Back in December 2024, my Xiaomi broke. After paying half of the phone's original price to have it repaired, I sold it and bought myself a Samsung Galaxy S10e.
I've been using that S10e for the last 3 months and it just reminded me how good the old compact and small phones were.
Smartphones started as small 4" computers in our pocket. And their only purpose was to put simple web functionality into our pockets and improve our communications. Such as e-mails, video calls, listening to music, etc.
Then humanity created social media platforms, and those platforms made their way into our smartphones.
Since that day, we started to use our smartphones not just for communication but also for content consumption and gaming. And that created a need for bigger screens.
In 2011 Samsung released the Galaxy Note line-up. The Galaxy Note 1 has featured a huge 5.3" screen. I'm calling it huge because the average screen size for a smartphone back in 2011 was around 4".
People loved that device. It had the perfect screen size for gaming, content consumption and productivity. And that has started the trend for big phones.
Since that day, smartphones kept getting bigger and bigger. Now, the average mid-range smartphone has a screen size of around 6.5". And with the release of Galaxy S25 Ultra, we got closer to 7" screen sizes. And it's almost impossible to buy a mid-range or flagship device with a screen size of less than 6".
Just like any other mid-range phone, my Xiaomi had a 6.8" screen and I was happy with its size.
Than I got this Galaxy S10e. Which has a 5.8" screen. When I first held it, it felt like an toy phone with its small size and I actually loved it. And I'll talk about it on a future post.
And that reminded how ergonomic and good the old smartphones really was compared to todays boxy devices. The most important thing is, that I can do everything only using one hand! Which was almost impossible with my old Xiaomi.
Now it's been 3 months since I started using it. And the only thing I want to say is. We need to bring this form factor back.
This is the future of the smartphones that were promised to us back in 2018. Small, ergonomic, has a unique design, performs well, and most importantly easy to use single-handed.
But in reality, people and phone makers are more convinced of the idea of "bigger is better" and that resulted in the end of compact phones like Galaxy S10e and the iPhone mini-series that only lasted for 2 generations.
I believe we need to bring compact phones back. Especially the ones with flagship features. But this is only possible if we collaborate as a community. So, if you want to tell something, feel free to reply this post via e-mail, Mastodon, X or at your own blog. My ideas may not be the best ones, fix me if I'm wrong or add on top of my ideas. This is actually more important than you may thinking.
Anyways, without any further words. Thanks for reading!
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08.03.2025