The issue of "enthusiast phones" is not the same as for small phones. The problem that MKBHD is describing is that a company that starts as an enthusiast phone can not grow by getting the niche larger, so they need to start competing in the "average consumer" market. But a large, established company like Motorola and Samsung can for sure segment their product line to serve a particular demand.

I think the issue of small phones is that, while there people saying they would buy if it was available, no one is saying "I would buy one small phone at flagship prices, even if they don't have flagship features".

> The small form factor phones simply do not sell.

And still in every phone topic people complain about phones being too big... I'd love to have a smaller affordable smartphone.

I watched the first video. One point they didn't mentioned is that their android example of the "last small flagship phone", asus zenfone 9/10, is about the same size as an iphone 12/13, not the mini.

Do regular iphones sell well? If so, the small flagship phones are not dead, because iphones are not dead. If iphones are not counted as small phones, then the small android flagship phones are dead long time ago.

I run a Xperia 10 V. Great phone, great form factor, easy to unlock. It runs for days, almost a week, on one battery charge. Sony is doing something right here.

> small form factor phones simply do not sell

Are we really sure "nobody actually wants it"? I need to help my family select the smallest possible phone every time. Meanwhile choices are dwindling and the remaining 2 models are either overpriced or outdated and so I need to tell them it's better to take a (whatever currently goes for) "medium sized" model, which shifts upwards every time I/they need a new one. No wonder that people don't buy small phones anymore if they don't exist

I don't buy this nonsense about small phones being a niche when so many people are actively seeking them out, both online and offline in my practical experience

It's just harder to make, heat dissipation or battery will be restricted, doubly so if you're a niche manufacturer without a big budget, or one who tries to keep it repairable and needs the extra space for screws. So I can understand that Fairphone doesn't release a small model (even if it means I simply cannot use it: I actually put my money down and bought one, but sadly had to sell it onwards after a few weeks of trying) but for Graphenorola I'm not sure that restriction exists. It may just not please everyone if the chip is underclocked for heat and battery efficiency reasons and so they're not likely to. Doesn't mean there's no market for a small variant for any manufacturer that has more than one device on the market

My mom's and my current phone (same model) is what I'd call medium sized (per 2019 standards, when it was new) and the battery life sucks, but I'd buy this model again anyway if it came out with a ≥2025 SoC because I can actually use it unlike nearly any other phone on the market. Not properly reach the top, but at least the left side so that'll have to do

>And the winning point is that the bootloader can be unlocked and is supported by LineageOS

Don't banking, security and payment apps detect the unlocked bootloader and prevent them from working on lineageos? At least that's what happened to me after i flashed lineage on my old tablet.

Because then what's the point of a smartphone if it can't do banking, payment, shopping, ticketing, etc? Use it as a gimped pocket web browser and ebook reader? There's not gonna be any mass market adoption for such "smartphones" until they can run all apps out of the box like vanilla androids and IOS phones.

Your average consumer isn't gonna wanna fuck around with signing keys and bootloader relock. Hell, even this tech savvy HN user doesn't want to do that because he has better things to do with his time. The days from my childhood when I always rooted my Android phone, installed custom ROMs with custom kernels, magisk, titanium backup, cerberus to make the phone "my own" are long behind me.

Ironically I always find when these new devices like the fairphone come out, I'm disappointed and don't buy it because the screens are actually too small. They tend to focus on an unuseable middle point (probably in an attempt to please everyone).

All the flagships have huge screens, the big guys would have paid millions on market research, I can't understand why they arent just trying to achieve flagship parity (in terms of specs not price or software). No one is going to say it's unreasonable and they save themselves the market research

Oh, the guy who is still mentally on the level when he started his channel. And these shenanigans.... putting a phone in a mini coffin. sigh

Why it has to be a flagship? Sell them cheap. It's like AAA game makers cry about ballooning costs, and they make 60 hour games that literally nobody plays through....

> The small form factor phones simply do not sell.

yeah, clearly nobody buys Samsung Galaxy S series for years, they are like the least popular Android phone model... /s

I'm running Pixel 6a (which was followed bu successors with worse screen:body ratio for years and only now the new Pixels finally matched and slightly improved the ratio, what a progress), but considering all the HW issues (baterries and displays) with Pixels I'd rather avoid it, the worst case will buy as next phone Xiaomi and hopefully somehow unlock it, if there is no suitable Motorola

edit: added HW issues explanation since I am rate limited on comments

I think I went through the first ~3 or so generations of the Motorola Moto G, and they were great for the price, besides the fact that each generation it got bigger and bigger, defeating the original motivation I bought them in the first place. Eventually the iPhone 12 Mini was released and I moved to iPhone at that point.

I also hope that the new GrapheneOS device from Motorola will be in the "smaller" size factor so it actually fits in my (apparently) tiny hands, but to be honest I'm probably getting one regardless, as iOS gets worse and worse every time I update it.

Lol, no, according to graphene, an aux jack is a security problem. So is a microsd. But the hole punch with the camera pointed at your face, that's just fine.

When my current phone dies, I'm basically returning to a dumb phone with a removable battery. Now that Xperia dropped open source, every phone out there is terrible and I just don't want any of them. Anything that would support a ROM has features to make my skin crawl.

No, it's not small, but it's afaik the smallest model you can find that's still unlockable and runs any ungoogled OS

> I'll be forced to go back to dumbphones in the future... along with many others, I guess.

Going back to a dumbphone for me would mean changing my outdoor hobbies (like contributing to openstreetmap), so I'll take my losses and continue on a smartphone, but I share the sentiment. Power to you if you do it!

wouldn't trust a flip phone with a display fold. i want small, thin and light.