features you care about more between the phones.