I just got a new Pixel 7a a few days ago. I specifically got that one to get the smallest of the bunch. It’s advertised as the smallest (and cheaper) model, phone size comparisons showed it to be indeed smaller than most competing devices and it’s even listed in some “best small phones” lists.
Now it’s here and it’s massive. If I keep the pinkie below the phone, I literally can’t reach the top of the screen at all, which is the entire notification bar - and my fingers are long! It’s annoying me to the point of being just about to return it to get something like the s22 or s23, just to save those 6mm of height - which is ridiculous, as it’d end up costing me a hundred bucks extra and I won’t get the free buds pro. I’ve been using Android since the G1 and outright refused to even consider anything else over years… But now I’m thinking about the iPhones 13 mini and se, just because I’m able to use them with one hand.
I want to like this device. So, could you people please tell me if I’m… Dunno, just doing it wrong? Like, not getting it or something? How do you pull down the notification bar in apps with one hand? How do you post those top-left buttons to close your current view? Enlighten me, please!
/edit Just in case anybody still sees this: I returned it. Went back to my s10e, which is eol and needs a charge in the afternoon, which is still annoying me less than that massive piece of hardware.
I have a Samsung S10+ (I dunno what I’m doing here). I just measured my thumb to pinky distance when doing a hang ten gesture, and it’s about 20cm/8 inches. My phone is about 1/2cm taller than yours. I can reach the notification bar and pull it down one handed, but I think there’s a bit of technique to it. If you describe your fingers as long, maybe you need better technique?
That’s what she said?
Jones aside, as I said, I tend to rest the phone on my pinkie. That way, I don’t need to “grab” it but it just kinda lays in my hand. This way, I can’t also comfortably reach the bottom buttons, which gets annoying if I hold the phone more in its middle by simply grabbing it.
So, maybe the point is not to get a phone that lets me reach the notification bar one handedly (which also works on the 7a, yes) but that this phone doesn’t allow me to reach the whole screen, top to bottom, without adjusting how I hold it.
Yeah, I can reach top to bottom but it involves balancing the phone on the end of my pinkie and maneuvering it. It comes naturally now, but it was probably an issue when I got it. It’s been a couple of years so I can’t remember now.
Shorter phones really are few and far between, but they do exist. Here’s a search that shows any 140mm or shorter, released in the past couple of years and still available: https://www.gsmarena.com/results.php3?nYearMin=2021&nHeightMax=140&sAvailabilities=1&sFormFactors=1,2,3,4,6,10,11&sOSes=2
The Pixel 7a is 152mm tall, this search shows anything 140mm tall or shorter. So phones about half an inch shorter than the Pixel 7a (not screen size, but the actual height of the phone top to bottom). There’s nothing in that list that stands out as one often recommended, popular phones are all big these days.