These are two different things:
How can I set full image thumbnail on category pages
vs
Image should be small in dimensions but not been cropped.
In order to display the full-size image thumbnail, use:
<?php the_post_thumbnail( 'full' ); ?>
In order to display a box-resized, rather than hard-cropped, image, you need to tell WordPress to box-resize the image rather than hard-crop it, via the add_image_size() call used to create the thumbnail image size..
- Hard-cropping an image means that WordPress will make the image exactly the size specified by the
$widthand$heightparameters passed toadd_image_size(). - Box-resizing an image means that WordPress will resize the image proportionally, until the longest dimension matches the size specified by
$widthor$height, as appropriate.
You define this action in the add_image_size() call in functions.php, like so:
<?php
add_image_size( $name, $width, $height, $crop );
?>
The fourth parameter, $crop, specifies whether to hard-crop ( true ) or to box-resize ( false ) the image.