Keyword: tried
I'll leave it up to the masses on judging if they were successful. Also not sure where you're getting 15.5cm from... Dimensions: 154 x 73.6 x 13.98 mm
If you really think about it, this phone is just a few mm bigger than typical 6 inch screen phones, plus the girth of the keyboard. But there's no getting around how big 6 inch screens are. Even if it's an 18:9 ratio
Chen posted a while back that 6 inch screen was the most cost effective choice, and I believe him on that, but I wish they went a little smaller. Given that this phone has a keyboard, I think they should've downsized the screen to make it more pocket friendly. Like 5.7 or 5.8 inch screen. Still an impressive screen size, but the device would be significantly smaller. I think this device will be unwieldy for a decent amount of people. I'd love to be proven wrong, but it's hard to digest those numbers. To compare, I had to find one of the largest and heaviest phones on the market (Kyocera duraforce Pro 2) to compare this thing to, size wise.
Even my original Pixel feels a hair too big for my taste, and it's a good 10mm shorter, 4mm narrower, and nearly 5mm less thick than the pro1
Staying hopeful...