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Small phones don’t necessarily have to be smaller than their larger counterparts. There is no rule that high-end specs have to be only for phones with larger screens, and that has been made clear in Apple’s iPhone 12 family with the introduction of the iPhone 12 mini.
As smartphones have grown in size, especially over the last five years, manufacturers have forgotten about smaller devices with easy-to-hold designs and screens that reach every corner with one hand.
Instead, phone makers have looked to phones with bigger screens, bigger cameras, and just a larger overall footprint to squeeze out new high-end tech.
There are great benefits to bigger phones, but it takes away a significant part of the market. What if you want a high-end camera and chipset, but have small hands? It’s unclear exactly how many people are looking for smaller phones, but anecdotally we often hear that people don’t just want a big phone in their pocket.
Apple introducing the iPhone 12 mini, a phone with almost exactly the same specs as the iPhone 12, may be set to drive a trend toward smaller phones. So how likely is it that we will soon see the Android phone market following suit?
Apple’s iPhone is rarely the first to bring new innovations to market, but it has a huge impact on the rest of the phone space. For example, the iPhone 7 was the first mainstream phone to drop its 3.5mm headphone jack.
Android phone makers around the world saw the company claim that it took ‘courage’ to make the move, and then many of those companies followed suit for years to come.
Now almost every device on our best smartphone list lacks a 3.5mm headphone jack. That’s a trend across the vast majority of the market, and it’s generally justified as a way to free up space within a phone for additional components, like a larger battery.
Not all Android makers have phased out the 3.5mm headphone jack, but a vast majority of the high-end phones you can buy no longer feature the technology and it’s undeniable that Apple was the first major player to give that. jump.
The apple effect
So could the introduction of a smaller iPhone mean something similar for Android in the coming months, and more likely years to come?
Ben Wood, head of research at CCS Insight, told TechRadar: “I think there is little doubt that there will be a team of engineers and designers working at each phone maker on a mini variant of their flagship smartphone range by 2021.
“Where Apple goes, others tend to follow, and given the success we hope the iPhone 12 mini will have, we believe other phone makers will feel compelled to join the party.”
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen phones from a major manufacturer with high-end specs in a small footprint. For example, the Sony Xperia Z Compact lineup offered similar specs to the flagship model, but in a smaller form.
The Sony Xperia 5 II offers a similar idea to the compact models, something we haven’t seen in a few years, but the branding has been dropped, and with a 6.1-inch 21: 9 screen, this is unlikely. classified as small by all.
Wood said: “Sony should be given credit for being one of the pioneers in this area. It had the ‘mini’ version of the Xperia range in 2011.
He then went on to have ‘compact’ versions of his Xperia devices in the future. Sadly, these were never a massive commercial success, but the company was certainly ahead of its time. “
Is it just that smaller phones don’t sell that well? There must be a reason why Sony is no longer offering its Compact line of devices, but the company has yet to publicly comment on the decision.
All the major manufacturers do a great deal of market research to determine how big a phone should be, and many of the features people want from their modern phones come in larger devices.
Battery life is often cited as a top concern for new smartphone buyers, with larger devices generally offering a longer life as there is more room to pack in a larger battery cell.
It is also often more profitable for a business to sell a larger phone that may be priced higher than a smaller device that many hope will be priced lower.
So far, we’ve yet to hear about smaller flagship Android phones through leaks and rumors of upcoming devices, but that doesn’t mean that the Android market won’t start adopting smaller phones again.
If it’s a smaller Android phone you’re after, you’re unlikely to buy the iPhone 12 mini, but its existence may make Android makers sit up and take notice.
Only time will tell if this will happen, but there is a real chance that those who want a miniature Android phone with high-end specs may have more options on the market in the years to come.
