Wednesday
Sep122012
Your ideal screen size?
Wednesday, September 12, 2012 at 3:00AM This question has been asked before, but the answers change often. What is your ideal screen size for a smartphone and tablet? I still say 4” for a phone and 7” for a tablet.
Reader Comments (11)
5" to 5.5" and then only have one with me all day..
Dependent on what you have to do. Got used to the S3 at 4.8 inches, but the phone isn't massive overall. My wife's 3GS is fine if using for a phone mainly. Ideal size about 4.5 inches providing little bezel.
Big screens are popular. But I don't think the Note form factor will ever become a mass-market size. So, that makes Galazy SIII about top end. And very nice it looks too.
Apple are likely to launch an extended display today. I'm disappointed - I really wanted iOS components to look a little bigger, to compensate for my failing eyesight, but it looks all but certain that everything on the iPhone's screen will remain the same but there will just be a bit more of it.
I'm more concerned about overall phone dimensions than screen size. Let's say a minimum 3" and a maximum 4" for a phone.
For a tablet, it actually depends on what I'm doing. For general use, the 10" diagonal is good. I might like a bigger screen, but not at the expense of more weight and less portability. I wouldn't want anything less than 10 for reading digital magazines. However, for reading books, a 7" screen with a correspondingly smaller and lighter device would be nice. But if I can't have both, I'll take the 10".
4" or less. As Shaun has said in another post(I paraphrase), your phone isn't supposed to replace your computer, even though some are increasingly trying to do this - I'm looking at you Peter!
I have heard quite a few friends and colleagues complain that the iphone isn't cutting it anymore because the screen is too small for their eyesight. My argument is either you need some glasses or you are doing too much with your phone that you should probably do on a small tablet instead.
My bet is the tide will turn yet again when computers miniaturise more - note the rise of the "ultrabook" and hybrid tablets. When everyone has a hybrid or an ultrabook the need to squint and use your phone will lessen. EIther this or phones will continue to grow in size until they are tablet size!
4"/4.3" max for a phone.
As for tablets... the ideal, 10", the best for portability 7", the best of all for a go-with-you-everywhere, 5.3"/5.5".
As for me, it's a Samsung Note all the way. After playing with iPads, Nexus 7, etc, still is the Note for me.
David the trend is for us to do more and more with our phones. They're already close to or at the point where many people don't need a PC to do what they want to do.
What hasn't happened yet is making it easy to make the phone a PC-replacement. Yes we can connect the phone to the TV, to a mouse, to a keyboard, to a trackpad or trackball. However the people who could use that as a PC replacement are the very people who are unlikely to do it because it's not simple enough.
Apple's probably closest to making it simple enough because they have Airplay, and it'd be far easier to get people to use it if there are no wires. If they followed it to its logical conclusion they'd have something pretty compelling, and it wouldn't require amazing new hardware, just bundling-up existing tech into something Joe Public can understand and use. That's what Apple's good at.
And if they did it then within a month the world would be convinced that Apple invented Bluetooth keyboards...
The other alternative is to make tablets the PC-replacement. MS is pretty much betting the house on this approach, hence the plethora of hybrid Windows 8 tablets.
I still reckon tablets should be dumb terminals for phones, but the tech just isn't quite there yet. The PadPhone is a step in the right direction but it needs to be a wireless connection between them.
Which brings us back to screen sizes. Ultimately it won't matter; my phone screen will unfold to a fair size and if I want something bigger I'll use my tablet or TV to extend it. But for right now I'm happy with the size of my S3 and my Prime, although I'd like the Prime's screen to take up more of the body, i.e. a smaller bezel.
I'm really intrigued by the Note and could see my self getting one when my contract runs out in January. I noticed on Amazon the other day a really cheap 5" Android phone/tablet. It's just under £120 and, although I'm sure it won't be as good as the Note, it gets excellent reviews. It's slightly odd because it has an analogue TV receiver which is useless in UK.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Android-tablet-MTK6575-Cortex-standby/dp/B0081FCY46/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347271352&sr=8-1
Because it's all about the apps with modern smartphones, the Note is my ideal phone. Honestly couldn't imagine using anything with a screen smaller than an S3 or a Nexus in the future now. Trying to do detail work on a 4" or under screen is a pain, unless you've got really small hands.
I think it depends on the hands - I prefer to be able to cover the whole screen one handed. That means for me it around 3.2 to 4.8 inchs. Under 4 is less preferable as I enjoying reading on my phone, plus using the web, which is less ideal under 4. Bigger than 4.8 means I cannot operate one handed.
The other big thing is that I agree that the total dimensions are just as important, as it has to fit in my front jeans pockets.
My lovely S3 currently ticks all my requirements size wise.
Jaam, how about if the screen was bigger, say 5.5", but the UI was designed so that all of the controls were within easy thumb reach?
There's no reason the controls have to be spread out over the entire screen; hopefully Google or Samsung or someone will realise that at some point.