UKC

Another IT related request I'm afraid.

My 5 year old Sony Experia X compact is finally reaching it's twilight years and it's time to source a replacement. I want to stick with Android as I have a lot of stuff set up how I like it, and I want a reasonable spec phone that's not going to get sluggish once it has a few years worth of junk on it. But, I also want a compact phone that fits in my pocket and I can use one-handed. I've done a bit of searching and as far as I can tell such a thing doesn't exist. Any decent spec Android phone is now the size of an iPad, and the only ones available in a smaller size are ultra-basic granny phones. Googling "compact Android phone" brings up lists of phones that are huge by my standards.
Can anyone point me to something that fits the bill? I notice that there is a huge range of manufacturers out there that I've never heard of before, so I'm hoping that by moving away from the big names I'll be able to find something.
I don't need high-end. A decent mid-range phone from a year or two ago would do, and will hopefully be available discounted or used. I'd like 5G, a reasonable camera and a headphone jack, and by small I mean something around 130mm long.

I can't help you at 130mm. I had similar requirements a year ago and bought a Pixel 4a (not the 5G version though, which is bigger.) I can still use the pixel 4a (non 5G) with one hand, which was my main size criteria - and it's a pretty decent phone. It's size feels modest by today's standards. I think the screen is 5" but the bezels are tiny - much smaller than you get on Sony phones (I've had a couple of those too.) But Google tells me it's 144mm long. Worth considering if you give up on finding something smaller.

I replaced mine with a Google Pixel 5. Like you I wanted a compact Android phone and was very disappointed at the lack of small handsets.

It's a much larger screen size than the Xperia X compact, but the actual handset isn't much bigger (the screen takes up pretty much all the front rather than having those black bars top/bottom).

A few minor niggles as you'd expect, probably the biggest negative though is that it doesn't have a headphone socket.

​​​​Edit:

Re-reading your post, as a girly with small hands I find it a little too big to use one handed (approx 7x14.5cm). Think the Pixel 4 was a similar size and had a headphone socket, but I went for the 5 as it's waterproof and 5G.

There's a "one handed" setting on the Android phones.  Never tried it, but I would check it out before you panic too much about size; you may get away with a larger phone.

The size is partly driven by the need for a larger battery to feed the faster power hungry chips, so you may not get any good chip specs on something smaller.

https://m.gsmarena.com/search.php3

Filter by the must haves and then read some techradar reviews of what comes up. Range of small phones is really limited these days. They've all gone in the direction of wafer thin but bigger than any known pocket.

I didn't realise gsmarena had a parametric search, that's brilliant, just what I needed. Thanks!

The bad news is it just confirms what I suspected, the phone I want doesn't exist the smallest 5g phone is the Pixel 5 at 144mm, the only smaller options are from Apple. So if I want 5G I have to go big.

And (as a happy iPhone 13 mini owner) I'm sad to confirm that Apple will be dropping the "mini" option from the 14 as they aren't selling well.  Shame, it's the perfect size for me.  I don't need a "phablet" worst of both worlds, I've got an iPad.

That said the lower spec iPhone SE which is in the small form factor is I believe staying in the range.

Asus zenphone?

T.

There is very little real world difference in size between a pixel 4a or 5 and the smaller iPhones you can get anyway. I have an iPhone 7 (same size as iphone SE) sat on top of the pixel 4a right in front of me now. The iPhone screen is smaller but it has bigger bezels and the external length difference is only about 5mm.

If the pixel 5 is the same size and has 5G then it's definitely worth going to a shop to play with one and see if you can manage the size in the way you want, before either buying something small and old or giving up and buying a big one. They are good phones.

Well it's a bit bigger than I wanted, but with 5G and a headphone jack it's looking like my best bet so far. Thanks

The pixel has no headphone jack though, so the Asus is my current fave, even if it is 3.3mm taller.

Yep. If you're anything like me every time I'm in the same situation you'll end up compromising and getting something just a bit bigger than you want, but then getting used to it and not really regretting it that much. Otherwise you're looking at spending £500 to a grand for an iPhone or pixel which is probably more high end than you want just because they happen to be the only small ones. 

Have a look at some of the Moto offerings. They're decent for the price and come with about the least factory bloatcrapware.

I do like a small phone to be able to use it with one hand, and I have quite small hands*, but I got on OK with the Moto G7 I had before that.  Indeed Motorola are good for not adding crapware - even the Pixels are getting bad for that.

* No sniggering back there

I went for the sony 5 mk 2. Its too long to be compact  but otherwise is OK. Too damn long though. 

Yep, went through precisely this process and came to the conclusion that I don't want to spend lots of money on a ZenFone 8 and therefore a used Pixel 5 was the best compromise.

I didn't realise a pixel 5 had no headphone jack, that's a bit rubbish. You can still buy a pixel 4a, which does, but you lose the 5G.

Yep. My current options are:

Asus Zenfone 8 - ticks all the boxes but £540 and not available used as far as I can tell.
Pixel 5 - On ebay for about £300 but no headphone jack.
Pixel 4a - On ebay for about £250 but no 5G.

I didn't really want to be spending £500 + on a phone

I didn't realise the Pixel5 didn't have a headphone socket and wouldn't have bought it id known. However I don't really use headphones so it's not actually a big issue and you can buy cheap wireless ones if you need them (or stupidly expensive if that's your thing). Main irritation with wireless is that if you only use them occasionally they inevitably have a flat battery when you plug them in.

Pretty sure the Pixel 4 isn't waterproof and I felt the benefits of this outweighed the annoyance if not being in able to use headphones. Never put it to the test, but reassuring given how many people I know who have destroyed phones through water damage.

Edit : spelling

I have some cheapy tribit earbuds - . I use one at a time and swap them over when they go flat. Mono, but is OK for me for stories I listen to...

same here, we have been using motorola moto phones for a while. I am still using my 5gs which I bought in 2017. The misses is now on a 9G or something as she broke hers, but they are cheap and relatively un-bundled with crapware.

Getting a small one may be a problem nowadays though

My Moto E2 is a nice size (138 x 76 mm). But 6 years old and obsolete... I keep meaning to have a play with a generic Android build on it from xda.

It still works okay on Android 6, apart from when Android decides to update Google Play Services to the latest build, which utterly slaughters the responsiveness. Reverting to stock cures it until the next auto update, which it does even though I have auto-update disabled for all apps.

I absolutely love my Pixel 4a. Thankfully relatively small in size but with a screen that goes close to the edges so not that small to use. Compared to the Moto I had before, it's a really clean Android build with no crapware and boots up so much faster.

Decent camera, headphone jack etc. I use a waterproof pouch if I need it to be waterproof.

Couldn't be happier. No 5G but, well, I don't actually need it (who knew?)!

That's basically what I've been doing too, but now I've got to the point where even a factory reset doesn't restore the performance to something acceptable. It got automatically updated to Android 8 and I can't undo this, after a factory reset it's still on 8. 7 was far superior and if I could get it back to that it might keep going for a bit longer, but TBH I tried the custom ROM thing years ago and I just can't be bothered any more.

The smallest Android phone is probably the Cubot King Kong mini at 120mm long but it might be a bit low spec for your wishes.

Yeah. The continual bloat of the Google shit is pretty bloody annoying. If i were cynical, I might think they were deliberately trying to make perfectly capable old phones unusable. The problem of vanishing system memory is widely reported, but, strangely, Googling finds no solutions. Funny, that...

One thing to be aware when buying older Pixel models is that companies stop manufacturing accessories for them a few years after they were released. 

I have a Pixel 3a and can't find shock & waterproof case for it anymore. Sadly, I shattered its screen now due to this. My next phone is likely to be an iPhone despite of being an Android fan.

You're not being cynical, this opinion is shared by quite a few people who know what they are talking about. Not so much deliberately crippling old phones (like Apple did), but continually releasing pointless updates so that people who fall for the line that their phone has to be up to date to be secure end up throwing out perfectly good hardware because it's no longer updated.

In the early days of smartphones the hardware and software improved so rapidly that I could barely wait the 2 years for my contract upgrade to be available. Many people updated their phone every year. But nowadays phones are so capable that they have run out of ideas to improve them, and there is no point in upgrading. This is a major blow to manufacturers, the last thing they want is people keeping their phones for years, so Google have kindly put a plan in place where most phones will be no longer supported after a few years.

This is evident form other Android devices. My Hudl was really snappy when first bought. It slowly got more unresponsive, to tje point of uselessness. Now I know software grows, but it really shouldn't slow down that much. It's either really crap programming, or deliberate crippling.

Processor performance has improved, but not that much.

There is also mysterious hardware decay... No, really! I had a series of Samsung compact phones before my Sony. They were all dog slow after less than two years, even after a factory reset or installation of a minimal custom ROM. I read somewhere that in their compact models Samsung used cheap flash memory that deteriorated so much that it slowed the phone down. I don't know how true this is but it's the best explanation I could find.

If you need to plug in headphones, a Bluetooth receiver with a jack costs you 3 quid from eBay.

Hudls were notorious for being awful post update because Tesco didn't want to put any money into maintaining them. After the update to Android 5 for Hudl 2s, they got miles slower and also started bricking themselves regularly. There was eventually some improvement after Tesco had some work done to semi fix it, but it was never fully reliable and they still started up very slow. I believe this whole situation probably contributed to them never releasing a Hudl 3. A shame as they started off as brilliant tablets for the price, but post update they were shit.

I don't want to bang on about my phone but I think sustainability is a big benefit of getting a homebrand Google phone. The main reasons IME for a phone to become obsolete are:

- battery shot and irreplaceable (not much can be done about that on purchase other than reading reviews, as very few phones have replaceable batteries now.)

- memory full due to increasing size of apps such that they can no longbe updated even when photos etc have all been removed (IMO it's always worth spending enough to get a decent phone or tablet internal capacity; additional card storage does not cut it because apps usually refuse to install on the card. Buying a cheap model with small memory is a false economy.)

- apps refusing to update and eventually refusing to run because you're on an old version of Android (this is where Google phones are great because they get Android updates for much longer than any others I've had. I recently had t replace my mum's Lenovo tablet because of this issue, it was a relatively cheap one and never got a single update!.)

- Android updates being incompatible with the phone/tablet because it wasn't properly designed and tested together before the update went out (I have only ever had this on the Hudl. Never had a problem with Samsung, Sony or Google phones but I'd expect Google probably the least likely to go wrong because they aren't trying to integrate their phone with someone else's software.)

Android 12 has wrecked my Pixel 3. Although it seems to be the same poor experience for people with new Pixel 6 devices, if you can get one with a working modem.

I'm going to back to iPhone once this dies, Google have totally dropped the ball with their devices and software, I wouldn't recommend them any more.

Interesting, I noticed no significant change with Android 12 on mine. What is wrecked?

Most significantly annoying problem is that half the time it takes 10-15 minutes to calculate a route when setting off in the car. GPS accuracy is significantly worse and frequently wanders off onto adjacent roads. Pretty much the only absolutely essential thing I need it to do, and it now fails at that.

It also hard crashes and resets several times a week now, which it never did before.

I have been Android pretty much from the beginning (aside from a Nokia Lumia / Windows-phone which actually was rather good, if you ignored the lack of app support). Had same issue recently when my 3 year old Huawei P-smart getting slower and slower and less reliable. Now the P-Smart had a 5.5 inch screen and was a pain to keep in my pocket. I honestly couldnt find an Android smaller than 6 inches, and many were 6.4/6.5 inches. So I opted for an Iphone SE (4.5 inch screen), its my first Apple and honestly I dont regret the switch at all - every app I had on Android is available on Apple as well and it just seems to work a lot better.

How about a 4" android phone? There's quite a few about, just one example https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stanley-S231-SIM-Free-Smartphone-Gorilla-Noir/dp/B...  this particular one probably isn't the best choice, but it should be an example of where you could be going, ruggedised IP67 phones in smaller screen are out there

Switching to Apple would be a significant amount of work compared to just buying another Android though. There may well be apps available, but I have to find them and set them up. For example I must have tried 10 train-tracker apps before I decided on one. Then I have to pay for the new apps. And I'm just not that keen on Apple. My daughter has an iPhone and we have iPads at work and I find them both a PITA. I think Apple's kiddy-friendly concept is fine if you are happy doing things Apple's way, but if you want to do something different it's a nightmare. All that said, I'm no Google fanboy and Android has plenty of its own problems, so a switch is not out of the question. But the iPhone isn't suitable anyway. No headphone jack and eye-wateringly expensive.

There are small phones available, but performance wise they are pants. I might as well stick with my Sony. If you know of a small 5G phone with decent performance please let me know, because it's not listed on gsmarena.

https://www.androidauthority.com/palm-phone-review-918390/

what's  it done to it?

Interesting, my Pixel 3a is ok on Android 12. It noticeablly got a bit slower but it works. Apps are still fast and Google Maps is OK too.

Why the 5g requirement? It will use more battery and if you don't want a large screen I am assuming that hd+ video isn't a large part of what you want to do with the phone. If you don't need to upload/download large files (typically video for most users) then 4g should be more than fast enough.

Without 5g then phones I would consider would be Pixel phones as mentioned already as well as the Xiaomi Mi 9 SE and the Samsung S10e. Both released in 2019 however they should still be ok with decent chipsets for mid range usage and having both had software updates to Android 11. They are both around 145mm long though so may still be too large even though they are considered compact. 

The 5G requirement isn't so much for fast data, it's for any useable data at all. With the end of lockdown it's got to the point in the big London stations where 4G is unusable, just because everyone is on it. 5G won't help right now, but I reckon in a year or two there will be 5G in these areas. I'm planning to keep my phone for a good 5 years, so I wanted to get ready for this.

But... as you suggest I can get a Samsung S10e, they are available used for £170 or so. And then in a year or two when 5G is actually worth having I can get a used Zenfone 8. I'm now thinking this might be a better plan than paying a fortune to get the right phone now.

In London it is always an option to drop back to 3G (HSPDA+) by forcing the phone to forget the 4G network. I have done this in the past and at least that way you tend to get a useable speed. Most users won't even think about using 3G as it is too slow... it is often over 5Mbps though so often fine for browsing etc, even ok for video if you turn the quality down.

I hadn't thought of that, I'm going to have to give it a go. 3G is plenty fast enough for me.

Back when I had a 3G phone it got to the point where 3G was unusable, so I got a 4G phone and was OK for a while. I figured it was a bit of an arms race and I had to stay ahead on the latest network to get any data. It hadn't occurred to me that everyone else might have moved away from 3G and that band is now underused. If that's the case then I don't need 5G at all.

That's a top tip about switching to 3G, thanks. I've tried it a couple of times now and it's worked. So now I no longer need 5G I've bought a S10e off eBay. Not as small as I'd like but as small as there is.

Or a USB C to headphone adapter, loads of those about (though as they contain the digital to analogue converter some of them are crap, so if you get a crap one try another).

Bluetooth headphones are less faff than they used to be before the charger case design came up.  They are now easier to carry than wired ones which always tangle up.  Plenty of cheap clones out there now if you don't like giving Apple a hundred quid.

It is also much easier to make a phone waterproof or at least water resistant without a headphone socket.  The next thing to go will be the charger socket, then most phones will be 100% waterproof as standard.

The 2G and 3G networks are being progressively switched off, so this would be a bad choice unless only wanting a phone for the very short term.

It is just bloat, not hardware.  My Fire TV stick was horribly slow, I factory reset it and it is now fine.

Android is just like Windows in this regard, a wipe and reinstall every year or two massively helps.

Really? Do you have a source for that? There are a lot of telemetry devices, such as the one in my car, that are going to stop working if 2G is switched off.

I'm sure there are at least a few years left in 3G yet, and I'd be surprised if there are plans to get rid of 2G at all. It's still the only option in remote areas for things like emergency services, because the shorter wavelengths of 4G will never have the same range as old-school 2G.

And by the time they switch off 3G, everyone will be on 5G, so 4G will be useable again

Three doesn't provide a 2G network now.

2033, so a way off.  Could have sworn it was sooner, I was probably confusing it with the PSTN switch off.

https://hyphabit.io/2g-network-closure-uk/

EE and vodaphone are due to switch off 3G next year.

Thanks.  Thought it was sooner!

The benefit of 2G switchoff is that it massively simplifies the service - like the plans for the PSTN, it is so much simpler if the service is a simple IP service and everything else sits on top in software.

Three never provided a 2G service, there's a clue in the name They used to have a deal with another network so their customers could get 2G, do they not even do that anymore?

That's an interesting article, thanks for the link. So 2G and 3G are going from some networks in the next year or two, I didn't realise it was that close. I think there are going to be quite a few devices that stop working as a result. It seems ridiculous that they are installing 2G smart meters right now that they know will stop working in less than 10 years.

No.  They used to do it with EE (Orange) but it was costing too much and hardly ever needed now.

It remains the case that any mobile can make a 999 call on any network, though, so far as I know.

Well, they installed a load that would cease working as smart meters at all if you changed suppliers at first...

They should probably by default just use the domestic wifi, and only go beyond that if there isn't a signal where the meter is located.  Why spend more when it isn't needed?

Idiot-proofing... To be fair I can see that with smart meters. Imagine the number of support calls required if the householder had to update the credentials in their smart meter every time they changed their WiFi router.

But it's ridiculous that my EVSE uses the mobile network (no idea if it's 2G or 4G), when it could just connect to WiFi. Just to make setup a tiny bit easier.

Family and I use sony, they seem to work for years without issue.

The company give me Samsung phones that last around a year at best, with a only a small percentage of the use our personal phones get. 

Yeah, that's the same as my experience. If Sony still made a compact phone I'd buy it, but unfortunately they don't so I'm now back to Samsung. Fingers crossed they've improved a bit.