I am typing this on an iPhone 13 mini. I want a phone, not a mini tablet, which is what most phones seem to be.
I think there are three kinds of consumers:
1. Those who have been using smart phones since the early days when they were all small (and used old nokias before that, which were even smaller), and never got on board with this “big phone” trend.
2. Those who once used to small phones long ago, but eventually gave in and bought a big one because they wanted the latest tech.
3. Those who are too young to remember when phones were small, and have only ever used the big ones.
The third group is a lost cause for selling small phones to. They will never appreciate small phones, because if you’ve never used a small phone before, it probably takes some adjustment to type on it, etc. And they’ve never questioned why it’s ludicrous to carry around a mini tablet and call it a phone. Seriously, just get a tablet!
I think all of Gen Z and a lot of Millennials are in this third group.
The second group is kind of fickle and harder to predict, but are mainly sold on having the latest features I think.
I obviously belong to the first group. I first used an iPhone 3G. The I used an iPhone 4, which was a bit bigger but still manageable. I stayed on iPhone 4 for quite some time, and got very comfortable with it. By the time I was considering upgrading, the iPhone SE Gen 1 had just come out. The SE was yet larger but the upgrade was worth it, and the fact that Apple was selling it cheaper was just a bonus. Mainly, I held out upgrading because I wanted a normal size phone (by 3G and 4 standards).
Then, I stayed on SE Gen 1 for a very long time, longer than I wanted to. Apple could have sold me a new phone sooner if they made one appealing. I considered SE Gen 2 when it came out, but since it was larger than the Gen 1, I just couldn’t get excited about buying it. SE Gen 2 is already large enough to worry me that it would cramp my style.
I thought Apple had abandoned me. Finally, one day I walked into an Apple Store and saw an iPhone 12 Mini, and I knew they finally made a phone for me. The “Mini” was the perfect name because it embodies the idea of Apple taking all their latest tech and squeezing it down into a small form-factor. Not a budget phone full of old gen parts but current hardware. I almost pulled the trigger immediately but decided to wait and ultimately ended up with iPhone 13 Mini.
Of course tradeoffs are to be expected. It doesn’t have a huge battery to give me wrist strain holding it for long periods of time. I can take it everywhere, barely feel it in my pocket…basically I don’t have to change my life around to accommodate the phone. I can fit multiple things in my pocket with the phone too.
Battery life is reasonable. I use it a lot and occasionally it has died on me, but it’s more convenient to regularly charge it than to have a mini tablet as a phone. And you can always bring a battery pack if going somewhere where you need the extra juice.
