The problem with “niche” phones like small phones, phones with headphone jacks, phones with keyboards, etc is that most of the people who claim they want one end up not buying one because of such and such feature being missing or so and so phone being better.
Asus and Sony have been making smaller phones for years but they’ve never achieved any sort of success. Iirc Sony makes a small phone with a headphone jack, which should be flying off shelves if these types of threads are to be believed.
The excuse is always “well Asus and Sony” have relatively little retail presence. Sure, that’d true, but any startup niche phone seller would be doing very well to have an Asus or Sony level distribution and retail network in the first couple of generations. And that’s setting aside Apple being omnipresent in retail and yet still failing to sell enough small phones.
Asus had the issues of short software support and locked bootloader.
This is exactly what I mean. Locked boot loader is an issue for like 0.01% of the phone buying public and yet people who want niche phones will refuse to buy a phone over it.
There’s no economic case for catering to the niche phone market because most people in it are just far too picky.
The problem with “niche” phones like small phones, phones with headphone jacks, phones with keyboards, etc is that most of the people who claim they want one end up not buying one because of such and such feature being missing or so and so phone being better.
Asus and Sony have been making smaller phones for years but they’ve never achieved any sort of success. Iirc Sony makes a small phone with a headphone jack, which should be flying off shelves if these types of threads are to be believed.
The excuse is always “well Asus and Sony” have relatively little retail presence. Sure, that’d true, but any startup niche phone seller would be doing very well to have an Asus or Sony level distribution and retail network in the first couple of generations. And that’s setting aside Apple being omnipresent in retail and yet still failing to sell enough small phones.
Sony prices are very high for what they sell.
Asus had the issues of short software support and locked bootloader.
I see where you come from, but those issues were there
This is exactly what I mean. Locked boot loader is an issue for like 0.01% of the phone buying public and yet people who want niche phones will refuse to buy a phone over it.
There’s no economic case for catering to the niche phone market because most people in it are just far too picky.