Compact Phones

Not sure what happened, but we're suddenly inundated with compact phones for the first time in years.

Yes, we should take all of these with a grain of salt. Unihertz famously does not support their phones. Click has never made a phone before, though they seem to know what they're doing. And iKKO... well, I'll believe it when I see it.

But the fact that multiple companies are now racing to build smaller phones that AREN'T foldables is SO encouraging. Does it need a keyboard? Who knows! But the market should offer us a variety of form factors instead of just increasingly-larger phablets. It's nice to see things go our way for a change.

I'm going to pass on this because I ordered a Bluefox NX, but I do miss thumb typing!

So, I don't know why they're pushing the AI stuff on this, but it looks like it's about the size of a foldable phone without actually being a folder, and the huge price tag that comes with it. This is a bit tempting to me. I might order the Bluefox NX1 just because it's so dang cheap, though.

This is the first thing I've seen in forever. It looks kind of crap, to be honest, but at least it's not Unihertz. (Two Unihertz phones, two total lack of WiFi connectivity... Twice very shy.) This may replace my Mode 1 Retro ii.

publicació creuada des de: https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/14108486

Go and check the link, but essentially:

• small
• 2023 release (Android 13)
• HEADPHONE JACK (I was almost sold here)
• NFC
• 8GB RAM (that is powerful)
• 256 GB internal storage
• Dual SIM or SIM+MicroSD
• IR BLASTER (whatttttttt)
• LED indicators (front AND BACK)
• fingerprint scanner
• face ID
• FM Radio
• PROGRAMMABLE BUTTON (ok I'm in love already STOPPP)

I mean... this list is mindblowing. So...

What's the downside?

Honestly, you can go and check all reviews... but this phone is virtually perfect for the size, the only issue I have is that the screen is a bit too tiny, 3 inches, and 480p, and I think this will make many people run away.

It should make me look elsewhere also... but where? Any other small phone with a bigger screen is pretty bad, old, etc... and I really needed a new phone, so I realised this was an opportunity to commit to the cause, and buy and hopefully push this form factor from Unihertz to mainstream brands.

Hopefully one day we can get one with a slightly bigger screen, I believe 4 inches and 1080p would be brutal. But for now... I think I've found my new phone. In fact, I bought it 3 hours after knowing its existance.

If you are not sold yet...

Go check reviews on YouTube (example). Honestly, you'll see every reviewer falls in love with the device, even non-small phone lovers. It looks like it performs pretty well, it's decently fast, battery is solid, screen is bright and colorful, the LEDs are really useful, even Face ID (which I'll probably disable) is quick, it does not heat up at all, and even photos are pretty decent...

And it's something like 200 $. Come on. What a deal.

Will report back.

So, what do you think?

I like it so far, although it does have some quirks. I find that I tend to ignore the bottom half and just hold the top bit like I would hold a normal phone. Not super fast, but it goes easily in my pocket, and now I have the nickname "Flip phone".

The Doogee Smini is about the size of an iPhone 13 mini, however, it has an IP69K rating, an info display on the back and a customizable button on the side.

Already up on Aliexpress!

Good compact phones died with the iPhone Mini.

Here are some resources for finding compact phones w/ custom ROMs:

• The official Lineage devices page The search tool lets you filter phones by desired screen size (and other features!

• Hackable Phones Includes a section on the best compact phones, and lets you search by size

Inspired by this post: https://lemmy.world/post/6597113

At this point I'm not even picky about which custom ROM I run.
What I'm looking for is a phone that has a very small form factor and there's any custom ROM that officially supports it.

Ideally, with a 3-4" screen
Must be <5"
Must be officially supported. (for unsupported builds, I know of a few options already)

Are there any? Thanks for any suggestions or help!

They're not actually "compact" but they're the closest thing we have in Android world.

WHY WHY WHY f*c#o&! I hate this

So frustrating! The Zenfone was the closest thing we had to a compact phone. Why does this keep happening????

Outside of the Apple iPhone Mini, I only know of 2 compact phone projects:

1. Small Android Phone Project From the team behind Pebble, Beeper, and Beepy

2. OneDevice From Pierre Boyer, a designer behind cool projects like this PC desk build.

Does anyone know of any other compact phone projects out there?