Screens?

An excellent question from Bob today. There's a lot of talk about screen size. As we all should know by now, bigger is not necessarily better. In other words, it's not what you've got but how well you use it. With that in mind, what is the screen size on your smartphone and can you type with the same hand that holds the phone? And to round out the question, how big is your hand? To measure your hand, measure across the hand from between the thumb and forefinger to just below the pinky. Also measure the length from the tip of the longest finger to the start of your wrist, approximately where it bends.

Comments

[Jah]

I always have two smartphones, personal and business. As long as I can carry my personal in a belt pouch I don't care about its size. The Samsung S3 is about the biggest phone I can easily store a pouch. My Note 2, used mainly for business fits into my breast pocket of my suit and so is okay size wise. One handed use is not the criteria I have ever used to assess what size of phone I should buy.

[Bob Deskin]

I'm not suggesting that one-handed use is a criteria, but it is has come up in various articles I've seen. Plus presumably one of the reasons the iPhone wasn't made any wider, just longer. Although, because I have smallish hands, I always have the feeling that the phone will tip if I hold it exactly the way I held my iPhone 4.

So to answer my own question, it's an iPhone 5 with a 4" diagonal screen. Yes I can type with one hand, although I have to do it slowly. My hand is 3.5"wide and about 7" long.

And before anyone catches on, this is really a ploy to see whether I actually have small hands. Just kidding.

[Peter M]

I always wonder about this one-handed argument. I mean, what are you doing with the other that's so important? (rhetorical)

[Rui Duarte]

I My San Fran has aprox. a 3.54330709 inches screen ;-) to be more precise and although I can use one hand perfectly and have medium size hands (!) I think 3.7/3.8" to 4" is what I really needed. Other than that no because I also use a 5" tablet. I tend to use the phone everywhere I go and is basically used for basic mobile stuff. For all other stuff I use the tablet.

[Jaam Gans]

@ Peter M - holding onto the tube - thus can still read etc without ending up in someone's lap and without dropping or throwing the phone across the carriage, when they do a huge brake, it shudders or something else. Type out e-mail etc so that once connection is back its ready to go.

4.8inch largest for me - can just manage it.
3.7 is smallest - find anything under this too cramped and often have to end up using two hands.

Hand size
Length 8.5",
Not sure I understand how to measure the width.
width 3.8" with hand closed (i.e. fingers kept together),
width 5.5" with fingers spread
width 9" from top of thumb to top of pinkie.
(and I have short stubby fingers but a massive palm - hence the narrow width for the fingers but large overall other figures).

Net result is that when holding the S3 in my palm, so that my pinkie curls around the bottom corner of the screen (half screen half bottom counter), with the other bottom corner pushing into the padding below the thumb, I can then windscreen wipe my phone (just like the iPhone add), so that my thumb reaches the near side bottom corner to virtually all of the other bottom corner, swipes all the way up the far side of the phone, just misses a tiny bit of the far top corner (like the iPhone add) and can reach all of the near top corner. My thumb is also flexible enough and jointed enough that I can fold it to sweep far side, middle and near side. I might occasionally need a slight reshuffle for far top and bottom.

This applies to both hands and thumbs.

So according to the iPhone add with the sweeping thumb, 4.8" is the perfect size!!!