If they would have committed to the “small phone” thing and made it significantly smaller, it would have differentiated it from the competition and I (at least) would have bought it immediately. Instead it competed against S23, iPhone, Xiaomi, Pixel 7a with nothing to really set it apart, except for a more questionable software support.
Zenfone did have its 3.5mm jack and optical stabilization as relatively unique in its class (though I don’t personally know much about how well EIS does vs OIS these days).
There’s a balance point somewhere between size and battery life with resolution as a catalyst. Small phone = small battery.
The Xperica Z3C achieved ridiculous things in that space (I could get 5 days normal use out of it after rooting and tweaking kernel etc).
You couldn’t do that today though. Nobody is going to buy a phone at the resolution required to pull it off, and it would be under powered to boot.
I think this is why even “small” phones like the Zenfone aren’t really even that small…they have to be big enough to fit a decent battery. Power demands have increased and you can’t fight physics.
If they would have committed to the “small phone” thing and made it significantly smaller, it would have differentiated it from the competition and I (at least) would have bought it immediately. Instead it competed against S23, iPhone, Xiaomi, Pixel 7a with nothing to really set it apart, except for a more questionable software support.
Zenfone did have its 3.5mm jack and optical stabilization as relatively unique in its class (though I don’t personally know much about how well EIS does vs OIS these days).
There’s a balance point somewhere between size and battery life with resolution as a catalyst. Small phone = small battery.
The Xperica Z3C achieved ridiculous things in that space (I could get 5 days normal use out of it after rooting and tweaking kernel etc).
You couldn’t do that today though. Nobody is going to buy a phone at the resolution required to pull it off, and it would be under powered to boot.
I think this is why even “small” phones like the Zenfone aren’t really even that small…they have to be big enough to fit a decent battery. Power demands have increased and you can’t fight physics.