Phablet Reviews: Before and After the iPhone 6 277
Velcroman1 writes Bigger is better. No, wait, bigger is worse. Well, which is it? Apple's newly supersized 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and the jumbo, 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus are a marked departure for the company, which has clung to the same, small screen size for years. It has gone so far as to publicly deride larger phones from competitors, notably Samsung, even as their sales grew to record highs. Tech reviewers over the years have tended to side with Apple, in general saddling reviews of the Samsung Galaxy Note – a 5.3-inch device that kicked off the phablet push in 2012 – with asides about how big the darn thing was. Are tech reviewers being fair when they review the iPhone 6 Plus? Here's what some of them said today, compared with how they reviewed earlier phablets and big phones from the competition.
Very sad (Score:4, Interesting)
I hate, hate, hate, hate large phones. If I needed a bigger screen, I'll pull out my tablet or my laptop. I'm a skinny guy, I wear tight-ish jeans (fiance hates it, but I gotta be me), and pulling a big-ass phone out of my front pocket is a pain in my ass, and that's with an IPhone 5S.
I'm going to pass on the 6 and hope they come out with a traditional-sized one for the 6S or 7.
Re:Very sad (Score:5, Funny)
Hipster doesn't like new thing. News at 11.
Re:Very sad (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, I thought hipsters were the guys who liked the new things? Like if you had an iPad and an iPhone you were a hipster, but if you had an old Android and a Lenovo laptop you were a legitimate human being.
Hipsters are passe ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Wait, I thought hipsters were the guys who liked the new things?
They liked the new things that coincided with their generation hitting their prime. The new things as the next generation hits its prime, the new things that are different than "their" things, not so much.
Skinny jeans are becoming passe, soon to be laughed at when seen in photos, "OMG, look at those pants, can you believe we/they wore those". At least for guys. Tight jeans for women will always be fashionable.
Yes there will be die hards. Every generation has those too.
Like if you had an iPad and an iPhone you were a hipster, but if you had an old Android and a Lenovo laptop you were a legitimate human being.
Poor analogy. The iPhone vs Andro
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Poor analogy. The iPhone vs Android thing is strongly correlated with zip code, in other words income. Its simply a matter of getting what you want vs getting what your finances force you to settle for. Sure there are a few who shriek about the "walled garden", a loud minority, sort of like Linux desktop users.
I've never chosen my phone based solely on price. Most phones tend to be free or nearly so with their contract
so price isn't a significant factor for most people. I also don't have much preference of android vs iphone. The
reason I've always owned android and never owned iphone is because apple doesn't make a phone with a physical
keyboard. Ironically, it looks like I will finally be switching to iphone because everyone else has also stopped
manufacturing high-end phones with keyboards so by switching to ip
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Most phones tend to be free or nearly so with their contract so price isn't a significant factor for most people
But the choices of subsidized phones are being determined by your selection of carrier, which people choose based largely on cost. If you have AT&T or Verizon, you are generally looking at the best tier of "free" phones, if you have something like MetroPCS, you are looking at a different tier of "free" phones, all running android. So price is a huge factor for most people in their phone choice, it's just indirectly through their choice of carrier.
want vs settle? (Score:2)
what you want vs getting what your finances force you to settle for
These are not the only choices.
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Hipster-hating has certainly hit its prime. You see comments insulting people who like things they deem cool all the time. People used to make fun of goths, yuppies, even geeks, and now they make fun of hipsters. It's the new cool thing. Which makes the hipster-haters hipsters.
Re:Very sad (Score:4, Insightful)
I've never been convinced it's well defined.
It sometimes seems to carry some form of ironic post-modern cynicism, and some fashion sense which is either very modern or 70s/80s style in an ironic manner.
In other cases it seems to be "people who like new things".
Either way, I'm closer to the sore hip age than the hipster age, and they (fortunately) don't make skinny jeans for me. :-P
Re:Very sad (Score:4, Insightful)
Wait, I thought hipsters were the guys who liked the new things? Like if you had an iPad and an iPhone you were a hipster, but if you had an old Android and a Lenovo laptop you were a legitimate human being.
It depends on whether a critical mass of the general population also likes said new thing. When they were the ones waiting in line all night at the Apple store, it was all good. Now that the same lines are filled with people sleeping in trash bags to immediately flip them to China's gray market, not so much.
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The truth is it's nice using large phones but it sucks carrying them. I actually still prefer the form factor of the 4S with the stainless edge and glass front and back. It has a nice weight to it so I know it's in my pocket plus it's so smooth it slides in and out of a pocket easy.
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It slid out of my pocket too easily, I bend over and it falls out of my shirt pocket. I get fabric cases to help stop this.
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Not if your phone completely obsoletes your tablet, so that you're never carrying one around.
(But yes, I can see how not everyone wants a tablet, so they might not want a phablet either.)
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Yet I agree, they are stupid for offering phablets only. They are in the other extreme now.
In my opinion, the optimum number would be 3:
Small (existing size), medium (iphone 6 size) and phablet (iphone 6 plus).
But they probably had tons of iphones 5c/5s in stock and wanted to get rid of t
Re:Very sad (Score:4, Informative)
ROFL at people calling 4.7" a phatablet
4.7" is small for phones today 5" seems to be the sweet spot. That said I love my 5.5" G3
Very sad (Score:3, Informative)
Have you actually tried them? I mean I understand not wanting a Note 4 or iPhone+,
but have you actually tried phones in the Galaxy S5 class (~5")? The rounded back (which the iPhone 5 hasn't got) helps a lot.
I was actually surprised how little you feel the phone considering it's size.
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I hate, hate, hate, hate large phones. If I needed a bigger screen, I'll pull out my tablet or my laptop. I'm a skinny guy, I wear tight-ish jeans.
There are the millions of smartphone consumers in the world who don't have the disposable income to buy a smartphone and tablet. Pocket size is not driving the phablet market. The driving force is consumers who want/need to do computing tasks with their phone, but can't afford or don't want to pay for a secondary tablet. Samsung saw this need in the market [particularly in Asia] several years ago, Apple is just now trying to address it.
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pulling a big-ass phone out of my front pocket is a pain in my ass,
If you stop wearing your pants backwards, that will solve your problem.
Re:Very sad (Score:5, Funny)
and pulling a big-ass phone out of my front pocket is a pain in my ass.
If pulling a phone out of your pocket is a pain in your ass, you may be doing something wrong.
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The rest of the world is not obliged to share your opinion, no matter how highly you think of yourself.
I, too, do not see myself using a large phone. However these large phones are hugely popular, as can be seen by their sales figures and several of my colleagues, even small sized females, happily using these phones. I respect their choice and I applaud Android for allowing manufacturers to give customers a choice of picking a phone they like instead of dictating the customer's choice to them and insulting
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Geez, man, I'm just a regular guy who hates large phones. By no means did I present myself as the Emperor of Man, hold a gun to your head, and demand you to repent of your big-phone heresy. I would do way cooler things if I had that power.
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My views have changed as well (not just because of apples device). I used to think 3.5" screen was perfect.. well now I don't, it is too small. However I still find any 5"+screen way too big. I have found the 4.3-4.7" screens are perfect for me, which is why I picked the regular iphone 6.
However this is for my needs -- occasional browsing web while on the road, emails, light gaming, and *gasp* phone calls.
If I was a heavy user for movies, gaming, browsing, and didn't make much phone calls I can understand t
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For the first time since I started w/the iPhone (the 3G was my first one), I see absolutely nothing of value with this major release version which makes me want to upgrade to it.
I'll be paying $99 for the 5S and be happy w/it. Sorry but unnecessarily bigger sizes and a better camera is not worth $200+contract renewal.
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If you think a big-ass phone is bad in your front pocket, try putting a big ass-phone in your BACK pocket!
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I hate, hate, hate, hate large phones. If I needed a bigger screen, I'll pull out my tablet or my laptop. I'm a skinny guy, I wear tight-ish jeans (fiance hates it, but I gotta be me), and pulling a big-ass phone out of my front pocket is a pain in my ass, and that's with an IPhone 5S.
I'm going to pass on the 6 and hope they come out with a traditional-sized one for the 6S or 7.
I agree with you. Unfortunately, I think that Apple wants us to have a large phone in our bag and an Apple Watch at the wrist.
I would not hold my breath for an iPhone 6s (with "s" for "small").
Different things for different people (Score:3)
Exactly.
Different people want different things.
This is not news.
Re:Different things for different people (Score:5, Insightful)
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Options. Not everybody wants the same thing. Some people want a small phone that fits in their pocket. Others want a larger phone with a bigger screen.
Which is why Apple are giving people the choice between a larger phone, or an even larger phone. Because choices are important.
If you liked the original iPhone size, Apple has nothing for you. Because your choice isn't important. Whatever Apple says you want, that's what you get.
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Which is why Apple are giving people the choice between a larger phone, or an even larger phone. Because choices are important.
If you liked the original iPhone size, Apple has nothing for you. Because your choice isn't important. Whatever Apple says you want, that's what you get.
If you liked the original iPhone size you can keep what you have - the new versions don't offer much in the way of new hardware (apart from size). I don't think it's coincidence, however, that Apple are releasing the Apple Watch and the Phablets around the same time. They want you to keep your phone in your pocket/purse and have quick access to data on your new (gold) wrist device.
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it has no utility for anything other than payments. The use scenarios other devices use NFC for (because they can't be used for payments due to carrier interference) are better handled by better technologies, like Bluetooth LE.
So you think that the NFC tag I have on my bedside drawer, that I can place my phone on when I'm ready to sleep and have it turn off my house lights would be better handled by Bluetooth LE or some better technology? Ditto for all the other tasks floating around that I handle with NFC tags?
I doubt it. Please explain.
Re:Very sad (Score:5, Interesting)
But if it wasn't for being able to supersize the icons on the display and Apple Pay, I think I would return it. It's really too big at least until I acclimate - if I acclimate. No way in hell I'd get the 6 Plus unless I got the big gold chain to wear it around my neck and make the display a clock face...
As phones go, I really liked the size of the 4S better. And so far, I'm not very impressed by the quality of the phone connections. Dropped calls and lots of garbled speech. My 4S had better call quality so far by far. I may still return the 6 if I can't get that figured out as the main reason I have it is to use it as a phone.
Bigger is better for some, bigger... (Score:2)
...is worse for others. Guess it really depends on how big your pockets are.
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"Phones come in booths now? Great! Now I don't have to carry around this stupid cell phone!" --Hermes Conrad
there is one smaller but high-end android phone (Score:2)
Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
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Guess it really depends on how big your pockets are.
I think some people have a purse to put the phone in, and some people have a holster to keep the phone outside their pocket. So it also depends on how people keep their phone...
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Guess it really depends on how big your pockets are.
Wrong. For most people choosing phablets it has nothing to do with pocket size. It's mainly by consumers who are migrating their traditional desktop computing to their mobile devices and the tasks are just easier with a larger screen. Many people don't want to spend double for a phone and a tablet, so they opt for the compromise single-device phablet.
For example, my 27-year old sister does not pay for cable/internet at home, but has a smartphone that she does most of her computing from. In the rare times sh
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what?!?! (Score:5, Insightful)
The press is biased towards Apple? You don't say...
Re:what?!?! (Score:5, Funny)
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This may be the most painful whoosh I've ever seen on Slashdot.
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Re:what?!?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Except if you actually go back and read what the press said, there was a little bump of "wow, that's a big phone" for the Galaxy Note and S3 - which were large phones for the time - and then stopped mentioning it. In fact, the general concensus over the past two years is that the iPhones are too small now. If you look up the iPhone 5/S reviews by each of those sites, you'll see the same sorts of remarks. The Nexus 4 really set the benchmark at about 5 inches as far as the press were concerned.
The premise put forward by the article is, to put it bluntly, unsupported by the facts.
Re:what?!?! (Score:5, Interesting)
So, what you're saying is... you didn't read the original reviews, the article or even the summary? The quotes are pretty clear.
On the Galaxy:
It’s still too big for a smartphone After testing it over the past week and a half, the awkwardness that came with carrying such a large, “notice me” phone outweighed the benefits of it, for me.
– Lauren Goode
Same person on the iPhone6:
Maybe I’m getting old, and my eyes are getting worse. Or maybe I’m stuck in Apple’s reality-distortion field (help). But something strange happened this week. I started to like a phablet.
– Lauren Goode
Translation: Your new feature sux because it's not Apple! Oh... Apple did it to? Yay! I like it now!
Re: (Score:3)
You know, there was an appreciable amount of time and personal experiences that Lauren had between those two quotes. People do change their views and sometimes its for reasons you or they might not understand. Ascribing her change in liking Phablets to "Apple did it to? (sic)" is pretty presumptuous.
HEY HEY HEY! (Score:5, Funny)
.
The traditional response (Score:5, Insightful)
This kind of trend is fairly common across all major phone manufacturers, across both iOS and Android, and also across Apple and Google themselves. It is why I rarely take a phone review seriously, be it for a phone that I actually am interested in or one that I'm not. Having information about specs and hardware is a good place to start when deciding between two pieces of technology, but past that, a huge amount of one's enjoyment of a device can come from external factors, such as previous brand investment, ecosystem size and saturation, and even things as "trivial" as what one's friends are using.
I try not to be terribly upset when I see Apple product reviewers exhibiting these signs of bias, since a large number of Android (and perhaps even some windows phone?) reviewers do the same things. I read and watch these reviews as I would watch news about politics: with a boulder sized grain of salt. While some truth may be found somewhere in the reviewer's statements, they still can and do fall prey to human shortcomings that affects us all.
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This kind of trend is fairly common across all tech manufacturers, across multiple platforms & ecosystems. Windows vs. Linux. Java vs.C++. Debian vs Ubuntu. Systemd vs "please for love of god use anything else"
It's a good thing tha
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Well, I remember everyone saying in 2012 that the Note was too large. Today, there are several people who have Note phones and went from a Note 2 to a Note 3.
It's basically public acceptance - large phones were novel and not particularly easy to hold.
Hell, I see people use their 7" tablets as phones! They have this huge monstrosity on their ear with the bottom sticking far out in front of their face and barely bale to hold onto their "phone".
And yes, pocketability is a problem. It's why to counter having to
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What is to be lamented is how the 'free press' can be rounded up like a lot of sheep.
Wise words. It is frightening how the common man's only source of information about one or many topics can be so easily twisted to fit an agenda. And then when those same words are reversed, they continue to believe them as if gospel truth.
I'm pleasantly surprised. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm pleasantly surprised by the number of people in the article that basically said the same thing in both reviews. I couple of people magically changed their tunes with the Apple 6, but not as many as I thought.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Of those that changed their tune, they commented about trying to operate the larger device with one hand. Apple moved some things around to make easier. And, it's lighter and thinner than it's 2012 predecessors - a benefit of time and manufacturing processes. Machined metal vs plastic makes a difference as well in terms of how rigid the device is and how that feels in one's hands. Again, the benefit of time to review existing products and improved manufacturing processes.
So, I didn't hear any particular
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I just got a Oneplus One and wasn't quite sure how I'd like the screen size. I have to say that I really like the size, though it is definitely on the upper edge of usability. One thing I do like about it is that the keyboard doesn't feel like it is stealing so much screen real-estate, though it is perhaps getting to the upper-limit of swype-style keyboarding.
I also am tall with large hands, and I imagine that is a definite factor. One thing I do notice is that if I'm in a one-handed situation I have to
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How old is your old? I'm 46...using a Nokia 1520 because it is damn near huge at 6". I can see things pretty well now...I can't go back to a smaller phone, because I just can't read anything on it!
big phone (Score:2)
I have a Samsung Galaxy Note 3
Its just small enough to fit in my pocket, but big enough screen to use as an ebook reader.
It also has a microsd slot that will take a 64 gig card - big enough for my music collection.
(I am probably not going to be buying much more music after Oct 1 since Amazon are going to start charging MN residents sales tax)
whatever happened to "right tool for the job"? (Score:2)
(eom)
Meh, anything Apple does is considered "cool". (Score:5, Insightful)
Before switching to x86: x86 sucks ass! PowerPC all the way!
After switching to x86: x86 is awesome! Glad we don't have PowerPC anymore!
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Well, for a long time the PowerPC had some real advantages over x86, particularly for floating point performance. However Motorola lost its edge there, and the big problem with PowerPC chips was their power consumption, making laptop design and battery life much more difficult.
But that kind of sophistication is beyond most of the tech press, and I suspect beyond a lot of the people here who emote their hate for specific brands. (I admit to a very strong bias against Microsoft, so include myself in that se
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However Motorola lost its edge there, and the big problem with PowerPC chips was their power consumption, making laptop design and battery life much more difficult.
Sort of. Its not that a low power PPC wasn't possible.
The problem was that IBM et al couldn't be bothered to put in the R&D or fab capabilities to make a low power version of the PowerPC just for Apple laptops. It wasn't a priority for them, and the market was too small.
Now you could argue they missed the boat, and that Apple has grown tremen
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Good points.
I think the ability to run Windows applications was more of a psychological than practical advantage, particularly with the growth of web applications. VirtualPC ran pretty well on PowerPC for limited/occasional use (personal experience). With the exception of some (so-called) Web applications that require Active X controls (the worst offender being the S/MIME PKI module for Exchange WebMail), I haven't had to either BootCamp or VMWare/Parallels for the last 2-3 years.
That being said, many com
Re:Meh, anything Apple does is considered "cool". (Score:5, Informative)
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People forget these are companies whose sole purpose is to make money and that will say anything to make that money. Of course they will change their minds and blaze forward with unnatural determination. To appear indecisive or even acknowledge a change is an admission of non-optimal corporate irresponsibility that no business (or politician, but I repeat myself) can afford to make.
I don't kn
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I'm a big proponent of the Mac and of many of Apple's products, but come on.... Unless you're talking about the childish "my computer can beat your computer!" comments that all of us computer geeks made as pre-teens? It's just not like that.
Back in the PowerPC days, things were quite a bit different in the computer landscape. Motorola, on the whole, was greatly respected as a company capable of making very good processors. (The old 8-bit CPUs like the 6809e and later, the 16-bit 68000 series were conside
Phone size myopia (Score:3)
They haven't released numbers yet, but the press reports seem to indicate that the 6 Plus demand is outstripping supply yet the chorus of people who think that even the 6 is too big let alone the 6 plus is as loud as ever. I think this is an interesting dichotomy.
I think the 6 Plus is fine -- I find more screen better than less screen, even if the increased size limits one-handed usage. I don't think there's an "ideal" size for any phone unless you toss in some usage requirements, like one-handed use or pocket storage complaints. I know some people who would use a full-size iPad as a phone if they could because none of the one-handed use or pocket issues apply to them. I think it's just a matter of personal preference.
I do think it's interesting that Tim Cook's Apple is responding to market demand instead of imposing a Jobsian design fascism. I also think that for a decent chunk of people, the 6 Plus is meant to take over some of the things they'd use a tablet for. I'm mostly happy with my iPad 3 (even with iOS8), but I think with a 6 Plus I'll reach for it less and put off upgrading it until it runs out of iOS updates.
And I think a lot of people who want both but can't swing it financially will find a 6 Plus a reasonable universal device. This is what surprised me about the 6 Plus release as I'm pretty sure it will eat into iPad Mini sales and even some full-size iPad sales.
What would be nice and I don't know if we'll ever get there for lots of reasons (technological and sales/marketing) would be a watch-sized device becoming the root device with the phone or tablet being the kind of screen/user interface, tethered to the phone for network access. That way you could pick your "phone" based on size preference, or none at all if all you wanted was bluetooth audio and phone calling.
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What would be nice and I don't know if we'll ever get there for lots of reasons (technological and sales/marketing) would be a watch-sized device becoming the root device with the phone or tablet being the kind of screen/user interface, tethered to the phone for network access. That way you could pick your "phone" based on size preference, or none at all if all you wanted was bluetooth audio and phone calling.
That is unlikely, barring some miraculous breakthrough in radio efficiency or battery capacity. The radio in the watch would drain the battery way too fast if it was constantly communicating with other devices.
A lot of fun ideas about how one might use mobile devices fall flat as soon as you factor in the energy storage constraint.
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Yup. I think part of this is the whole surface-area vs volume relationship. Battery capacity is almost entirely a function of volume. When you have something like a phone which already has a considerable screen surface area just adding a fraction of a millimeter of thickness gives you a substantial amount of additional volume inside for more battery. On the other hand, when you're talking about a watch face that has to be the size of your wrist, adding a bit more thickness adds much less volume, and to
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There are actually Chinese noname watches that are basically fully fledged smartphones with most of what you'd expect from a smartphone in terms of features, including a camera. Example: http://www.dhgate.com/product/... [dhgate.com]|1016721942
Good luck getting that battery to last you through the day!
Reviews follow sales to get more eyeballs (Score:4, Informative)
Then review sites learned ther lesson and gave the Note 2 a decent spin and gave it the top reviews it deserved. Now the LG G3 is getting all the 4.5-star reviews.
It was always meant to be the other way around (i.e you read reviews to help you make an informed purchase), but sites need ad money and realized it's un-cool to hate on phablets.
I replaced my old broken Note 2 with a tiny Nexus 5 and I'm suffering with the cramped 4.95" screen. Next time, I'm going medieval on screen size.
I love them (Score:3)
I went from a Galaxy Note 2 to a HTC One Max. And then I went and put an Otterbox around the thing.
I carry it in my front pants pocket. It snags not more than any other rectangular deice (because it's always the corner that gets snagged by a fold) and I can actually use it to browse the web without unusable mobile versions of websites and without pinchzooming like a deranged person.
I don't have to carry a second device, either, that needs a daily recharge... I could have been talked into carrying a phone and actual tablet if, and only if, there was a Nokia 6210, with nothing more than phone, sms, contact list, 3G/4G and Wifi Hotspot/Tethering capabilities. But such a thing does not exist, at least not at a price that would make you better off buying a smartphone all the same.
I love the size... finally it doesn't feel like I have to pinch a teensy, tiny device between my not even that enormous fingers and be afraid of it slipping away. That's why I dig the Otterbox too, by the way. The HTC is so thin, I was constantly afraid of inadvertently flicking it through the room.
YMMV, but I love these things to death. If I could have had the HTC with full metal body and twice as thick (and therefore with a battery in the 6Ah range), I would have bought that instead.
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Exactly. I use chrome, youtube, maps, and text messaging at least 5x more than I use the actual phone app. My note2 is a little awkward to hold to me ear but, like I said, I'm rarely using the phone. These days, the phone
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Brought an iPhone 6 and think it's too big (Score:2)
I bought an iPhone 6 recently figuring I'd skip the obviously too big 6+. While I like most of the features I've found even the base 6 is a too big. My thumb doesn't even reach all the way across the bottom of the screen and only about half way to the far corner if I'm holding the phone in a good stable grip. Even reachability mode doesn't get everything in close enough. I wish that it shrunk the screen slightly as well. I find that I either have to carefully balance the phone or use two hands. I've alrea
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I bought an iPhone 6 recently figuring I'd skip the obviously too big 6+. While I like most of the features I've found even the base 6 is a too big. My thumb doesn't even reach all the way across the bottom of the screen and only about half way to the far corner if I'm holding the phone in a good stable grip. Even reachability mode doesn't get everything in close enough. I wish that it shrunk the screen slightly as well. I find that I either have to carefully balance the phone or use two hands. I've already drop it a few times trying to reach the stuff just a bit to far, and the area between my thumb and rest of my hand hurt the first few days after I got the device from trying to force my thumb to reach across. To be honest I was expecting it to be a bit big as there is a small part of an iPhone 5 screen I can't reach without shifting the phone but that bothered me only occasionally. Going to stick this one out, but not sure I want another large phone, especially since I carry a tablet* with me most of the time. Granted I guess I have short hands, my thumb is almost 1.5" long.
* - Okay, sometimes I carry up to 3 with me so that I have Android, iOS and Surface covered; as part of checking to see how stuff runs on different OSes. And yes tablets are much bigger, but they are two handed devices.
See for me I feel like the 6 is perfect. I can hold it in the palm of my hand and still reach every corner of the screen. I do think that Apple should have made a traditional screen size. I played with the 6+ yesterday and it's just way too huge even for me. I feel like a 7 foot tall person might like the size of the 6+. But if you're always using two hands on your phone, I guess it doesn't matter.
Reality Distortion Field (Score:2)
Maybe I’m getting old, and my eyes are getting worse. Or maybe I’m stuck in Apple’s reality-distortion field (help). But something strange happened this week. I started to like a phablet.
– Lauren Goode
This turn-around is nothing more than Apple's reality distortion field. Now that Apple has given in and is selling phablets, of course their entire marketing effort is focused on it. They will make us love it the same way they made us love everything else: the Apple fanboy rumor mill hyping the next big thing, hyping the big media event, where the Apple CEO stands up and tells us how awesome and exciting this is, describing in simple terms the design problems they were trying to solve and showing the soluti
Pixels (Score:2)
The REAL problem is NO small flagships (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that Apple has joined the phablet bandwagon, we have another problem: manufacturers are only offering their premium devices in phablet, or near-phablet, sizes. Want the "smaller" iphone? Sure, but you have to give up camera features. Most of the Android phones are in a similar boat - you can get a 4-4.5" screen phone, but you'll give up memory, or speed, or camera functionality, LTE, or any of a number of other features. Smaller screens mean lower price points and cutting corners.
Wouldn't it be nice it you really could choose a 3.5-4" screen phone that did everything else the larger models did?
Mini iPhone 6s (Score:4)
I would love one the size of a 4s. Is there a petition out there to support this sentiment?
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Actually, you should read it. Most of the ones that didn't like a previous phone for being to big don't like the Apple 6's size.
Re:Talk about an unsupported hypothesis (Score:5, Insightful)
It’s still too big for a smartphone After testing it over the past week and a half, the awkwardness that came with carrying such a large, “notice me” phone outweighed the benefits of it, for me.
And then about the iPhone 6 plus:
Maybe I’m getting old, and my eyes are getting worse. Or maybe I’m stuck in Apple’s reality-distortion field (help). But something strange happened this week. I started to like a phablet.
And they feel comfortable making damning statements about a non Apple device, while saying the same thing as politely as possible for the iPhone. E.g. compare a TechCrunch quote on the Note:
I found that it was really difficult to get comfortable with the device, never feeling like I had complete control over it as I would with a smaller phone.
With that on the iPhone:
the additional size makes for a less ‘perfect’ ergonomic quality, something the iPhone 6 definitely achieves
The worst they can say about the iPhone 6 plus is "less perfect", while adding that the iPhone 6 IS perfect. Until one month ago, of course, the iPhone 5/5S was the ergonomically perfect one, while Samsung Galaxy S3/4/5 where awkwardly large. I guess perfection just follows Apple wherever they go. "Journalists" just follow right behind.
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I'm not sure what sort of case you're trying to make here except "some tech writers don't like large-screened phones and are just about capable of tolerating Apple's one".
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Unless you read the same journalists' quotes about the Galaxy Note II, which pretty much say the same things that they allegedly would never say about a non-Apple phablet. Because it was about six months later and they were actually used to it.
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If by "suddenly" you mean "two years and dozens of four-to-six-inch-phones later", yes.
That's less time than it took for the original iPhone to go from ridiculously oversized* to perfectly normal.
*Ars Technica's review compares it unfavourably to the Razr.
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I don't think this was timed optimally; Apple themselves were concerned last year that most of the market growth in premium handsets was in larger sizes, an area they didn't cover. The optimal time to launch a larger model would've been then, not a full year later.
They missed the boat. Pleasantly, for people like me who like small handsets, but they missed it.
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There is something to be said for delays. It allows the internals to get that much better, allowing more horsepower to handle the larger screens as well as giving the human factor part of the interface time to figure out what works and doesn't.
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The optimal time to launch a larger model would've been then, not a full year later. They missed the boat.
Yeah, to the tune of 10 million sales [nytimes.com] over the weekend. ;-)
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I think we can all agree that ten million sales last year is better than ten million sales today.
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Are you retarded?
Apple is a for profit company that exists in order to make money, currently it does that by selling iphones and ipads and so on. So yes, sales numbers are THE measure of success.
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Of course, that's not what I got the Note 3 for, otherwise I would've stuck with my old dialpad phone. I got it for PDA functionality, for which it performs the task wonderfully.
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I've seen numerous people holding the big giant phone up to their head.
And, yes, it looks absolutely dorky.
Re:In fairness ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I've got a Note 3, and I frequently hold it up to my head to talk on it. I also gave up caring about what people think of based on what technology I use a couple of decades ago.
Nokia N-Gage (Score:2)
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Hey, you sound just like the fashion police back when I got my first ridiculously huge phone that they wouldn't be caught dead using. My 4.3" HTC HD2.
Then, again for my huger more ridiculouser 5.3" Galaxy Note.
Then, again for my hugerer ridiculouserer 6" Ascend Mate.
Now, my hugererer ridiculousererer 7" Huawei X1.
I know you reactionary types need time to catch up to new things. Please, do take it, but in the mean time, shut up. Meanwhile, I'll be enjoying reading and watching vids on my "phone", which is re
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LOL ... that, sir, is the first time I've been accused of anything like that.
Go fuck yourself. ;-)
You know, there are many of us who don't use our phones like that, and have no interest in it. At all.
I don't have a data plan on my cell phone, it gets used for texting more than anything else (my HTC
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You pretty much nailed it. What the summary failed to take into account was the most obvious factor: that the culture surrounding smartphones has changed.
Two years ago when the Note launched, phablets looked ridiculous, the UIs weren't designed for screens that large, and reviewers who hadn't used them before didn't even know how to hold them properly. Those early ones really weren't that great, but the fact that the general population wasn't ready to accept them since they looked so out of place didn't hel