Pebble Might Be Working on Keeping Pocket-Sized Android Smartphones Alive via a Community Project: Report

Small smartphones have become a rare sight in today's world where smartphone displays are getting bigger every year. However, a certain section of purists maintain that they would prefer to have compact smartphones that fit in the palm of their hands. Apple was the last major smartphone manufacturer to release small-sized smartphones through the iPhone mini, which was discontinued after the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini. Smartwatch manufacturing company, Pebble, is now reportedly planning to fill the void left by Apple, through a pocket-sized Android smartphone.

Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky, had launched a campaign called The Small Android Phone project in May 2022, as a plea to rally consumers to put pressure on smartphone manufacturing giants such as Google, and Samsung to consider making small yet premium smartphones.

Almost a year after his plea, Eric Migicovsky's Small Android Phone petition has reportedly evolved into a “community-based project”, which involves a team working on designing and producing the compact smartphone that he and other ardent supporters and fans of compact smartphones want. The petition has received 38,700 signatures to date, according to a report by The Verge.

The community project is reportedly progressing through a Discord channel, where discussions and planning around efforts around sourcing a display, choosing a chip, and designing the body of the compact pocket-sized smartphone are taking place. The conversations also apparently involve plans on financing the project to production reality, as per the report.

The Small Android Phone project's team involves, amongst others, Pebble smartwatch alumni — Chris Hendel, project manager at Pebble and MongoDB; Alex De Stasio, industrial design worker at GoPro; and Susan Holcomb, a data scientist turned writer.

In a YouTube video, De Stasio had revealed sketches of how the small Android smartphone could look like. The video claimed that the smartphone developed by the project will obviously be small, while also featuring a distinctive camera. The camera bump in his opinion "has a huge impact on the visual icon of the phone," and therefore, he intends to "make sure it's very uniquely recognisable and very iconic."

In terms of camera specifications, Bryant has reportedly withdrawn his support from loading megapixel-heavy camera sensors onto smartphones, and instead focus on software advancements that allow for well-processed imagery. He claims that although the team has options of working with a few Chinese developers and individuals who have worked on RAW camera apps for other phones, it would ultimately prefer to produce its own image-capturing and processing software.

The team has reportedly not decided on what the small android smartphone will be made of, with a metal frame covered in glass composite and a ceramic-coated aluminium body being considered as options. The team also mentioned forged carbon, bio-resin, and ceramic composites as materials that are being mooted as possible options as well.

The small smartphone currently remains unnamed. However, it has internally been codenamed Marvin, as per the report. However, options for names have been mentioned with the list including - Pico, Pip, Howdy, Atlas, and even bringing back the Pebble brand name itself.

In terms of the chipset powering the small Android smartphone, the team is reportedly considering Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 SoC and a yet-to-be-released mid-tier Qualcomm chip, as of now. The team also intends to guarantee at least two years of software updates to the small android smartphone. The premium smartphone could be priced at around $850 (roughly Rs. 70,000)

The Small Android Phone project also invites small phone enthusiasts to give feedback at every step of the process of developing a small Android smartphone.