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Whether you want everything but the kitchen sink or top-tier performance for a midtier price, you’ve got options.
What if I want a phone that fits in my front pocket while riding a bike? What are my options then?
Big pockets.
I always keep my phone in my front pocket and have never had a problem biking. Are you actively buying pants with tiny pockets? I only buy second hand clothes and have a few “female pants” with pockets that don’t fully fit huge phones and even with them it’s not a problem.
Could be a woman. I just assume their sports gear suffers the same problem as most of their normal clothes: small, fake, or non-existant pockets.
Get a flip phone.
The galaxy Z flip, fold, pixel fold, razr plus, find flip, or magic v?
I was considering it, but a flip phone can’t run Signal and Threema, which have replaced SMS and calling in my friend group.
So currently I use a Unihertz Atom, which is actually perfect for me. When it kicks the bucket, I’ll replace it with a Jelly Star.They were probably referring to a flip smartphone, which can indeed run Signal and Threema.
Maybe it’s improving. There are a few less famous brands making some small android phones. In a recent thread, someone mentioned unihertz, and I added cubot.
Yep, those are the 2 options currently.
Zenfone is pretty small and had tons of features
Zenfone is pretty small
Why do people keep saying that? The Zenfone 10 is less than 3mm different from the Samsung Galaxy S23 and the iphone 15 in length and width.
Because it’s true…
It’s a touch smaller than the Galaxy S5, and significantly narrower, which is more important for typing one handed.
Being smaller than a typical 10 year old smartphone is pretty damn compact for a modern smartphone.
If you’re expecting to go back to the days of the iPhone 3GS or something, then you’re in a minority of a minority
People keep saying those phones aren’t small without saying what size or current phone is small enough. The fact the base galaxy phone has shrunk from 6.2-6.3 inches is impressive enough IMO.
A top tube bag is quite useful for that, i got one quite cheap on aliexpress when my phone started to get annoying to carry on a bike.
Saddle bag
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The irony that thies link leads to a not availiable item… I guess you where suggesting the Jelly Star?
There are more small phones than big phones. I want an iPad mini-sized phone and there’s virtually 0 options.
There are more small phones than big phones.
Name three phones with Android 12+ and <130mm length, then.
(Please?)
- buy a car
- buy a backpack
- hope
I can’t help with this.
Can’t you carry their phone?
I have two out of three. That’s good… right??
Car and backpack right? :p
Actually, it might be 3 out of 3, cause I do hope my car will make it over the winter.
I love how this articles doesn’t even discuss phone size and headphone jacks, which are my 2 prerequisites before I even consider a phone.
It absolutely discusses phone size - in some detail both in the intro and as part of the reviews.
I’m convinced that tech reviewers live on a different planet than us. They’re always fretting over trivial things that would be nice to have but far from dealbreakers for the average person and then ignore or barely mention the stuff a regular user would need
Yeah. Unfortunately there’s not much to chose from. They’re all huge glass slabs without ports nowadays.
I’ve got a Pixel 6 Pro and if Google keeps providing current updates for it, I can see myself using it for three more years. It’s just a solid piece of tech.
And you can always go Lineage/DivestOS/Graphene after that and it’ll run faster than new.
GrapheneOS support stops along with Google stopping their support. My 4a is now EOL. Not sure about the other roms. Hopefully someone puts in the effort.
Switch to e/os/ or something else that still supports it. I will admit that Graphene is amazing
I think they’re planning to give you about a year of extended support so you have time to switch to a newer phone.
Crap, I forgot about that with Graphene, and it’s why I’m not using it. Good reminder
If you enable developer options and then disable animations, your phone will feel 1000% faster on any OS.
I have a 6a and can’t wait to get rid of it. The cellular connections drops often and doesn’t reconnect without rebooting the phone, the GPS takes forerto figure out where I am making it very frustrating to use for navigation, and the fingerprint sensor doesn’t work great in the dark. Might give the s23 a shot next.
The “a” models are a different animal. We tested it when my wife wanted a “small” phone and she hated it. She has the S23 and loves it. Even then, my Pixel 6 Pro feels snappier, more feature rich, and takes significantly better pictures than her S23.
PS: We’re both on Google Fi and neither of us have connectivity issues. I’m fact, I often have better coverage on the 6 Pro than she does on her S23. That might have to do with the phone size though. (Bigger phone means larger antenna)
Pixel 7 pro here and it’s a total piece of shit. Garbage cell connection on tmo and spectrum. Random Bluetooth issues. Battery that can’t last even close to a full day and incredibly slow charging speed. Only decent feature is the camera/photo software.
Unfortunately not many options left. Oneplus is dead to me after they removed wireless charging. Asus is just dead. Samsung ruined otherwise great hardware with worst software of any other Android phone. I never considered other phones seriously, but I’m open to suggestions.
I just need a reliable phone with wireless charging and decent camera.
I’ve never had any connection issues with the 6 Pro, but it could be because I’m on Google Fi. Also, the battery on my phone lasts the entire day. I use a high watt charger so I don’t know how the charge speed would compare if I used a 2a charger.
It’s a shame that the 7 Pro isn’t up to par.
My experience with the 7P is the opposite.
Also on Fi, but that is just T-Mobile. My connection has been great. Battery life is good. I don’t mind the slow charging and intentionally plug into an even lower power charger to hopefully extend the longevity of the battery.
My wife’s experience is closer to OP’s though. She’s had problems like that on most phones when I don’t even though we often have the same model. I think it is something to do with the games she installs.
Before the Android 14 update, we had 5G turned off. It seems the update to the radio firmware has fixed the battery drain problems.
Thanks for this additional info. The “smallness” was something I was after with this phone, as well, but it definitely doesn’t feel as good in my hand as the s23. The pixel pro versions have some intriguing features, but they’re just too big for my liking.
I think you’ll like the S23. I haven’t heard a single complaint from my wife about hers.
The cellular connections drops often and doesn’t reconnect without rebooting the phone
Have you tried just turning the airplane mode on until The operator name disappears from the status bar? Works for me when i’m having issues with 5g on my Pixel 7
I have tried that, and it does work sometimes. But sometimes it doesn’t and I still need to reboot.
I have a tip for you: Put GrapheneOS on it
My wants:
- ROM-friendly w/ active development
- flagship specs
- No hole-punch
Seems I can get two of three, but not all three with the latest phones.
EDIT: I currently rock a Oneplus 7 Pro running crDroid 9 (Android 13).
Remember the days when we had the notification led? :(
I cheaped out and got the smaller version of my phone with no led.
Regretted it ever since. Been 5 years and vowed to never do that again. :(
I really want a notification led
You still have ways to emulate it with software… Especially apps or Android 14 that make your flashlight act as one.
I loved the notification LED on my Xperia XZ1, Nexus 5X, and basically all older Android phones.
Ideally I’d like to see an LED along a corner so that regardless of placing the phone face up or down, you can still see the LED.
Sony is very ROM-friendly. Main issue is price, which affects active development. My wishlist is similar to yours, I ended always going with Xiaomi. While their 7 days wait to unlock bootloader is annoying, the ROM scene is very active, with great GCam ports.
I love Sony phones but I don’t see active ROMs for the Xperia 1 or 5 series.
I’m not familiar with Xiaomi. They have a flagship without a hole punch?
Google, maybe Motorola and Nothing. Those seem to be the only choices remaining in the US
https://en-us.support.motorola.com/euf/assets/docs/Bootloader-Legal_Agreement_and_Warning.pdf
Caution : Warranty is voided after bootloader unlock, and Motorola may deny any waraanty repairs.
Google and Nothing phones have punch holes.
I’m not familiar with Motorola’s lineup. What phone do they have without a punch hole?
I don’t think there’s many mobiles without punch-holes. Not in their lineup if I remember correctly
What bugs me about this is THEY ARE ALL THE SAME! Flat rectangular phones with no buttons and few ports. Where is the innovation? Where is the experimentation? Where are the different form factors?
Go back to like 2003 and you had all kinds of variety in the market. Some phones had slide out keyboards, some had physical keyboards like blackberries, they were all kinds of different expansion ports and slots and interfaces, and occasionally something totally different like Compaq had a gadget that took different backpacks that bolted on the back to give it extra capability.
Skip 20 years ahead to today, and every phone is the exact same fucking form factor. And so we obsess over millimeters and megapixels and software. There’s no innovation here. There’s no variety here.
The only even slightly interesting development I see is the new flip and book phones, but that technology is being used in the most boring way possible. I want to phone the size of a Snickers bar where I pull the screen out of it from the side and it unrolls as far as I want it to. I want a phone that flips open like a laptop to reveal a keyboard. Or even simpler, I want a phone that’s 4 mm thicker and has a battery that lasts all week. Give that phone a headphone jack and wireless charging, put a little rubber around it to make it indestructible, then you’ll have something interesting.
Until that happens, you have like six manufacturers that are basically building the exact same product. Boring.
If you’re into it you can watch tech youtubers go to those big conferences where they show off prototypes of their newest tech, earlier this year they were demoing rolling and pull out screens on phones and laptops, among other stuff.
For the batteries your outta luck for now due to a SOB called physics.
Companies make what sells, and flat candy bars sell. All the companies you mentioned went out of business (at least in the smartphone sector) due to not selling iPhone clones. I’m not saying that’s a good thing btw. I wish we had hoverboards & holograms too dude.
I’m pretty content with my folding phone for now though.
For the batteries your outta luck for now due to a SOB called physics.
How so? Give the battery more volume. Bigger battery = more mAh = lasts longer.
And would also weigh a ton
Part of the issue is that the biggest smartphone manufacturers are all sister companies to each other. Oppo, OnePlus, xaiomi, they’re all different companies under the same banner, so they’re bound to share hardware specs and manufacturing.
Personally I think nothing phone is the only phone brand that’s innovating on design with the candy bar style phone, but even that’s hard to justify. Samsung has been repeating the folding phone designs and refining them year after year and Google has been pretty lazy with the pixel phones in regards to hardware.
It’s a weird time for smartphones, can’t push more power without destroying batteries, can’t really innovate with batteries because we’ve hit a wall that only software can help mitigate. Not only that’s we all apparently want bigger and bigger phones, and the only way to realistically get that is with folding display tech, which again chews up battery power.
Yeah but if you make the battery 3-4mm thicker you double its volume and then you have a phone with 5000-10000+ mAh.
You don’t think ‘this phone battery lasts a week’ is a selling point? Trust me, it is.
So right. The last Blackberry I used with BB OS had micro hdmi port, hardware keyboard and completely different OS that was able to run android apps. Fast forward 10 years and you can’t get any of those any more except maybe from some weird Chinese brands.
The public voted with their purchases and this is what they wanted.
Eventually most products settle into a baseline normal and innovation slows dramatically. It’s not just phones that do this.
There are plenty of phones out there that are weird and different but most people ignore them and they don’t get the same attention. Think rog phones, flip and fold phones, fair phone, sony’s camera focused phones no one wants to buy.
Not too mention this list is for what you should buy, which is really the word experimental phone.
It’s a strange mentality that almost everyone time phone are brought up people so for absolute innovation. A full on game changer. Most of these already do exactly what we want incredibly well. There isn’t much room for a game changer. Innovations will be less dramatic, more subtle.
No one is going to buy a round phone, or a squiggly phone, and curved screen edges or curved phones never did well. So rectangular it is.
Enthusiast features rarely stick around cus most people don’t need those features or the features get rolled into something else. Headphones jacks and HDMI and so on can ask be integrated into USB C and for most that’s good enough.
Choices?
- Pixel 8
- Galaxy S23
- Galaxy S23 Ultra
- Galaxy Z Fold 5
- Nothing Phone 2
What a goofy list.
On the other side of the foldable spectrum, the OnePlus Open is a welcome addition to the mix with the best screen format on a book-style folding phone. It’s thin and light, and the software includes some thoughtful approaches to multi-tasking — a crucial part of the folding phone experience. At $1,700, it’s just $100 shy of the Pixel Fold and Galaxy Z Fold 5 and misses a couple of key features that both of those other options include: wireless charging and an IPX8 rating.
Does anyone really care about these though? Wireless charging is really niche and worse than wired in every way, and water resistance is one of those things phones love advertising but nobody ever notices.
[…] water resistance is one of those things phones love advertising but nobody ever notices.
Water resistance is something I do not want to notice because if I notice it, it means it has failed. Do I trust it completely? Hell no. Do I prefer to have it? Hell yea!
Couldn’t disagree more. Both are huge selling points for me, and have virtually no downsides, unlike other phone features.
Wireless charging has huge downsides. What do you even mean? Slower charging, huge energy waste, heats up like mad
Slower charging, huge energy waste, heats up like mad
For one, you don’t have to use it, so these are never downsides if its on your phone. Secondly none of these are a problem for me. I charge slowly at night, my phone never gets hot, and phone charging is less than .1% of my electric bill.
Both have been must-haves for me over the past number of years. It’s nice being able to drop the phone onto a charging stand at the desk or in the car. Also nice being able to rinse the phone off or use in a bath/shower without worry.
For the price manufacturers are asking it better have everything.
I used to think the same way until my wife’s phone stopped charging via cable because the USB port failed. The fact that it can charge wirelessly has kept the device usable.
Same here. Wireless charging kept my Galaxy Note 8 going long past its USB port failing, along with my mom’s LG G7.
I have a phone like this. Wireless charging is so slow the phone isn’t really usable any more.
I’ve only had 1 phone in the last 10 years that didnt wirelessly charge, and there’s zero chance I’d buy a phone without it again. And I’m really hoping qi2 starts appearing in phones next year.
I don’t understand the need for super fast charging, like it’s handy if you’re on the run and forgot about it, but I need more charging than my phone does, so it’s no issue to just plonk it on a stand when I’m resting…
Wireless charging is really niche and worse than wired in every way
Huh? Name one. Oneplus is dead to me after they removed the most useful feature that almost everyone uses and expects in even the most basic phone, let alone a $1k+ phone.
The way I would use wireless charging would be having my phone on my desk charging while I work on my pc. The problem with that is that If i have to use my phone, I would have to take it from The wireless charger which stops the charging. Charging the phone multiple times a day is so bad for the battery so I would prefer to just charge when its low and take it off when its full or almost full, and with a wired charger I can do just that and still use the phone while its charging
Modern batteries really don’t care much about how or how often you charge them. You’ll ruin the port with frequent plug/unplug cycle way before you notice any effect on the battery.
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[Consumers in the US] don’t get nearly as many of the options as you’ll find in Asia and Europe — brands like Huawei, Xiaomi, Honor, and Oppo just aren’t available here.
Is this true? I thought only Huawei was banned / not doing business in the US.
I’ve limited this guide to the devices I’ve personally tested in depth …
So the ‘guide’ doesn’t cover phones by four of the big six manufacturers. That’s like making a guide of the tallest mountains in the world, but excluding the Himalayas and the Andes.
In the states the only way to get an Honor, Oppo or Xiaomi phone is to import.
