The S23 and S24 are solid phones at a regular size. So Samsung already do normal sized flagships. It’s the mid-low range that is lacking, they are all oversized in that price range, so people don’t have much choice but to buy an oversized phone.
Yeah they’re regular sized, you could consider the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro as regular sized as well. I think they could probably do a smaller phone about the size of the iPhone 12/13 mini as well if they wanted to. However I’m not sure if they’ll do it since the S22 is their smallest phones since the S10e and they haven’t gone smaller than that unless you go all the way back to the S4 (which itself has a similar width to the S10e). I understand why they wouldn’t do it because it seems the people who want an iPhone 5S to iPhone mini sized phone are extremely vocal but that doesn’t seem to translate to numbers in real life.
People would probably buy smaller phones if given the correct choices, I think the iPhone 15 size is good yeah. iPhone is often a fashion statement, so people usually want the highest end they can get and manufacturers tend to put more features in their bigger more expensive models.
There’s no options in the mid-range for smaller phones, most are over 6.5 inches. So people are forced into buying them, there’s definitely a large market for small phones, but manufacturers force them into larger models. I suspect they are easier/cheaper to make, so that’s what we get. Also bigger numbers = better right, so they’d rather crank the marketing on battery, screen etc.
I don’t think they’re going to be able to put the same cameras on a smaller phone, especially if you look at something like the Xiaomi 14 Ultra or the Oppo Find X7 Ultra. The sensors are massive and require a lot of space. You may be able to fit two of those sensors on a 6.1 inch phone without compromising on other things like the battery, haptics, antennae for example. They could probably fit a bigger battery by making the phone thicker but it seems like manufacturers like a uniform thickness for most of their models or somewhere thereabouts probably because it’s easier to machine the frame.