Fast Charge: Android needs an answer to the iPhone 12 mini
This week for the first time in years, despite being an avid Android user, I felt a twinge of jealousy looking at the other side of the fence after subbing mobile and deputy editor Max Parker’s iPhone 12 mini review.
To be clear, this isn’t because I suddenly feel the need to jump into Apple’s walled iOS garden. No thank you. I still love the freedom and customizability Android affords me. It’s also not because I think the iPhone 12 Mini is a technical wonder. Sure its chip is fast and it’s got some decent specs, but the camera and screen on the Galaxy S20 Plus I’m using are more than good enough, and better in some instances than the mini.
It’s because it lives up to its mini branding. Younglings may not remember, but back in the early days, smartphones usually had fairly small form factors, and anything bigger than 4-5-inches was considered phablet territory. The original Galaxy Note, which is generally considered the first phablet, only had a 5.3-inch screen. By today’s standards that’s actually fairly small.
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There are plenty of reasons why phone screens have gotten bigger. Phone’s increased use for Netflix streaming and gaming to name a couple. And trust me, in these instances I love the extra screen real estate. But every now and then when I’m forced to try and text one handed, and awkwardly forced to stretch my thumb to its absolute limit I feel a serious yearning for the small phone days of yore.
Which is why I felt such envy reading about Apple’s dinky new iPhone. This is especially true as, at the moment, there’s no real alternative in the world of Android. The Pixel 5 is great, but it’s got a 6-inch screen. The Galaxy S20 line are all big screen phones and even Sony, which used to be king of the small Android phone kingdom with its Compact line, hasn’t got a competing handset on the market.
This is a massive shame as, for golden oldies like myself, or any person with small mitts, the prospect of an Android powered iPhone 12 Mini is a pretty enticing prospect. Here’s hoping an Android phone company steps up to the bat and makes one in the near future.