I bought my second compact phone in 2024 after waiting for almost a decade. It was the Samsung Galaxy S23, and I was too excited to unbox it. The Galaxy S23 looked gorgeous and felt lovely in the hand. For a few weeks, I was thrilled with the design and the compact form factor.
However, within a month, I knew I had made a mistake. Fast forward to 2026, and my view has only become stronger: a compact phone is a lovely idea, but it falls apart the moment you start depending on it.
My Fascination with Compact Phones Started a Decade Ago
I fell in love with compact phones in 2015 with the OnePlus X. I bought a second-hand OnePlus X and made it my daily driver. It was a 5-inch phone with a glass front and back, wrapped in an aluminium frame, and it looked quite premium.
There was something magical about the phone's design and how it looked. You could hold the whole thing in one hand, reach every corner of the screen and marvel at its sleek glass design. A phone that small and that pretty was a style statement in itself.
But there was a problem. On mobile data, my OnePlus X would turn into a toaster, heating up in my hand while doing anything demanding. At that time, I blamed the heating problem on the Snapdragon 801, which was an old 28nm chip. And I also blamed the glass and metal body, which was trapping all that heat.
So I told myself the problem was the poor chip and materials, not the size of the phone. A modern compact phone with an efficient new chip would not have these issues. After a few months, I moved on to the Mi A1 (for the tele lens) for a brief period and then enjoyed using the OnePlus 7T for four years.
When my OnePlus 7T showed its age, I went looking for a compact phone once again. And that old assumption, that a modern chip in a better body would perform efficiently, pulled me towards the Samsung Galaxy S23 in 2024. On paper, it was everything I wanted: a flagship Snapdragon chip and a 6.1-inch body that actually fits in one hand, with a clean glass and metal build. Then I started using it, and the old problems came rushing back.
A Flagship Chip with Nowhere to Breathe
After using my Galaxy S23 for nearly two years, I realised the fundamental issue with compact phones. A small chassis leaves almost no room for a big battery and even less room to dissipate heat away from the chip. You can go ahead and fit the most efficient processor inside, but the body around it can't keep it cool under heavy tasks. The result is a phone that starts to fight its own hardware and that triggers thermal throttling.
I run into this problem every single day. The moment I am on a video call and try to do anything else, like web browsing or using another app, the Galaxy S23 starts to stutter heavily. And if you are on mobile data, the phone heats up, the battery starts to drain quickly and performance drops off sharply. On weak 5G signals, the phone's battery is basically in free fall.
For as long as I have owned the Galaxy S23, I have had to charge it multiple times a day just to make it through. Such is the battery situation. On top of that, Indian summers are punishing, and in that kind of ambient heat, a compact phone has even less room to operate without thermal throttling. I just step out on mobile data, and the Galaxy S23 becomes uncomfortably warm within minutes, and the battery starts to drop even faster.
What makes this worse is that my old phone with an ageing chipset didn't struggle with any of these things. As I mentioned above, before the S23, I used the OnePlus 7T for four years, and it handled video calls, web browsing, simultaneous apps and mobile data all at once without any fuss.
That phone was powered by the Snapdragon 855+, a chip four generations older than the Galaxy S23's Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Basically, the OnePlus 7T had room to breathe, but my compact Galaxy S23 doesn't. This is the part that took me the longest to accept.
It's not about Samsung's Galaxy S23 or a bad chip but a fundamental constraint of the form factor. If you shrink the body, the battery and the cooling system also shrink with it. And it's not just limited to small phones, but slim phones also face the same issue.
My Galaxy S23's Battery Stats
The battery stats make the case better than I can. On a normal day, my Galaxy S23 consumed 95% of its charge in 8 hours and 30 minutes, with just 4 hours and 22 minutes of screen-on time. I think for a flagship phone, that is a poor result. Some of that went to voice calls and about an hour on 5G with a weak signal, while the rest of the day was spent on Wi-Fi.
Calls alone consumed 14.5% of the battery drain, with Instagram, WhatsApp and X being on top. I also ran Samsung's own diagnostics tool in the Samsung Members app, and the battery status reads 'Normal'. The battery life is also rated 'Good' and shows a typical capacity of 3,900mAh, which is its original capacity.
In other words, my phone has a healthy battery, but due to the compact phone factor, the phone struggles to deliver fast performance the moment you do anything demanding. Thermal throttling is one of the major constraints you have to deal with on small phones.
The World Already Voted Against Compact Phones
For most of the last decade, compact phones were slowly phased out. Consumers wanted big screens and bigger batteries for video streaming and games, so small phones faded from the market.
Apple did try to revive the small flagship with the iPhone 12 mini in 2020 and the iPhone 13 mini in 2021, but both did poorly in sales. Taking the cue, Apple discontinued the mini lineup in 2023. Even the small iPhone SE was replaced with the iPhone 16e, featuring a larger 6.1-inch body.
Android makers also went the same way. Asus spent three generations, including the Zenfone 8, 9 and 10, building the best compact flagships on the market. However, in 2024, Asus gave up too and replaced the Zenfone 10 with the larger Zenfone 11 Ultra.
Reviewers were quite blunt about why compact phones are hard to execute: a smaller battery means less battery life, and a smaller body impacts sustained performance. That is the exact problem I have experienced on my S23.
And as I said above, it's not only about small phones. It's the same problem with slim phones too. Apple's iPhone Air is large but ultra-thin, yet it makes the same concession of a slim body at the cost of a bigger battery and proper cooling system. Buyers rejected it, and Apple reportedly cut production by more than 80% within weeks of launch.
Samsung was also hit with the same problem with the Galaxy S25 Edge, which only sold around 1.3 million units against 8.28 million for the regular Galaxy S25. Samsung has now cancelled the S26 Edge. To sum up, whether it's small or slim, the moment you constrain the body, the battery and the thermals pay for it.
A Compact Phone Can't Be Your Dependable Daily Driver
All of this leads to a major problem, and that is dependability. A phone you use daily has to last the day without you thinking about it, and a compact phone simply can't promise that.
The problem becomes worse when you travel. On mobile data when the modem is fighting for signal, a compact phone with high brightness drains fast and gets warm. You spend the day with battery anxiety and keep looking for the next power outlet. This constant worry is the opposite of what a dependable phone should be.
To be frank, I work as a tech journalist and spend a good part of my day at my desk, so my Galaxy S23 is almost always plugged into a charger. That is the only reason it works for me. It might not work for people who step out and travel frequently.
For close to a decade, I wanted to own a perfect compact phone, but all my expectations came crashing down within weeks. Sure, the phone is lovely to look at and hold, but that is where the love story ends. To sum up, a compact phone can be your secondary phone – a showpiece item that you can look at and adore – but as a primary phone, it will let you down. As for myself, I am not buying a compact phone again.
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