Why can't we go back to small phones?

Comments

• misterharbies@lemmy.nz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Smaller phones do have a place though. I’ve got a 7-year old son with Type 1 diabetes. We wears a Glucose Monitor that requires a Bluetooth connection to get a reading. He needs to carry a mobile phone for this reason, and because of his size, and the fact that he needs to carry it basically all the time, a smaller phone is best. He does not need a camera, or to browse social media.

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• TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  We can, there’s just less demand for them. Sony was among the last holdouts for small phones with their compact series, but they stopped because they were their worst selling models.

  Even Apple stopped selling their small SE model (that was basically iPhone 5 sized) despite it being the cheapest iPhone to get your hands on, because it sold terribly.

  Small phones is something the tech community says it cares about, but the market has proven that the average person doesn’t care. Same as the headphone jack and microSD slot.

  I don’t like it either, but phone companies aren’t deliberately leaving money on the table. If they thought small phones would sell gangbusters, they’d bring them back.

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• benjhm@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I’d like to have no phone at all, I don’t like small screens, nor being interrupted. Problem is that phone apps are now almost obligatory for IDs, transport tickets, passes, banking, etc. So I’d just like a phone-receiver (modem) with a sim card on a USB stick that can enable phone-app-stuff via my laptop or tablet. (Yes some tablets have data sim cards, but we still need sms and occasional phone functions for ‘verification’ etc.). Any suggestions?

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• uraniumcovid@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  power usage of screens scales as O(n^2), but battery scales as O(n^3), meaning bigger phones will have better battery life

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  • ilmagico@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    They can just make them a little thicker, but still usable with one hand.

    Really, it’s not a technical problem, it’s a marketing problem (i.e. not enough demand, unfortunately).

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• knighthawk0811@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  we can’t have small phones because the os design can only be so flexible before it starts either being crap at every size or having so many edge cases that internally it’s stupid complex.

  having limited sizes means the sizes they do have can be well covered

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  • ShepherdPie@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    What edge cases are you referring to? Screen size doesn’t matter if the resolution is the same.

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    • knighthawk0811@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      it does if you want your buttons to be anything close to the size of your finger, or if you want the text to be readable (which is adjustable, but most people do not)

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• Mako_Bunny@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Shit battery capacity, bloated OS causing worse battery life, and not enough people actually buying them.

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• nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  there is one option.

  well and a couple others that are also made by Unihertz depending on your needs/wants

  more companies making them would be cool but the general consensus I’m reading here is that there are 0 and that is incorrect.

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  • ilmagico@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I have their old Jelly Pro, awesome tiny phone, replaceable battery, fits easily into any pocket, was my daily driver for a few months, but then again, it’s just a bit … too tiny. Also, battery life sucked, camera quality forget it, speaker not loud enough, low res screen, etc. I’d be curious if they improved on these things with this new version.

    Still, one thing is still missing from the specs is 5G support. I mean, 4G is plenty fast, but not very future proof, carriers are starting to shift more towards 5G, 3G is already being phased out, and it’s just a matter of time before 4G follows.

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    • nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      yeah the screen is very small but that’s kinda the point for my use case. I didn’t want all the limitations of a dumbphone (i.e. I wanted banking apps, gps, useful browser) but I wanted to add friction to my phone use to encourage me to use it less.

      battery life is great, lasts me almost 2 days without a charge and will typically go from almost dead to almost full if I plug it in while driving to work. part of the battery life being so good is that I use it less and keep it in grayscale 99% of the time I figure though.

      camera is great, it’s 48MP the same as an iPhone 14 Pro. the pictures don’t look great on the device because of the tiny screen but when I look at them on my computer or the pixel 6 I still use at home they look great.

      speaker is pretty awful, it’s fine for calls but music, fuhgeddaboudit! I have a Bluetooth clip on speaker that’s great and I don’t really watch videos on it so non-issue, for me at least.

      screen res hasn’t bothered me but again that might just be use-case. most of what I do is reading text and it’s fine for that esp with high contrast on, looks ugly but again that’s friction and I want that.

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• Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Probably for similar reasons we can’t go back to small cars: People are getting older and can’t handle them.

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• ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Didn’t Apple just come out with one or am I mistaken?

  I have an iPhone 15 Pro and a recent Pixel (just because I’m a dev and want to know both ecosystems). I use the iPhone as my daily driver, though, not because it’s necessarily better but because I cannot help myself when it comes to tinkering with Android devices. I have semi-bricked several over the years and then had to install Windows in a VM to run some sketchy-looking factory reset program.

  Basically, it’s not an Android problem. It’s a me problem. I’m the one who needs a walled garden so I don’t do science experiments.

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  • EngineerGaming@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I can’t imagine using a phone that I can’t even use adless Youtube on :/

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    • DJDarren@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Safari + AdBlock + Vinegar makes for a great YouTube experience.

      That said, Freetube on my Pixel is wonderful.

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• Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Why can’t we go back to small phones?

  Image

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  • OfficerBribe@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I definitely was looking at porn on my 240x320 Nokia screen.

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    • caseyweederman@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Sexy sexy nibbles the snake

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    • rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      240x320

      One boob takes up 76000 of your 76800 pixels.

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  • Interstellar_1@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I think this is correlation, not causation, as this was also when touch screens started being made

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    • acosmichippo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      it’s also when mobile media in general was available. tv, movies, YouTube, games, everything. not everything is about porn.

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• thatradomguy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  They suck and also the higher capacity batteries take up too much space now.

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  • nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    this is definitely a trade off. batteries are either small, tall, or thick. my phone with a 3" screen is quite bulbous.

    I prefer that to it being thin and having like 3 hours of use time though

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    • __nobodynowhere@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      “thick” phones of the past fit in my pocket just fine.

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• ShellMonkey@lemmy.socdojo.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Phones became more frequently used for apps and posting which is a pain on a tiny screen. I built a pi zero powered retro console but actually using the tiny screen of about 3" makes it near impossible to read anything.

  I would like to see things return to having replaceable batteries, headphones jacks and maybe slide out keys, but if I have to type and read on the same screen it’s awful nice to have some room to work with.

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• sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Here’s what I want, roughly in order of priority:

  1. long term OS support
  2. repairable
  3. privacy friendly
  4. small

  I currently have a Pixel 8:

  1. 7 years software support, maybe more
  2. 6/10 on ifixit score; not great, but better than many
  3. supports GrapheneOS
  4. on the smaller end of “normal” today

  A community-supported Linux phone would be awesome, since I’d get 1 and 3 by default and 2 by convention, but they don’t meet my minimum needs from a phone: reliable basic feature support. Hopefully we get there by the time my Pixel dies.

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  • anarchrist@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    And notably the pixel 8 is significantly smaller than the 7

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  • imposedsensation@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’m using a Pixel 5. Replaced the screen and battery recently because there’s no modern option for me. My thumb will be able to reach all corners of the screen in one hand operation or I’m just not buying it. I’d probably be better off without a phone anyway.

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  • sleen@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You might be interested in the fairphone

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    • Habarug@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The Fairphone is interesting, but it also enormous unfortunately

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    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      My main complaint is that they don’t directly support the US. There’s a reseller here, but I think there are issues with some bands.

      Maybe it’ll be better the next time I need a phone.

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• False@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Making a small phone is harder than making a big phone.

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• mesamunefire@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I want a repairable phone. A phone where I can replace the battery

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  • IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    replace the battery

    Besides the obvious Fairphone, theres a Samsung Galaxy XCover series, which acoording to many users on Reddit, the specs are not great for its price. The latest XCover 6 Pro is like $599 USD at release.

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    • daw@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I bought a refurbished Xcover 6p and so far it’s great. There’s also the perks of being intended for companies: very long software support and pogo pin charging accessoires.

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  • captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Whoever owns the Nokia badge are selling phones designed specifically for repairability by end users; the only issue I have with them is they don’t really say much about how long they’re going to have software support, so expect it to last 4 to 6 years tops before replacing it becomes required anyway.

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  • Dremor@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Hum… So Fairphone ?

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    • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I really wanted to buy the Fairphone 5, but they don’t ship replacement parts to where I live which makes the entire concept pointless.

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  • OfficerBribe@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    HMD (Nokia) Skyline has a cool feature where you unscrew 1 screw and can change various things like battery. Unfortunately phone itself is not impressive especially from OS update standpoint (only 2 year support for major Android versions). I would love to see this idea being copied by other manufacturers.

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    • ShepherdPie@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Unfortunately phone itself is not impressive especially from OS update standpoint

      I swear to god manufacturers do this on purpose so that they can point to the low volume of sales and claim “See! People don’t really want these features” when in reality they’ve just slapped a couple good features onto a completely dog shit device.

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  • thanksforallthefish@literature.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Fairphone

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  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    And screen. And buttons.

    I also want something that’s supported more than 3 years so there’s a point to repairing it. Ideally, support should come from the community so it can be infinite as long as someone is willing to do the work.

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    • user224@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Based on postmarketos.org/install/ the Nokia N900 can run the latest stable release of PostmarketOS.

      Nokia N900 was a proper Linux-powered phone released in Nobember 2009.

      So yeah, it’s been getting over 15 years of community support so far.

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    • NeilNuggetstrong@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      What’s wrong with Fairphone then? Think I’m gonna buy FP 6 when it arrives

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• A_Chilean_Cyborg@feddit.cl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  IDK, i have Big hands, so using those was a pain for me lmao.

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• Kolanaki@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Why can’t we have both? I want a bigger phone. Bigger than what I have now, and many people would consider this to be a fairly large phone.

  But I don’t want to stop people who want smaller phones from having those, too.

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  • scarabic@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’d like to see more options out there. But there are reasons it could be difficult. I’ve been a software dev for 25 years and we’ve had take our software from local installs to web services, then mobile web services or responsive interfaces for all screen sizes. Then mobile APPs came along… and we do have to decide which devices and screen sizes we’re going to support. It’s hard to justify spending 20% more time so that you can support 2% more people. And for my app anyway that’s how many tablet users we have. 2%. So we’ve never done tablets, period. If we had to support some phones that were 3x the size of others, that would be kinda hard too, and we’ll always choose to spend the bulk of our time where the bulk of our users are.

    Just a real answer. Supporting different screen sizes isn’t free.

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  • CoolMatt@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Yep, got big hands myself and own an S21+, and the keys on the keyboard are still too fucking small. Sick of correcting nytypos after 10 years, so finally not giving a fuck.

    Ironically, i typed this entire comment without a typo, gotta love how that works.

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    • rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      If you’re not using Swype or whatever it’s called on gboard give it a shot. I have dumb fingers and I can text in my work gloves.

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  • gianni@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You can already get big phones though.

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    • scottywh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Not big enough.

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    • ShepherdPie@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      They’re saying the smartphone market is too homogenous and there should be more options so that people actually have a choice in the device they buy.

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    • Zorque@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yeah, but most cries (including this article) aren’t “We want both” but “We want small instead”. The article goes out of its way to ridicule “huge” phones.

      The battle cry seems to be demanding it their way instead of variety.

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  • cm0002@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Right? Everybody has different size hands, my hands are on the larger side and these bigger phones of today are actually pretty comfortable to me

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    • EngineerGaming@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I am a very average-sized woman with average-sized hands, and big phones would have been unusable for me. Seems like they’re all for big men’s palms.

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    • user224@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I have fairly small hands, but still prefer a larger phone. More content on the screen and space for battery.

      HOWEVER, I’d take both. A small phone would be a good secondary device. I want something modern the size of my Samsung Galaxy Ace (GT-S5830i). The back also has a really nice texture.
      Oh, yeah, it also has a headphone jack, MicroSD card slot and quickly swappable battery which I should probably replace because it seems it has slightly increased its capacity… volumetric capacity.

      But I also prefer a bit more thickness so it doesn’t feel like a fragile, slippery sheet of glass (rugged phones are good for that).

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• Habarug@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Well, I can’t speak for everyone else, but I can’t go back because they don’t sell any small phones.

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  • Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I upgraded to a Sony Xperia XZ2 compact last year. It has a 5" screen and decent capabilities, the only down side is it doesn’t support 5G. For a phone that’s over 5 years old, it’s probably the most recent usable phone available which actually fits in my pocket.

    Seriously, don’t show me a damn tablet computer and try to sell it to me as a mobile phone. If you can’t make a compact phone then you’re not really advancing the technology, are you?

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    • myplacedk@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      If I can’t use it one-handed (using ALL physical buttons and ALL parts of the screen), then it’s not a phone.

      Seriously, this is how we used to define the difference between phones and tables - one-hand or two-hand use.

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  • nylo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’ve been maining a Unihertz Jelly Star, I quite like it.

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    • rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I want one. Can you put a custom ROM on them?

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  • Xanthrax@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    They do, but service providers don’t like selling them. There isn’t as much of a return on smaller/ dumb/ cheap phones. I used to work at spectrum, and we’d speak of the cheap phones in hushed tones like they were the boogeyman. It felt horrible because I was using my cheap android selling people iPhone 15s.

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    • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      So once again instead of providing choice the market is simply phasing out things with smaller profit margins as if they planned it together in some kind of cartel.

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  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I picked the Pixel 8 because:

    1. it runs GrapheneOS
    2. It was a little smaller than the Pixel 8 Pro

    If there was a smaller version available, I would’ve gotten that instead.

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    • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      If the pixel series had a damn SD card slot it would be the perfect phone for me.

      I just want to sync all of my music and local backups to an SD card via syncthing dammit. I don’t want to have to pay 200€ for them adding a 5€ chip

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    • Krelis_@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I picked the Sony Xperia 1v because: 71mm width Flagship specs (*for 2023 - Snapdragon 8 gen2 / 12gb) Decent cameras Sd card expandable Headphone jack 3.5mm (though I haven’t used it yet) No glass back (solid build quality allround) LineageOS support (for when vendor support runs out) I got a good refurb deal in late 2024

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    • rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I’ve been using the “A” branch of the Pixel line for years now.

      But I use CalyxOS so I guess you and I have to be enemies now. My name is Inigo Montoya, you use a different OS, prepare to die.

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    • H1jAcK@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Is there an 8a? Those are usually the smallest model

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    • thanksforallthefish@literature.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I can’t trust anything made by google. It’s a company that literally makes its money capturing everything everyone does on the internet…and yet the phone they make is the ONLY phone immune to having everything captured…

      Sorry. Not buying it. There will be a chip in there phoning home we’ll find out about in a decade.

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    • EngineerGaming@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I picked the Pixel A because:

      1. It runs GrapheneOS
      2. It’s slightly smaller and slightly cheaper than the normal version
      3. The back is plastic and not glass

      Glad I can use it and type on it one-handed, can’t imagine using a bigger phone.

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  • otacon239@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’m clinging to my SE. It’s the last small phone made by anyone other than Chinese no-names. I will be sad when it’s no longer viable as an option.

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    • MellowYellow13@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Still using mine too and it’s awesome, all my coworkers also notice and compliment it.

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    • TheRealKuni@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      There was the iPhone 13 Mini. It’s adorably small. But it didn’t sell well so they stopped making the Mini line.

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• jordanlund@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Because most people don’t buy them?

  It’s like asking “Man, why don’t they make slider phones anymore?” (and I loved my slider phone).

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  • paraphrand@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Why does it need to the most people buying them. Why can’t it be a minority?

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  • ilmagico@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    As a lover of small phones, unfortunately that’s the truth. Apple tried a couple years ago with their iPhone mini and sold very few. Still, there should be enough of us that maybe some smaller phone manufacturers could fill this niche.

    And maybr make it fully unlocked and repairavle, replaceable battery, etc. while they’re at it.

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  • pwalshj@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    There is no option to buy them. That’s the point.

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  • AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    That’s right. The market has spoken, and unfortunately it has said it doesn’t want small phones. Personally, I still do though.

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