Manufacturers don’t make displays under 6 inches available for purchase, with special cases (such as the iPhone Mini) being made under exclusive contracts. The best lead they have so far is to try to use displays designed for the front part of a foldable phone, but they’re yet to strike an agreement.

TIL that display manufacturers are also part of the reason why we aren’t getting small phones and why it’s probably even harder for manufacturers like Fairphone to make them.

  • XiELEd@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    At this point I’d rather buy a super outdated smartphone. They’re small enough for my hands and pockets, dirt cheap and still functional, and most of the good games left on Android are only available on those old versions.

    • janus2@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      I held onto my Sony XZ2c for months after calls stopped working on it after the US 3G shutdown. I got a flip phone for making calls.

      The worst part? The XZ2c has VoLTE calling capability, but all the US phone companies refuse to support it on their networks.

      Now I’m begrudgingly using a OnePlus 6 and praying that I don’t drop the massive thing >:[

      Basically, even if we want to use aging tech we’re held hostage by telecom companies, who obviously would prefer to rope people into new devices on credit plans. ARGH

      • lemmyvore@feddit.nl
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        1 year ago

        So wait, if US companies don’t support VoLTE then how do they do calls over 4G and 5G?

        • janus2@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          It was that VoLTE wasn’t supported for that particular model of phone. VoLTE is very much the norm here although I’m unsure if every phone uses it now. My flip phone probably doesn’t, but it’s hard to tell with how stripped down its manufacturer-customized Android is.