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MagyarThe Best Compact Smartphones
Smartphone with screens smaller than 5.5 inches were standard a short while ago, but devices with 6.3 inches or more are dominating the market right now. This is a a result of the popular aspect ratios 2:1, 19:9 or even 21:9. Then we have a new category of foldable smartphones, so devices with screens bigger than 7 inches will not be unusual in the near future.
Compact devices are still popular, so we want to present the best compact smartphones in the following ranking. The display size ist not as important as the actual size of the smartphone, so devices with a good screen-to-body ratio will benefit. The contenders must not surpass a length of 150 millimeters, but we will also sort out very bulky devices.
The following smartphone ranking might be interesting as well:
The Best Compact Smartphones
Pos. | Datum | Bew. | Bild | Modell | Länge | Dicke | Gewicht | SBR | Größe | Auflösung | OS | Preis ab |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 09/2019 | 88 % |  | Apple iPhone 11 Pro Apple A13 Bionic Apple A13 Bionic GPU 4 GB Memory, 256 GB NVMe | 144 | 8.1 mm | 188 g | 81 % | 5.80" | 2436x1125 | Apple iOS 13 | |
| 2 | 04/2020 Neu | 87 % |  | Huawei P40 HiSilicon Kirin 990 5G ARM Mali-G76 MP16 8 GB Memory, 128 GB | 148.9 | 8.5 mm | 175 g | 87 % | 6.10" | 2340x1080 | Android 10 | |
| 3 | 11/2019 Neu | 86 % |  | Google Pixel 4 Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Qualcomm Adreno 640 6 GB Memory, 64 GB UFS 2.1 | 147.1 | 8.2 mm | 162 g | 78 % | 5.70" | 2280x1080 | Android 10 | |
| 4 | 05/2020 | 85 % |  | Apple iPhone SE 2020 Apple A13 Bionic Apple A13 Bionic GPU 3 GB Memory, 128 GB NVMe | 138.4 | 7.3 mm | 148 g | 65 % | 4.70" | 1334x750 | Apple iOS 13 | |
| 5 | 10/2020 Neu | 84 % |  | Google Pixel 5 Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G Qualcomm Adreno 620 8 GB Memory, 128 GB UFS 2.1 | 144.7 | 8 mm | 151 g | 87 % | 6.00" | 2340x1080 | Android 11 | |
| 6 | 09/2020 Neu | 84 % |  | Google Pixel 4a Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G Qualcomm Adreno 618 6 GB Memory, 128 GB UFS 2.0 | 144 | 8.2 mm | 143 g | 83 % | 5.80" | 2340x1080 | Android 11 | |
| 7 | 03/2020 | 82 % |  | Samsung Galaxy Z Flip Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ / 855 Plus Qualcomm Adreno 640 8 GB Memory, 256 GB | 167.3 | 7.2 mm | 183 g | 82.5 % | 6.70" | 2636x1080 | Android 10 | |
| 8 | 04/2016 | 80 % |  | Apple iPhone SE Apple A9 Apple A9 / PowerVR GT7600 2 GB Memory, 64 GB eMMC | 123.8 | 7.6 mm | 113 g | 61 % | 4.00" | 1136x640 | Apple iOS 9 | |
| 9 | 06/2020 Neu | 79 % |  | Samsung Galaxy A41 Mediatek Helio P65 ARM Mali-G52 MP2 4 GB Memory, 64 GB eMMC | 149.9 | 7.9 mm | 152 g | 85 % | 6.10" | 2400x1080 | Android 10 | |
| 10 | 08/2020 Neu | 74 % |  | Huawei Y5p Mediatek Helio P22 MT6762 PowerVR GE8320 2 GB Memory, 32 GB eMMC | 146.5 | 8.35 mm | 144 g | 74 % | 5.45" | 1440x720 | Android 10 |
The table above contains an overview over the best compact smartphones reviewed by Notebookcheck over the course of the past 12 months as well as still relevant and available older products. In cases of identical score the more recent device is listed first. All prices in above table and price comparisons are updated daily and can thus differ.
Editors' Comments
This month, we tweaked the parameters for this list and raised the maximum allowed edge length to 150 mm, resulting in a purge of old smartphones and several new entries.
In addition, Apple’s new iPhone line-up contains a few interesting candidates for this list, and Google’s Pixel 4a 5G looks very promising as well.
1st - Apple iPhone 11 Pro
The Apple iPhone 11 Pro hardly changed compared to last year's model and is definitely the most compact high-end smartphone. It has a 5.8-inch OLED screen with 2436 x 1125 pixels. The fast SoC always ensures a responsive user experience. The storage cannot be expanded, so you have to choose between 64, 256 and 512 GB SKUs.
The new triple camera now includes an ultra wide-angle lens, which enables really great shots both for pictures and videos. The Apple smartphone once again offers an IP68 certification and supports wireless charging. The significantly increased battery capacity also enables excellent battery runtimes.
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2nd – Huawei P40
Who says everything needs to be “Pro”? The Huawei P40 is a compact flagship smartphone by Chinese OEM Huawei. Not only does it include top of the line high-end hardware, but it also comes at a surprisingly low price. Its 6.1-inch OLED display runs in FHD+ resolution, and the device is powered by a fast Kirin 990 SoC with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, the latter of which can be further expanded via NM card. The device supports modern communication standards, such as Wi-Fi 6 and 5G, and features a great triple-camera setup.
We liked the P40 a lot during our review but found its lack of wireless charging and its unexpectedly low IP rating lacking. Its biggest downside, however, is the complete lack of Google services.
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3rd – Google Pixel 4
The Google Pixel 4 feels great in hand and can be considered a compact smartphone despite its average display-to-body ratio. Its 5.7-inch OLED display supports a refresh rate of 90 Hz. The phone is powered by a Snapdragon 855, 6 GB of RAM, and either 64 or 128 GB of non-expandable internal storage. Its dual camera includes an additional 2x optical zoom and took decent photos.
The Pixel 4 also supports wireless charging, 3D face recognition, and comes with an IP68-certification. Even though the Pixel 4 was already a bit older at the time of writing it would still receive at least two more years of updates and offered a great system performance.
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4th – Apple iPhone SE2
Apple’s iPhone SE is based on the iPhone 8 and features the exact same case with identical footprint and somewhat antiquated display to body ratio. In return, its internal hardware is up to date as it features Apple’s fastest currently available SoC as well as numerous other noteworthy features, such as Wi-Fi 6, wireless charging, or an IP67 certification.
All in all Apple did a great job with the SE2, but it is not free of disappointments, namely the included power supply, the fairly limited single-lens camera, and its below average call quality.
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5th – Google Pixel 5
The Google Pixel 5 features a 6-inch large OLED display with a good display-to-body ratio. Unlike its predecessor it no longer has any high-end ambitions but rather a healthy focus on the premium mid-range market. It comes with 8 GB of RAM and 128 GB of non-expandable storage. Its plastic case feels great in hand and is IP68-certified against ingress of dust and water. Wireless charging remains supported, the dual camera now includes an extra ultra-wide angle lens, and it continues to take decent photos.
Unfortunately, the Pixel 5 lacks Wi-Fi 6 support and its speakers were actually worse than on its own predecessor.
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6th – Google Pixel 4a
The Google Pixel 4a's main benefits are its compact design and Google’s promise of long-time update support. However, those aren’t its only benefits by far. Its Snapdragon 730G with access to 6 GB of RAM makes for a snappy system performance. Its internal storage may not be user-expandable but at 128 GB it should be sufficiently large for most users. Uncommon for its price class are the support for fast USB 3.2 Gen. 1 speeds as well as a very good headphone jack.
In return, the Pixel 4a no longer supports face detection but comes with a traditional rear-mounted fingerprint reader instead.
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7th – Samsung Galaxy Z Flip
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip is a foldable phone inspired by the design of the folding phones of yore, and thus very compact when folded. It comes with a small Super AMOLED display on the outside that is used among other things to display notifications or control music playback. Unfolded it transforms into a 6.7-inch large smartphone powered by a Snapdragon 855+, 8 GB of RAM, and 256 GB of non-expandable internal storage.
In our review we praised the overall well-thought out concept, the great display, its good cameras, and plentiful connectivity. In return, call quality was mediocre at best.
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8th – Apple iPhone SE
With the iPhone SE, Apple has ventured to create a powerful new edition of the iPhone 5s and put the big iPhone's up-to-date hardware into an extremely compact case. The user does not have to accept compromises in performance or features here, since the iPhone SE also uses the powerful Apple A9-SoC.
Among others, the smartphone could impress with a high-end chassis, a great GPS receiver, good battery runtimes and a display with precise colors in our test. However, the latter has quite a high black value. Moreover, the NFC chip remains reserved for Apple Pay as in other Apple products.
The only disadvantage of the device is that there is only a 16 GB and a 64 GB variant.
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9th – Samsung Galaxy A41
The Samsung Galaxy A41 comes in a colorful and surprisingly lightweight plastic case housing a 6.1-inch Super AMOLED display running at FHD+ resolution. It is powered by a mid-range SoC made by MediaTek with access to 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal storage. The A41 supports storage expansion and can take two Nano SIM cards in addition to that single microSD card.
In our review we found that its triple-camera array took decent photos, and its battery life was acceptable as well. The A41 did not really have any noteworthy cons.
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10th – Huawei Y5p
The Huawei Y5p is a typical entry-level smartphone that managed to make this list. Its display is just 5.5-inches small, and its resolution is limited to HD. It is powered by a slow MediaTek SoC with access to just 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of user-expandable storage (microSD).
Despite its low price the Huawei Y5p’s display turned out to be very bright, and its battery life was very long as well. Downsides include poor system and camera performance. In addition, the Y5p also lacks all Google services.
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Top 10 in Comparison
Test Results
| Apple iPhone 11 Pro | Huawei P40 | Google Pixel 4 | Apple iPhone SE 2020 | Google Pixel 5 | Google Pixel 4a | Samsung Galaxy Z Flip | Apple iPhone SE | Samsung Galaxy A41 | Huawei Y5p | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Response Times | ||||||||||
| Response Time Grey 50% / Grey 80% * | 11.6 (3.6, 8) | 8 (3, 5) | 2.4 (1.2, 1.2) | 36.8 (9.2, 27.6) | 6.8 (3.6, 3.2) | 8.8 (4.4, 4.4) | 4.8 (2, 2.8) | 31 (17, 14) | 5.6 (2.8, 2.8) | 48 (25, 23) |
| Response Time Black / White * | 3.2 (2, 1.2) | 6 (3, 3) | 2.4 (1.2, 1.2) | 21.2 (6, 15.2) | 3.2 (1.6, 1.6) | 3.6 (2, 1.6) | 3.6 (2, 1.2) | 22 (11, 11) | 3.2 (2, 1.2) | 24 (9, 13) |
| PWM Frequency | 290.7 (99) | 245 | 367.6 | 367.6 (99) | 255.1 (99) | 245.1 (99) | 245.1 (99) | 66.67 (10) | ||
| Screen | ||||||||||
| Brightness middle | 787 | 583 | 554 | 688 | 635 | 705 | 705 | 603 | 554 | 515 |
| Brightness | 793 | 593 | 550 | 659 | 636 | 707 | 709 | 579 | 559 | 502 |
| Brightness Distribution | 98 | 94 | 94 | 92 | 97 | 96 | 97 | 93 | 92 | 89 |
| Black Level * | 0.28 | 0.88 | 0.17 | |||||||
| Colorchecker DeltaE2000 * | 1.2 | 3.03 | 0.8 | 1 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 3.1 | 1.8 | 2 | 5.85 |
| Colorchecker DeltaE2000 max. * | 2.6 | 5.33 | 1.4 | 2.2 | 2.2 | 1.9 | 5.4 | 3.5 | 7.7 | 12.84 |
| Greyscale DeltaE2000 * | 1.5 | 2 | 1.3 | 1.7 | 1.7 | 1.3 | 2.7 | 2.3 | 1.6 | 7.4 |
| Gamma | 2.2 100% | 2.301 96% | 2.22 99% | 2.25 98% | 2.23 99% | 2.26 97% | 2.11 104% | 2.21 100% | 2.11 104% | 2.331 94% |
| CCT | 6339 103% | 6621 98% | 6213 105% | 6790 96% | 6492 100% | 6576 99% | 6264 104% | 6955 93% | 6589 99% | 8473 77% |
| Contrast | 2457 | 685 | 3029 | |||||||
| Color Space (Percent of AdobeRGB 1998) | 62.13 | |||||||||
| Color Space (Percent of sRGB) | 96.74 | |||||||||
| Heat | ||||||||||
| Maximum Upper Side * | 38.8 | 39.9 | 35.5 | 40.5 | 33.6 | 38.2 | 38.8 | 44.2 | 36.6 | 39.3 |
| Maximum Bottom * | 42.2 | 41.3 | 34.5 | 41.4 | 35.5 | 37.1 | 35.8 | 42.8 | 37.7 | 38.6 |
| Idle Upper Side * | 34.6 | 31.5 | 27.2 | 36 | 28 | 27 | 27.7 | 30.9 | 26.2 | 27 |
| Idle Bottom * | 32.2 | 30.8 | 26.9 | 31.4 | 26.4 | 26.4 | 27.3 | 26.8 | 26.1 | 27.9 |
| Battery Runtime | ||||||||||
| Reader / Idle | 2084 | 2063 | 1007 | 1938 | 2245 | 2270 | 1741 | 1274 | 1843 | |
| H.264 | 1046 | 1052 | 617 | 681 | 1466 | 1045 | 527 | 759 | 998 | |
| WiFi v1.3 | 791 | 806 | 460 | 694 | 808 | 669 | 647 | 673 | 650 | 812 |
| Load | 336 | 236 | 185 | 143 | 333 | 225 | 157 | 207 | 268 | |
| Power Consumption | ||||||||||
| Idle Minimum * | 0.58 | 1 | 1.01 | 0.44 | 0.69 | 0.49 | 0.59 | 0.54 | 0.96 | |
| Idle Average * | 1.99 | 1.9 | 1.63 | 1.56 | 0.82 | 0.96 | 0.88 | 1.26 | 1.57 | |
| Idle Maximum * | 2.03 | 2.4 | 1.69 | 1.63 | 0.85 | 1 | 0.95 | 1.4 | 1.61 | |
| Load Average * | 3.13 | 3.5 | 4.67 | 2.32 | 2.73 | 3.11 | 4.97 | 2.45 | 2.93 | |
| Load Maximum * | 5.43 | 6.9 | 8.78 | 4.12 | 4.4 | 5.23 | 8.37 | 6.46 | 4.97 |
* ... smaller is better
Benchmarks
| PCMark for Android - Work 2.0 performance score (sort by value) | |
| Huawei P40 | |
| Google Pixel 4 | |
| Google Pixel 5 | |
| Google Pixel 4a | |
| Samsung Galaxy Z Flip | |
| Samsung Galaxy A41 | |
| Huawei Y5p | |
| GFXBench (DX / GLBenchmark) 2.7 | |
| 1920x1080 T-Rex HD Offscreen C24Z16 (sort by value) | |
| Apple iPhone 11 Pro | |
| Huawei P40 | |
| Google Pixel 4 | |
| Apple iPhone SE 2020 | |
| Google Pixel 5 | |
| Google Pixel 4a | |
| Samsung Galaxy Z Flip | |
| Apple iPhone SE | |
| Samsung Galaxy A41 | |
| T-Rex HD Onscreen C24Z16 (sort by value) | |
| Apple iPhone 11 Pro | |
| Huawei P40 | |
| Google Pixel 4 | |
| Apple iPhone SE 2020 | |
| Google Pixel 5 | |
| Google Pixel 4a | |
| Samsung Galaxy Z Flip | |
| Apple iPhone SE | |
| Samsung Galaxy A41 | |
| AnTuTu v8 - Total Score (sort by value) | |
| Apple iPhone 11 Pro | |
| Huawei P40 | |
| Google Pixel 4 | |
| Apple iPhone SE 2020 | |
| Google Pixel 5 | |
| Google Pixel 4a | |
| Samsung Galaxy Z Flip | |
| Samsung Galaxy A41 | |
| 3DMark | |
| 2560x1440 Sling Shot Extreme (ES 3.1) Physics (sort by value) | |
| Apple iPhone 11 Pro | |
| Huawei P40 | |
| Google Pixel 4 | |
| Apple iPhone SE 2020 | |
| Google Pixel 5 | |
| Google Pixel 4a | |
| Samsung Galaxy Z Flip | |
| Apple iPhone SE | |
| Samsung Galaxy A41 | |
| Huawei Y5p | |
| 2560x1440 Sling Shot Extreme (ES 3.1) Graphics (sort by value) | |
| Apple iPhone 11 Pro | |
| Huawei P40 | |
| Google Pixel 4 | |
| Apple iPhone SE 2020 | |
| Google Pixel 5 | |
| Google Pixel 4a | |
| Samsung Galaxy Z Flip | |
| Apple iPhone SE | |
| Samsung Galaxy A41 | |
| Huawei Y5p | |
| 2560x1440 Sling Shot Extreme (ES 3.1) (sort by value) | |
| Apple iPhone 11 Pro | |
| Huawei P40 | |
| Google Pixel 4 | |
| Apple iPhone SE 2020 | |
| Google Pixel 5 | |
| Google Pixel 4a | |
| Samsung Galaxy Z Flip | |
| Apple iPhone SE | |
| Samsung Galaxy A41 | |
| Huawei Y5p | |
| WebXPRT 3 - --- (sort by value) | |
| Apple iPhone 11 Pro | |
| Huawei P40 | |
| Google Pixel 4 | |
| Apple iPhone SE 2020 | |
| Google Pixel 5 | |
| Google Pixel 4a | |
| Samsung Galaxy Z Flip | |
| Samsung Galaxy A41 | |
| Networking | |
| iperf3 Client (receive) TCP 1 m 4M x10 (sort by value) | |
| Apple iPhone 11 Pro | |
| Apple iPhone 11 Pro | |
| Huawei P40 | |
| Google Pixel 4 | |
| Apple iPhone SE 2020 | |
| Google Pixel 5 | |
| Google Pixel 4a | |
| Samsung Galaxy Z Flip | |
| Samsung Galaxy A41 | |
| Huawei Y5p | |
| iperf3 Client (transmit) TCP 1 m 4M x10 (sort by value) | |
| Apple iPhone 11 Pro | |
| Apple iPhone 11 Pro | |
| Huawei P40 | |
| Google Pixel 4 | |
| Apple iPhone SE 2020 | |
| Google Pixel 5 | |
| Google Pixel 4a | |
| Samsung Galaxy Z Flip | |
| Samsung Galaxy A41 | |
| Huawei Y5p | |
