Thoughts on small/compact form factor phones

A Nothing “Small” version in my opinion is a must have device in an industry where consumers are pushed to purchase larger phones becoming more & more addicted to their phones.

The potential future small Nothing (0) features:

• Between 5.4″ & 5.7″ screen

• Advanced energy-efficient screen

• Modern energy-efficiency based processor with 5G

• Better than industry standard long-term security, OS, software support

• Innovative solid-state battery

• A singular but really good camera

• Priced Fairly - though I mainly created this post fundamentally for the inclusion of a smaller device, considering the investment into R&D of the “Small”, naturally pricing it would be your volition but it would be great if it was on par to Apple’s original SE & Mini or even the Nothing Phone (1) for that matter.

Caveats:

• Battery - by the time R&D is finalised for the “Small” version I strongly believe solid-state batteries especially for smaller based devices would be more apparent in the industry as opposed to significantly higher amperage & voltage based solutions for EVs, so I think it would be available option for the “Small” Nothing (0) phone.

• The Zenphone 10 by Asus has shown to be quite compelling in the past & present but in my opinion what they did wrong was deliver a really compelling product with most if not all the features of much larger phones & it can also be recognized in the pricing such as implementing edge solutions, i.e larger battery, 5.9″ screen, larger cameras & not forgetting the leading edge processor by Qualcomm which is the Snapdraggon 8 Gen 2. I mean what were they thinking? I think it’s just too powerful & unnecessary of a processor & feel free to disagree with me but I feel the next best thing from MediaTek would have been great.

• The iPhone Mini was such a great option & honestly still is but they don’t share the same principals as Nothing but to be quiet honest not many companies do, which is why I think a solution from Nothing would be such a brilliant product offering in the market. The Mini’s sales for iPhone was said to have floundered but that was only in comparison to it’s larger phones, fact of the matter is, they sold millions which to them & industry analysts isn’t great enough which is ridiculous. Apple’s “Mini” based users honestly appreciate their phones more & there are still many mini 12 & mini 13 & even SE users that haven’t upgraded their phones at all.

• Unihertz also offer a mini phone option and they’re great, their sales are also good, however, one thing in my opinion detrimental about them is they arguably don’t provide long enough support for their products & services which when it comes to security, it could be seen as a negative especially as their users get attached to their products. Unlike the American counterparts I’m not as judgemental towards Chinese companies; I think a lot of them are great, however because of the cultural barrier unfortunately a lot of things can be confused in translation & I feel coming to the western market & exploding with prosperity can be seen as difficult for them when it comes to traditional consumer based solutions, the phone market being a classic example of this, though it does seem to be slowly changing.

Closing remarks:

I’ve created a similar topic on other phone manufacture forums & honestly, no joke, the desire for a smaller phone is great. I wouldn’t lie but here are some of the stats that I recorded from one other popular global phone manufacturers forum should you actually contemplate this -

If you were to collate all the stats pertaining to a mini based mobile phone from x forum community, it has garnered well over 8000 views, well over 170 likes and well over a 130 replies. Which may not sound like a lot but you can ask your team that from a competing Android based device that is huge. This company has been existence since 2018 I think & the first post regarding a “small” phone appeared on their forum in July of 2021, the post after that being created in July of 2022 and my post being the last one having no foresight of there ever being a post which I wanted to create in July 2023 but posted this month of August of 2023; so honestly, every year since the release of x phone on Sep 2020, users & people in general having genuinely been desiring a compact phone, again, not necessarily with bells & whistles & certainly not like the top tier Samsung S’twenties’ with Snapdragon 8 Gens, but just the design aesthetics & principal of the Nothing brand.

In one holiday season it was reported that Apple sold 40 million iPhone 13 units, in addition, I think this report was in reference to the introduction of the iPhone 13 to (i think) the full quarters end that it intended to sell 300 million units at the end of the fiscal or general years end 2022, 300 million units! I think the SE & the Mini stats should be combined (based on the idea of a small phone argument) previous reports suggest sales were around 10%, however, both models weren’t phased out, they continue to sell them officially. In dollar terms & taking the cost of the cheapest non SE version phone, 300 million units would account to just under 165 billion, divide that by 10 (10%) would give you a sum of just over 16 billion. Regardless of the fact the Mini and SE accounted for a smaller number of sales in comparison to the couple of inches larger phones, it still did sell, it still does sell & it is still appreciated by Apple users and non Apple users.

I would so love to purchase a smaller Nothing phone, maybe one through Murena as well to see how their /e/OS works at some point. I’d appreciate some insight from Carl if he’s available through this platform or maybe even a youtube video to discuss why it simply isn’t a viable option because literally every other phone manufacturer that I’ve discussed this with the exception of Apple because they’re so uptight simply won’t consider it.

Best regards