Despite the name, the Droid Mini doesn’t look like a shrunken version of either the Droid Maxx or Ultra. The 0.34-inch-thick body is just a tad too chunky for the 4.81 by 2.41-inch body, making the Mini look almost like a plumper stepchild, or as if the battery has exploded. It has the same face as its family members, but a slightly disproportionate body. The back and sides have a subtle black and gray cross-stitched design that can only be seen at certain angles, and there’s a seam that runs around the sides and onto the front of the device that almost makes the Mini look like it might slide open and reveal a keyboard. (It doesn’t.)

Miniature phones do have one striking advantage over their larger counterparts: it’s a lot easier to create a beautiful and pixel-dense display. 720p is a high enough resolution on a 4.3-inch screen that individual pixels can’t be seen with normal use (we saw the same thing on the HTC One mini), and the Droid Mini’s screen looks great. Also, rather than sticking with an AMOLED display, like the Ultra, Maxx, and Moto X, the Mini uses a TFT LCD panel. It’s not quite as battery-friendly as AMOLED, but it looks much better.

The strange thing about the Droid Mini is that Motorola clearly knows how to make small phones, or even big phones that feel small. The Moto X is one of the most comfortable phones we’ve used, even with a larger 4.7-inch screen; if Motorola could apply that engineering and design to an even smaller device it could be just right.

The spec war may be slowing down, but it's not over yet

The Moto X also does smaller phones a favor by emphasizing user experience rather than just touting the newest and fastest version of every component — maybe we don’t need bleeding-edge specs after all, it seems to say. But the Moto X is still mostly an experiment, and Motorola has maintained the traditional line of marketing with the three new Droid phones. By the Droid standard and most others, the Droid Mini is firmly second-class.

Much to my dismay, Avi Greengart doesn’t think focusing on a smaller phone is ever going to be worth the effort for a manufacturer. “It’s difficult to hold back from putting your best effort into the largest smartphone in your product line,” he says. “There’s no way to win the specs war with a smaller product, so why try?”

“There’s no way to win the specs war with a smaller product, so why try?”

We’re left with “miniature” phones in a catch-22. Manufacturers are discouraged from creating a smaller flagship phone because they’ll sell poorly next to big, powerful devices — and consumers are discouraged by the limited specs and design compromises. We’ll continue in this loop until companies drop the “mini” and just release a great smaller phone.