Pebble could return as a small Android phone

In today’s world, where smartphone screens are getting bigger and bigger every year, small cell phones are becoming increasingly unusual. Some purists, though, insist that they would rather have little cell phones that fit in the palm of their hands.

Pebble, a maker of smartwatches, is apparently preparing a pocket-sized Android smartphone to fill the hole left by Apple. After the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini, Apple was the last major smartphone maker to offer a small-sized smartphone with the iPhone mini.

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The Small Android Phone project was started by Eric Migicovsky, the founder of Pebble, in May 2022 as a call to action for customers to urge smartphone manufacturing giants like Google and Samsung to consider producing small yet high-end smartphones.

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Eric Migicovsky’s Tiny Android Phone petition apparently changed into a “community-based project” over a year after he launched it. This project reportedly entails a team working on creating the compact smartphone that he and other fervent advocates and enthusiasts of compact smartphones demand. As of now, 38,700 people have signed the petition, according to a report.

According to reports, the community initiative is moving forward via a Discord channel, where conversations and planning regarding efforts surrounding sourcing a display, picking a chip, and designing the body of the little pocket-sized smartphone are taking place. According to the newspaper, discussions also reportedly centre on how to finance the project’s realization. Among the team members working on the Little Android Phone project are former Pebble wristwatch employees Chris Hendel, project manager at Pebble and MongoDB, Alex De Stasio, an industrial designer at GoPro, and Susan Holcomb, a data scientist turned writer.

De Stasio had shown concept art for the mini Android smartphone in a YouTube video. The smartphone created by the initiative, according to the video, will undoubtedly be compact and have a unique camera. As a result, he plans to “make sure it’s really distinctively recognized and very iconic” because, in his opinion, the camera hump “has a significant impact on the visual symbol of the phone.”

According to reports, Bryant has removed his support for putting megapixel-rich camera sensors on smartphones in favor of software developments that enable high-quality image processing. He asserts that despite the possibility of working with a small number of Chinese developers and specialists who have created RAW camera apps for other phones, the team ultimately prefers to develop its own image-capturing and processing software.

According to reports, the development team is still debating between an aluminum shell with a ceramic coating and a metal frame covered in glass composite for the little Android smartphone. Forged carbon, bio-resin, and ceramic composites were also listed by the researchers as materials that are being considered as potential alternatives. The name of the compact smartphone is yet unknown. Its internal designation, according to the article, is Marvin. Pico, Pip, Howdy, Atlas, and even trying to recreate the Pebble brand name itself are among the suggested names that have been floated.

The Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 SoC and a future mid-tier Qualcomm chip are apparently being considered by the development team as the chipsets for the little Android smartphone. The company also plans to guarantee the little Android smartphone software updates for at least two years. The price for a high-end smartphone could be approximately ₹70,000. The Small Android Phone project also asks fans of small phones to provide input at each stage of creating a small Android.