I love my iPhone 12 Mini, and I was really disappointed when I found out the mini line is likely being dropped with the next generation (It's almost certain)
Being very honest, I think the original iPhone was the right size - through the iPhone 4. I appreciate that people wanted larger screens, and larger screens accommodate larger batteries, but I think the 3.5" screen of the early iPhones made for a great size.
Interestingly, the iPhone 4 is physically not much smaller than the iPhone 12 mini, but has a significant screen size bump. I was curious about this because my old Droid Eris had a 3.2" screen and I was curious how it physically measured up overall. It was slightly smaller than the iPhone 4. The idea that I have something, now, that is not that much bigger, but with so much more screen is super interesting because I had wanted to go back down to something small like that, and this is likely as close as I'll realistically get, and it's not that bad!
My suspicion is, based on various bits of info I've seen, iPhone 14 won't see a mini and the next SE will be based on the current mini. They have been upgrading the SoC in the SE but not the camera nor the screen, and I bet they want to get that bumped up to something more modern. So this form factor/size may not be all that lost. Here's hoping, anyway.
Being very honest, I think the original iPhone was the right size - through the iPhone 4. I appreciate that people wanted larger screens, and larger screens accommodate larger batteries, but I think the 3.5" screen of the early iPhones made for a great size.
Oh well.