My phone has some existential problems. It’s nearly out of storage, the battery lasts half a day, and every so often, when it thinks a little too hard, it heats up like a brick fresh from the kiln.

I should probably get a new phone, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Not until the experience of using my iPhone 13 mini becomes so miserable that I have no other choice but to trade it in for a bigger, better model.

I’m not alone in my stubborn act of technological resistance. There is a small but passionate group of like-minded people who refuse to let go of their minis. They gather in online forums, trading advice on how to keep an iPhone mini running after years of use. They smugly set their beat up hardware on the table next to their friend’s PopSocket-ed phablet. Often, they can be found digging in their bag for a charger because their phone is probably almost dead.

The cult of the iPhone mini is alive and well. And why shouldn’t it be? It’s the perfect phone for our moment. Holding on to an older, smaller phone represents an intriguing path forward at a time when people are whiplashing between the promises of rapid tech advancements and an earnest desire to reclaim their life from their devices.

iPhone mini devotees are not dumbphone Luddites, nor are they the type to pick up the iPhone Duo at launch. They sit somewhere in the middle of the two extremes, acknowledging a truth that most Silicon Valley companies can’t afford to accept: that sometimes it’s okay for technology to just be good enough.

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