Why Are Over-Sized Phones Known As 'Phablets' Becoming So Popular?

When over-sized phones – typically larger than five inches in screen size – first came on the market, well known tech review sites from Engadget to Techradar panned them. Complaints ranged from not being able to hold the phone in one hand, to being larger than any one could possible need.

Then a strange thing happened. Millions of “phablets” (as they became known due to being a cross between a phone and a tablet) were sold by Samsung and other manufacturers. By the time Samsung released their follow up, the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, many tech review sites had egg on their faces that they had to wipe off. A new product category had been born.

Apple, with their best selling iPhone, have been under pressure for some time to bring out a phone with a larger screen. There is the belief that people use mobile apps with smartphones, but browse the Internet on their tablets, netbooks or laptops. However, what research shows is that things are not quite so simple.

Larger commercial-based sites often have their own app and visitors to the site will sometimes install it, but far more sites do not have their own app due to the development costs involved. Therefore, when branching out of the larger sites, Internet browsing is still performed using more traditional web browsers. This reality was lost on many.

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Adapting To Using A Large Phone

The lack of one-handed operation that you easily get with a 4 inch smartphone is a little lost with a large phone. A person with small or even medium sized hands will often struggle to use the phone.

They cannot reach to all corners of the screen and access the buttons at the very bottom of the phone. But what humans are good at doing is adapting. This leads to phone holders in the car, phone stands on the desk, using adaptable apps for larger screen sizes or (gasp) holding the phone with two hands.

Web Browsing With A Landscape Orientation

Even with simple web browsing on the iPhone 5, this writer discovered that the portrait view of a site like the New York Times (NYTimes.com) was too tiny and this was partly solved by turning the phone around to view in landscape mode.

This just became automatic. Obviously with average phone sizes having grown to about 4.8-inches, and “phablets” coming in around 5.5-6.1-inches, switching to landscape orientation is almost necessary for web browsing. But what surprised me was that I turned the phone around to view in landscape, without thinking , even with the new 4-inch iPhone 5.

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Is A Bigger Screen Better?

Once I realised that I was turning the phone to landscape orientation automatically even with a smaller sized phone, then it made sense to consider whether a larger phone would be more suitable. With a larger phone, you get a huge screen with a lot more virtual real estate.

Text is larger and easier to read. More of the web page can fit on the screen and it becomes a lot easier to get a proper sense of a new web site (what it is about and where everything is located). I could zip around the site quickly because I understood what I was looking at much faster.

I got out of the feeling that I was hunting and pecking, on a little phone and trying to see where things were; a feeling I had even with the latest iPhone 5 with its larger 4 inch screen.

The Way Forward

I don't think I'm the only one to feel this way. Many smartphone buyers are beginning to realise the benefits of using a larger screen even if they have to deal with holding a larger phone in their hand to do it. The benefits out-way the downsides for them.

Largely it will depend on what you use your phone for. If you are exclusively app-based, then a small phone may still be best, but if you use a smartphone partially as a tablet or laptop replacement while on the move, then a larger screen size can make a lot of sense.

   Peter Miles

About the Guest Author:

Peter Miles is always trying to find the next best app for his reliable iPhone 4 .