Could the Enough Phone bring back small smartphones?

The new Enough Phone could be about to herald a new era of smaller smartphones | Kickstarter

placeholder image — The new Enough Phone could be about to herald a new era of smaller smartphones | Kickstarter

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I like my Pixel 11 Pro XL right up until I have to put it in my pocket. My old iPhone 12 mini fits just fine, and a new crowdfunded handset has me wondering whether small phones are due a comeback.

I'm starting to wonder if we're about to see a renaissance in small smartphones. Manufacturers seem to be making handsets bigger and bigger these days, but sometimes it's not the best way.

I recently upgraded to the Pixel 11 Pro. And because I felt like I'd struggle to downsize from my old Pixel 9 Pro XL I went for the XL version, which is broadly the same size. And that size is BIG.

With a 6.8" screen across the diagonal it takes up a lot of space in my pocket, and that's before I fitted a lovely leather Bellroy case to it.

Obviously, this size is nice to have while you're using it - I rarely pick a tablet up these days - but it is a cumbersome thing to carry around.

Conversely, the phone I use for work, which needs to be an iPhone for complex corporate reasons, is an iPhone 12 Mini. And I chose this because it's just about as small as a modern smartphone can be.

The iPhone 12 Mini is the last of a breed - but could it make a comeback in the future?

I love this little thing. I'm not a fan of iOS, but it's so compact, and for the few things I actually do with it, it's certainly big enough.

For some reason Apple doesn't do a Mini version of its latest phones, and that's a shame. Because when they inevitably make mine useless through built-in obsolescence, I'll have to go for something bigger.

My wife's also a small phone fan. And she's got around the fact that the bigger the phone the bigger the spec by thinking outside the box, and she bought a flip phone. It's a great solution, especially given that women don't seem to be blessed with the same size of pockets as men do, as she often reminds me, with a scowl on her face.

Having a folding phone means she can keep a half-size slab in her diminutive pocket while she's walking around, and then when she comes to use it to browse her Instagram feed, she can flip it open and it's nearly as large as my Pixel. Great.

But there is another way. It is possible to buy a brand new phone that's got all the latest features and spec but it's small enough to fit into a small jeans pocket. At least, it'll be possible to buy it once it moves out of the crowdfunding phase.

Compared to the current XL Pixel, it's quite obvious just how small the iPhone 12 Mini is

It's called the Enough Phone, and it's an ambitious punt on the niggling notion that there's still genuine demand for small phones. And it really is quite small, at 5.3" high - nearly a full inch shorter than my Pixel 11 Pro XL and roughly on a par with the iPhone 12 Mini.

It's made it roughly halfway to its modest £186,000 funding goal so far, which suggests plenty of people are willing to punt at least $400 on a small phone, even from a startup they've never heard of.

And that's why I've got this theory, that consumer demand might start to shape smartphones of the future, and we might start to see smaller handsets making a comeback.

Given the rush to add a touch of retro to everything at the moment, taking a step back from the relentless increases in sizes of smartphones really could gather pace.

And when my little iPhone 12 Mini finally does cough its last, I'll be at the front of the queue to snap one up.