Smartphones are Dead and We Killed Them
So, Marques called it here . I can't disagree, but I'm perpetually confounded by people's preference for large phones. To me, it is, for the most part, a negative symptom of our times: that we need large screens on us at all times. We seemingly cannot separate our large screen needs from our small or no-screen needs. How can you give up your media addiction with a giant 4k screen in your pocket?
I have a Zenphone 8 and 9, and love them for their lack of samsung-crapware, their non-iPhone-ecosystem-lock-in, their same-Sony-cameras-as-the-top-phones, and, yes, their small, fit-in-your-hand size. The only thing I regret about them is the lack of HDMI output, which would allow me to use them as my daily driver for most PC tasks too: imagine being able to plug your phone into a USB-C hub which connects to a massive monitor, keyboard and mouse, and, by way of Android 14's desktop mode, basically runs your phone as a PC, with a desktop, apps in windows that you can move etc. One device, many usage scenarios.
Most of what we do is cloud-based. Our phones have become smart terminals to our cloud lives. If you don't believe me, just try losing or drowning your phone. Most folks have, so the less tech-conscientious will have felt the pain of no cloud backups and already do daily cloud backups for at least their photos and videos, if not their entire phones. The more conscientious won't have felt the pain, already submitting their digital lives to the clouds.
If you're in the cloud already, what sort of device do you need every day?
This is the question that few of us consider when we're faced with the 'bargain' deal of upgrading our phone. For most people it's a case of paying the same monthly rate but getting "more" phone every couple of years. A better camera, better battery, maybe a faster, smoother screen, more storage...all for the same price. Who cares that I need a manbag or bigger handbag to carry it?
For phone providers, smaller phones are an increasingly difficult engineering problem: more power-hungry processors, and faster, higher resolution screens suck battery life. If you want to shine like the big phones yet still be small you have to be really cunning about how to pack the battery in - usually by being slightly thicker...and therefore seemingly uglier than the ultra-svelte huge screens. So why not just make the screens bigger and shinier and give yourself room for bigger batteries behind them too? Just get marketing to convince people that they want bigger phones.
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But back to my question: if you're in the cloud already, what sort of device do you need every day? The answer, I suggest, for most of us is much less than we have. Everyone has a reason for having a giant phone. I know because I ask - yeah, I'm that guy. But they only ever have one, or maybe two, at most, reasons. Usually, it is for watching videos or reading documents, which begs the question: why not use a big screen? Or "because the camera is better" which has nothing to do with screen size and everything to do with vendor product positioning: see paragraph above.
Think about it: how much do you need a bigger screen? Is all the bulging pocket, hand-balancing awkwardness worth it? I don't think so.
I envision a day when someone (Xwear?) perfects the screen projection on eyeglasses interface so well that when we want screen time, we simply pop our glasses on and our phone is reduced to being a mouse/battery in our hand. Then we'll all want smaller phones again, as we'll have giant virtual projection screens instead. It will be marketed as progress.
In the meantime, consider your bigger phone screen to be nothing more than a bigger enticement to waste time in front of a screen. So maybe consider downsizing, and when you feel the screen is just too small it's probably a sign that you should be doing something else or using a bigger device anyway.
Studies show that most of us underestimate our daily phone screen time by 20-60%. 17 years ago, you'd have lunatic laughed if I'd said that soon you'd spend more than 10 hours in front of a screen every day. Now, you'd probably shrug a helpless acknowledgement or vehemently try to justify your phone screen time as productive. You'd likely be wrong.