This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.
Phones in 2021 have been mostly great. Summarizing dozens of devices in one sentence is not quite possible, but it would probably be fair to say that the biggest improvements this year were mostly centered around better battery life, plus innovation continued to trickle to smartphone cameras. While all of that has been great, at the same time, this year has actually been pretty bad for one particular segment of the market: smaller phones!
What happened to smaller Android phones?
The Asus Zenfone 8 (in the middle) was one of very few compact Android phones on the market in 2021
Here is a quick glance at the expected dimensions of the S22 compared to the current S21:
Galaxy S22 — 146 x 70.5 x 7.6mm
Galaxy S21 — 151.7 x 71.2 x 7.9mm
Don’t expect an iPhone mini-like super tiny Android phone, though
With the world’s biggest manufacturer switching gears to smaller devices, we expect others to follow suit too. Now, don’t hold your breath for an iPhone mini kind of an Android phone. That might just be a bit too tiny and have way too compromised battery life (even though we know a few people who would love such a thing with all its limitations). Instead, think of a slightly bigger, yet still very compact device, the new modern definition of compact.
But if Samsung’s compact phones prove successful, we are sure others will quickly join in the party. And 2022, might finally fix the number one thing that Android compact phone lovers were missing — finally, an actually good compact Android phone!
