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To this day, you can still hear people on internet forums complaining that there are no high-end small phones. However, is that true? But more importantly, what constitutes “small” these days?
You could say that the Apple iPhone 12 mini is the only true mini flagship out there. You might be tempted to include the Sony Xperia 5 II on this list, but it is debatable whether it belongs – even Sony doesn’t call it Compact (although a true Compact may be on the way).
Check out the table below with some potential candidates for the mini flagship category. We include flagship-level models, as well as some mid-range ones (a small entry-level phone is much easier to find).
| Height | Width | |
| iPhone 12 mini | 131.5 mm | 64.2 mm |
| iPhone SE (2020) | 138.4 mm | 67.3 mm |
| Xperia 5 II | 158 millimeters | 68 mm |
| Xperia 10 II | 157 millimeters | 69 mm |
| Pixel 4a | 144 millimeters | 69.4 mm |
| Pixel 5 | 144.7 mm | 70.4 mm |
| Galaxy S21 | 151.7 mm | 71.2 mm |
| iPhone 12 | 146.7 mm | 71.5 mm |
We have sorted the table by width because we consider it the most important metric. It’s not that height doesn’t matter – the Xperia 5 II is the tallest phone on the list and that’s something you can definitely feel in your pocket.
This is also a good example that width and height are independent dimensions. In the days when 16: 9 screens were the norm, the two dimensions were closely related. But now we have all kinds of aspect ratios, so we split this question into two separate polls.
Let’s start with the width. We went in 2mm steps to create various categories: 64-62mm category has only one phone (the iPhone 12 mini), then 66-68mm and 68-70mm have two phones, finally three phones go into the 70 -Category 72 mm.
We think it’s a pretty fair division, so 2mm should be enough precision to determine the perfect width.
We then did something similar for the height, although this time we went in steps of 5mm. This divides the phones into several categories with only one or two phones in each. A smaller step would lead to too many choices in the survey, which could dilute the results.
By the way, we do not include screen size here, as the best screen is always the largest that fits. Look at the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone SE (2020) – the 12 mini takes up less space, yet its screen has more surface area. The 12 mini is clearly a better mini flagship than the SE.
