Display size creep has been an ever present phenomena when it comes to Android smartphones. Manufacturers reserve their best spec-sheets for the biggest phones, which is something we’ve never truly understood. Given that most people still remember the phones of yester-year, which were arguably more ergonomic and certainly had better battery lives, we’re sure there is a market for ‘hero’ phones in a friendlier form factor.
Case in point, look at the Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini which has a lower resolution display than the Galaxy S4 (qHD versus FHD), sports a dual-core processor versus the quad-core in the S4 and an 8MP camera (the S4 has 13MP). HTC is expected to do something similar, gimping the HTC One Mini with lesser specs versus the HTC One.
We would absolutely love to see a smaller phone (say 4-inches) with flagship features, however we don’t think there are any manufacturers brave enough to do this (including Sony). Cannibalisation is surely a big factor behind this.
This is why we take VR-Zone’s latest report with some scepticism. They are reporting that Sony is planning a ‘mini’ version of the upcoming Honami flagship. However, unlike the Galaxy S4 Mini and HTC One Mini, the smaller Honami will not be a diluted version of its bigger brother. VR-Zone reports that it will even come with the same Qualcomm 800 quad-core chipset.
We’ll wait to see what Sony has in store for us, but even if this Honami Mini doesn’t turn out to be true, we would love to see a brand new successor to the Xperia ray or Xperia SX. Great small phones and probably some of our favourites from the Xperia stable. September 4th can’t come soon enough.
Thanks DetmL, Domino, Preetam and ToharLalua!
