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Comment by begriffs | Hacker News Reader

I had a variation of that mini phone you linked to (the internals get repackaged by various manufacturers). Mine was exactly the height and width of a credit card, and not very thick. It was lovely in my pocket, so unobtrusive. Everyone thought it was a calculator. :) Had to give it up after a while because the battery was really bad. One serious call and it was toast, and the battery got worse with age. If they made a model with a swappable battery it would be more tolerable because I could take some spares with me.

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Saw something that probably was an iPod the other day. For a few seconds I thought it was a new iPhone (can't remember seeing an iPod in years).

I want a phone in that size:

- Small.

- With touchscreen,

- With a browser

- With downloadable or even uploadable apps (basic ones like maps and messaging clients would be enough, don't need games or 3d, just don't want to rely on my operator or the manufacturer to create a new firmware before I can swap my messaging client.)

- A quick camera that is good enough for everyday pictures: whiteboards, messaging.

- Ideally somewhat water resitant

So an iPhone SE? Or an Apple Watch with Cellular?

There’s an impossible trade off between being “small” as in credit card sized and having a usable browser.

> So an iPhone SE?

I think it was quite a bit smaller than even iPhone 4 (I'm not really into Apple products though.)

> Or an Apple Watch with Cellular?

Way to small, I want it to be practical for older people like me :-P

> There’s an impossible trade off between being “small” as in credit card sized and having a usable browser.

Kind of agree, but given the right phone I'd almost forget the browser on the phone and just use my laptop or carry a cheap tablet in my jacket for browsing.

Edit: yep

Anyone here uses Apple Watches as new gen pagers? Do you get a whole day LTE standby time with some useless stuff disabled?

My Series 4 just barely lasts all day with some activity (music, workout) and the phone at home all day (forcing use of the LTE when not at work or home.) Functionally, I would describe it as a pager, feature phone and iPod on the wrist.

An iPod, a phone, an Internet communicator. Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices. Apple reinvented the original iPhone :)

Thanks for your comment, now I am considering to get one.

Haha, yes! The Watch does feel like the early iPhone years. If you can take advantage of Apple’s return policy, I recommend trying one for a few days.

I have an iPod and iPhone 4S as my main devices.

The iPod has excellent battery life, and I've upgraded it with an iFlash SD adaptor. The iPhone 4S has a small screen, and removable battery on a Third Rail case.

I had a quick look last week after the iPhone SE was discontinued. The highest small-screen (3.5") resolution is the iPhone 4 display (960x640). It's even higher than newer phones, according to dpi.lv. The best Raspberry Pi screen is 320x640.

What we as hobbyists need is a 3.5" RPi touchscreen module with higher resolution. Then the iPod modding community can provide a case, and Seeed can provide a phone. The problem is, I couldn't find anybody manufacturing high-res small size touchscreens.

> I couldn't find anybody manufacturing high-res small size touchscreens.

RPi only supports 2 lanes of MIPI DSI interface, iPhone 4 screens (that are still manufactured and offered for $5-15 on aliexpress) use 4 lanes precisely because they are higher resolution.

Something like this?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Hot-Sale-Mini-Android-Smart-...

No idea what the quality is like (probably not amazing), but the Chinese appear to still be making various rather small Android devices, including iPhone 4 clones.

Yep. Something like that, thanks.

Did you mean that it was the size of an iPod Nano (any gen except 6th)? Because a regular iPod Classic/iPod Touch is about the same size as an iPhone. But an iPod Nano would be an impressively small phone.

This ticks most of the boxes you mention: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jellyphone/atom-world-s...

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