Greentext

First, it depends on what you consider small. Second, a big problem with the premium phone segment is their obsession with the idea of thin. Like your phone should be a piece of paper in your hand kind of thin. Obviously that's extreme and impractical but it seems like their objective... To reduce the thickness of the device to it's minimum.

I don't really care about how thick my device is, as long as it does the job and isn't unreasonably thick (like, an inch thick), I couldn't really care any less.

Premium "small phones" (examples that come to mind are things like the pixel 8, Samsung S23, and the non max/xl/whatever iPhone, to name a few) are still rather large... Often with screen sizes around or larger than 6". To go smaller, you would need to go for their cut rate phones, like the pixel 7a or iPhone SE. The only standout is the iPhone SE with a 4.7" display, the pixel 7a is 6.1". Samsung is also 6.1". These phones often have concessions that make them unappealing to me. Whether it's a lack of memory or missing sensors, or software cuts.... Whatever it is, it's there. On top of that, you need to also accept the 6"+ screen on these devices which is the main problem. I was happy with the Nexus 5 screen, or the 5X, or even the pixel 1... At 4.95" for the Nexus 5, and 5.2" for the 5X, and 5" for the pixel. To me, this is more optimal. I'm solidly an Android user and I'm pretty firmly in the pixel ecosystem, so I'm forced to accept 6" to 6.2" screens.

I'm currently using a pixel 7, and while I've accepted that this is what I must work with, I'm displeased overall with the screen.

Yes, there are cheap/budget phones that have utterly monstrous screens and phablet designs, usually using last-gen CPUs and the bare minimum of RAM; but I'm not talking about that stuff, the budget segment is wild and completely unpredictable. The cuts to CPU and RAM alone are enough for me to walk away. Unless I want to go for a small manufacturer that may not support me in my region (much, if at all - for which, updates are critically important to me, so I wouldn't), I'm pretty stuck. I went with the pixel because it's not monstrous, and it gets updates before most others, usually all others. The concessions I need to make about the screen are less important to me right now than having all the features and support I desire from my device.

As I see it, my only real option right now is to abandon Android and go with a very recent/modern, iPhone SE or mini. It's the only way I would have a screen that's less than 6". This is not desirable for me because I have usage issues with iPhone. Which isn't to say the iPhone is a bad product, it's just not the product for me.