Thoughts have been put into words. AMEN
The plea is concise, elegant, well written. Maybe a bit unreasonable…

See https://smallandroidphone.com/ for more details.

After posting this page, the owner of the website updated the “Must Have” specifications. I don’t agree specifically with the additions. I’ve even written about the same topic before. Let’s discuss the details from my perspective.

Hole punch front camera

Why specifically a hole punch?
I imagine this feature introduces the challenge of sourcing the right display, compensating for leaking light, accepting that pixels around the cutout could be discolored. The upside is more pixels to display content, not worth it in my opinion that’s additional development cost.
This also closes the option to have front-side face detection, proximity, light sensors. I’d rather have a simpler design with more/better components.

2 rear cameras (regular and wide angle)

My camera knowledge is limited. I do know that a wide angle camera doesn’t necessarilly improve your picture quality. Being able to zoom out further (or in) is a gimmick, an actual better picture requires bigger sensors. But! smart software has been written before, the point is to operate both sensors simultanuously to improve image quality. This software could be provided with the phone to reach a solid middle ground?

8gb RAM

This amount is high, very high for a phone runtime. Since this is the “Must Have” category I’d say 4gb, but more is ofcourse no problem.

128/256gb Storage

I take the same position towards this amount as towards RAM. 128gb is a lot for a phone runtime.

The biggest challenge we must overcome, kinda the elephant in the room that isn’t mentioned on the webpage, is sourcing good and cheap materials. The reality is that buying cheap is only possible for commodity; this implies we have to buy what everyone else buys. Phone components do not excape this reality either.
I suppose the mentioned “Must Have” specifications are an attempt to increase the similarity between our special (niche) smartphone and mainstream ones. Cut-out camera’s and absurd amounts of NAND flash are “the standard now”.

So I understand the intention, but I don’t agree on principle. We have to make concessions in some way to get this movement lead to a physical product in the end. In my opinion, removing “Must Have” specifications would be better than trying to conform to mainstream specifications. It’s the more flexible approach.
Mainstream smartphone manufacturers sell at 3 to 7 times the cost of the hardware itself, and they could have gotten special deals. Exactly pinpointing which chip capacity or camera module has the best quality/price ration is hard and strongly depends on purchased volume and business relations.

So let’s not push ourselves into a corner here, and drop those franken-numbers from our “Must Have” specifications list. This whole ordeal got traction because the screen dimensions got too big; that 6inch is also a franken-number.
Don’t lose sight of what is important, a smaller device mid-tier features at a solid price.

And no I would not pay 700$ for that list of “Must Have” requirements. Naïve me would add Wireless Charging and Physical Mute switch to the list of “Must Have” specifications before even considering, but thinking that way will only decrease the probability of anyone picking up this project.
Let’s first see what can be built with a pricing target between 300$ and 400$.

I publish immediately for peace of mind. I regularly revisit my content to look for opportunities to improve.

“Isn’t it time to wash your car? NO man! The rain washes it for me!” - Bad idea factory