Android

https://github.com/evanman83/OURS-project

I know it's boxy, but it's totally open source, you could slap a small screen in there and then figure out how to jigsaw the rest of the pieces into a smaller form factor!!

Smaller phones do still exist, such as the Unihertz Jellystar or upcoming Jelly Max.

Totally. I have one of the newer pixels and it's on the smaller side relatively, but it's the biggest phone I can use comfortably.

I wear a size medium glove and it's insane to me that it's hard to find a phone I can use comfortably in one hand.

At the same time, I've started to realize that I should do less with my phone anyway. So I really don't need it to do to much besides get a good reception and have a day or so of battery life. The most demanding thing I've asked my phone to do recently was to emulate some Nintendo games and run llama3.2:1B. But both things are better done either on a device meant to perform that workload or via a self hosted server where my phone is just a client.

I'm with you on those specs. Maybe the best features of new phones is the water resistance. Idk of its possible to have both water resistance and removable batteries and SD cards, but I miss being able to swap out to a fully charged battery or upgrade the storage at a whim. If I hadn't choose tho, id stick with the water resistance.

So to add to your specs I'd like:

• water resistance
• 256 SD card minimum
• battery last 24hr minimum
• ability to switch from WiFi to cell mid call
• don't need more than a 1080p oled display on a phone
• comes without any bloatware preinstalled
• runs linux with ability to sudo

Potential fragility aside, I think flip smartphones (at least the cheaper ones without a proper outside screen) solved the problem for me since I was never really a one-handed user of my XZ1 Compact. I liked the smaller size because it fit into every pocket safely and the smaller screen was more annoying to use and therefore less addictive. Flips have a similar barrier in terms of having to physically open the device to use it. It's a shame that even the cheaper models are getting the bigger outside screens now, though. It just makes these devices more addictive and more fragile.

i recently bought moto edge 50 neo. it's not small but it's compact phone. i feel the difference when i hold other phones.

I'd love to get my hands on something similar to the nexus 4a or even the xiaomi mi 8. I really hate the form factor of the later nexus series.

Man I totally agree. I have an XZ2C running lineage but it isn't working correctly. Am going to try to flash it again, hopefully that helps.

At any rate, I haven't come across a satisfying explanation about the reason for the absence of small smartphones. I'm convinced that there is a market for it so why aren't any of the established companies producing them?
Is it a matter of profit? I.e. are the profit margins better for larger devices?
I don't expect it to be a battery capacity problem, since the trade off seems sensible to make.

I'm on an XZ2 Compact, which is still bigger than I'd like but has modern up to date LineageOS

You can pry it from my cold dead hand

Xperia 10 is what you're looking for, it's a tall phone, but it's 68mm wide, which is what mostly counts in phone size feel. I use an S23 and I'm happy with the size. It's still one-handable enough for me and I have small hands. Otherwise you can look at Asus' Zenfone lineup from 8 to 10, but I would only recommend the 9 and 10 because the 8 sucked

Pixel 9 pro has a smaller model and it’s great.

I had an old Samsung windows phone, the first gen. I loved that thing. The performance was great and the screen was fairly small, but it was way more usable than other phones despite the lower resolution because it had an OLED display.

Then I eventually got the Lumia 1520 behemoth haha. Then eventually back to one of Sony's Compact phones, but the performance was terrible. I'm now on more regular sized phones.

The best part about the smaller phones was the much for usable single-handed use. I think that's the main thing. I also tended to use another device for things like reading or entertainment. But I will say though, that 1520 was pretty great.

I've given up trying to find a small phone with decent support. I picked up a Smasnug Flip4 on sale and I'm converted to flip phones now. I loved my Sony XA2 for it's size, but the software support was atrocious.

My ideal phone is something closer to the Blackberry Bold or the q10, but I realize that's a market segment of 1 so I'll never get it again.

So double tap your home button and shrink it down to one handed size.

Today's issue is that all the high end stuff takes up space and needs surface area to keep cool. Shrinking it all down for a market there isn't a large demand for is hard, and then having to put a smaller battery in it is also hard. I take phones apart quite often. Even the big ones don't have much unused space.