This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
There were benefits to the comically-large form factor, though. Touch keyboards worked significantly better with larger screens,
No, the tiny soft-keyboard on my old Galaxy Xcover is significantly easier to type than any modern phone. Less movement of the finger, easier targeting of the buttons. I'm always surprised anew, each time i dust it off and play with it.
Why is the article using diagonal screen size as their measurement for phone size? In that case you could have a phone the exact same size get “bigger” just because bezel sizes have shrunk over the years.
They specifically call out the iPhone SE as a “small phone” that they seem to want. But the newest iPhone, the iPhone 16 is only 6% bigger in width and height. Fractions of an inch larger. I can totally understand why somebody would want a phone with smaller overall dimensions, but why on earth would your metric for an ideal phone be a smaller screen?
Because, for a touch screen, the screen itself IS the user interface. Imagine while holding with one hand, you want to reach your thumb to the opposite corner to hit a button. Even if the body of the phone is the same, a larger screen will need a bigger reach for your thumb. That is primary issue.
I think it's a psychological thing.
Like, while thinking about what kind of phone we want - a small phone sounds pretty good. But when it comes time to buy it, we start comparing phones, and we see some small ones, and some slightly bigger ones, and some really big ones. We tend to go bigger than we'd originally intended because of psychological anchoring effects.
The slightly bigger phone is seen as a slightly better phone. "not too big" we think, as we compare it to some monsters; and the key stats such as screen resolution and battery capacity sound slightly better. So we tend to buy that bigger phone even if it isn't what we actually thought we wanted.
[edit] I should say that I'm saying "we" in a totally generic way. I definitely don't do this myself. I've literally only ever owned smartphone in my life, and it isn't particularly big or flashy. I have an anti-phone attitude.
I held on to my iPhone 4S as long as I could. Now I have a 12 "mini". I know I'm in the minority, though, because I don't spend all day staring at my phone. I do like having all the features, but I use them only occasionally--say, once a week or less. I prefer my internet use on my gaming computer with a big monitor, and a full-size keyboard.
I expect I'll end up with a huge phone for my next one, that I don't need, just to keep access to the functionality. Like everything else in life, there's always compromises to be made.
I'm not gonna lie, as a 6'4" guy, I can't stand small phones. I understand that I'm an outlier though, and wish there were more options to cater to more people.
There is a feature called single hand mode on most keyboards. Makes it something like this. I do however agree that small phones are nice.
I'm just waiting for smart watches to get bigger and bigger and eventually lose the strap.
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.
Too small, can't phone
Shit battery capacity, bloated OS causing worse battery life, and not enough people actually buying them.
If they make the phones smaller they'll have to make the ads smaller too. Can't have that.
