Key Takeaways
I tried small Androids in the past, had a Sony Xperia compact (Z1?) and loved it until it very literally fell apart.
It's not the size of an iPhone 8 without the bezel, but it is smaller than the iPhone 8 (except that it is 1/3 of a mm thicker).
You probably already know, but the 3rd Gen SE (same size as iPhone 8) and the 13 mini are both still receiving the latest updates.
6 months ago, I submitted to HN thinking it would be helpful to the people holding out for one. The submission was flagged, so I haven't tried again - I suppose it just seemed like advertising. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43337518
If you're outside the US, it's a lot harder to get hold of those Apple refurbished phones. Actually, I heard something I found interesting when I was buying a different phone in one of the shops that refurbish themselves. They had an Apple-refurbished iPhone 11 - basically a new iPhone 11, around a year ago! The person at the shop said that when the devices get really old, Apple start selling their refurbished phones to those kind of shops, instead of selling them on their own website.
They thought it would be a year or two before iPhone 13s turned up that route. I don't know much about how accurate any of that was, but I've always wanted to buy a refurbished phone from Apple so I found it interesting.
The offerings on the market, including the SE (which is probably the best small phone), seem to say, based upon features and price point, "Here is a phone for those of you who can't afford a full-size phone". But that's not why we want a small phone. I would have happily paid twice the price for my SE, so for me the low price was a bonus, but it's not a bonus when they are pricing them too low for sustainability. They should jack up the price and get more margin from it. We'd still buy it.
The number one reason why I prefer a small phone, is because I have plenty of other computers. Your 'big' phone screen doesn't impress my gaming PC. So what I want is a device that fits a niche in my ecosystem of devices, and that niche is portability. Anything that takes away from that is a minus because it's trying to do the job of some other device, which I already own. In other words, make a small phone for professionals. There are plenty of us, we like to buy devices, and we have money. Features we would be willing to pay for include working with our other devices and not having bugs associated with software expecting bigger screens.
For people whose only computer is their phone, big screens totally make sense. And I understand that is the majority of people. But there are millions of people who have another computer other than their phone. The manufacturers are discontinuing the dirt bike because they'd rather sell you an Escalade, but there is an unaddressed market out there for a Ducati.
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