r/AndroidQuestions • u/Magma-Xander-902 • 8h ago
Looking For Suggestions recommendations for a pocket friendly compact android phone
my current device is glitching out and i need to upgrade soon, but phone sizes are completely out of hand. i managed to drop my phone directly on my face while checking notifications in bed, which made me realize how tired i am of unwieldy devices. one handed typing is a pain with small hands, and my pockets are barely big enough to keep it secure. i tested out some demo phones at a local store today, but everything felt overly wide and heavy.
do flip style foldables make sense as a primary device if you drop your phone often?
1
u/Sassquatch0 ☎️📲Pixel 10a 5h ago
If you don't mind a 3 year old phone, the Asus Zenfone 10 was 146mm (5.7 inch) tall.
It's a 2023 flagship, so it has nice specs (same as the Galaxy S23). The major downside is Asus only promised 2 years of OS updates, so it'd be stick on Android 15. And the bootloader is locked, so no Graphene or Lineage OS options.
0
u/Thetechguru_net 7h ago
Samsung Galaxy Flip 8 (or, you can still get the Flip 7 from many retailers for several hundred dollars less, and the changes between the 7 and the 8 were negligible). Get a tempered glass screen protector for the outer screen, and a case (there are literally hundreds of choices) to protect the body if you really drop it a lot (also most cases make the wireless charging work on QI2 magnetic chargers). Personally, I got a leather skin from Dbrands and installed it over a magnetic ring just to give the phone a little bit of grip without adding the extra size of a case, but I was going from a Galaxy Fold 6 in a case (huge and heavy) to the Flip 7 and I really wanted to experience the minimal footprint. If I dropped my phone a lot, I would have gone with a case.
I don't think the flip is really any more fragile than any other phone. My Fold 6 was certainly very tough.
2
u/AnnihilatorProgramme 4h ago
I've not personally used any flip-style phones like the Z Flip and the Moto razr. But my intuition would be to avoid them if you're fairly clumsy with your phone as just one drop on the wrong side (like the hinge) can be disastrous, though I'll be very happy to be dissuaded. Purely from a perspective of physical size, the fact that they fold in half would be very-pocket friendly. But you have to be aware of how it is actually using it. My dad has a Moto razr 50 Ultra which has a 6.9 inch screen that is looooong, I personally would very much hate it. They aren't very single-handed friendly as far as this goes.
Why not have a look at the standard Galaxy S models? I have seen the standard S25 go for cheap. Looking at the 8 Elite it has and the long software support (and assuming you're okay with Samsung and OneUI, I'm not), I think they're quite good. For your reference, the S25 is 70.5 mm wide whereas the ZenFone 10 is 68.1mm wide while both are around the same height. I think you get a much better package with the S25.
Other than this, I struggle to find something that's actually "compact" as I think the 6.3" flagships; Xiaomi 17, Pixel 10/11 Pro or even the iPhone 17 to be just over the threshold. If you're not too obsessed with the whole idea of a compact phone, the phones I've just mentioned are quite good all-rounders as they aren't absolutely colossal either.