The market for small smartphones has been left vacant for a few years, and this unexpected player has decided to make a comeback to fill this gap!
Co-founder of the connected watch brand Pebble, acquired in 2016 by Fitbit then in 2021 by Google, Eric Migicovsky cried out in May 2022 on a site created for the occasion: SmallAndroidPhone. In the latter, he indicates that he hopes for a return of the smartphone industry (and more particularly of Android models) towards compact models. And rather than waiting for someone else to get on board, he throws himself into the project.
Take the things over control
Eric Migicovsky made a simple observation: apart from Apple and its iPhone mini (which incidentally disappeared from circulation with the iPhone 14 range), there are very few high-end small smartphones, even if Apple plans to offer a fourth iPhone SE model. With Android this is even less the case – recently there was only the Asus Zenfone 9 with its 5.9 inch diagonal. So, rather than complain, the founder of Pebble decided to embark on the adventure himself, with a small team formed just for the occasion.
The objective of this new firm is clear: to create a compact smartphone (that is to say with a screen of less than 6.1 inches) equipped with a stock version of Android and good photo modules, all accessible to the general public. However, the problems are felt quite quickly: since the screen suppliers have abandoned the compact segment with ever larger models in Android, it becomes more difficult to obtain smaller screens. It will therefore potentially be necessary to produce screens of the chosen size directly, at the risk of seeing costs increase instantly. All the rest of the features will then follow depending on the screen chosen, whether it’s design or performance (the team is talking about a first-generation Snapdragon 8 chip, released around a year ago).
Compact, of course… but not necessarily cheaper!
For The Verge, Benjamin Bryant, who was able to work with Eric Migicovsky at Pebble, indicated that the high production costs of the product could translate into a high purchase price for the consumer: around 850 dollars. A price ultimately similar to that of any flagship, which, moreover, pales in comparison to the 549 dollars offered by the iPhone SE, also compact with their 4.7-inch panel.
To compensate for these potential high production costs, the team of SmallAndroidPhone plans to launch a crowdfunding operation to cover design, production and assembly costs. Amount expected during this fundraising: between 40 and 50 million dollars! As a reminder, Pebble was able to raise more than 20 million dollars more than ten years ago for its connected watches. Suffice to say that doubling this record for a simple compact Android smartphone seems extremely ambitious…
Source : Small Android Phone
5