I can see uses in certain industries that a handheld device that can recreate images well and/or allow for good reading and data input where a phone-size is too small and a tablet-size is too big, but I can't see much use in the consumer space. Am I missing something that will appeal to the average user?
There is a market for those of us over 6 foot. The enhanced capabilities because of size are a benefit to be sure, but I've used a Streak for nearly 2 years and it is about the only thing that feels and looks right in my hands. This month I will upgrade to the nearly identically sized Note. And really only because Dell has not properly supported my phone. I still get great comments when people see it, use it more often than my tablet and can hold a conversation comfortably.
Even her Infuse looks oversized in my girlfriend's hands. With so many options on the market, can't it just be about comfort?
Disagree with your first sentence there. I'm 6'5" and don't see any need or desire for a gigantic phone. Just because you and I may be taller does not mean holding a giant 5" device to our head looks normal - it will still look ridiculous.
Not to criticize you here, to each his own, but: I don't think it should be about how you LOOK while holding your phone, it should be about you, feeling comfortable (physically) doing so.
We have been trained for conformity so much, such things shouldn't bother us as much as they do..
As a phone, I can hold the Note against my head with open fingers, whereas I have to hold a 4s tightly with my fingertips for fear of dropping it.
It fits easily into business pants pockets and sometimes I have to check that I have got it because it feels so light.
And almost no-one notices the size of the phone in use. It is only 23% larger than a GS2. It only looks large the first itme one sees it face on. After that, it is a very useful phone and out and about web browser.
I'm on the fence on this one. There are certainly times I wished a had a bigger screen, but I also like a phone not taking up too much space in my pocket. Maybe they should come up with a better way to make a dual screen phone.
Too much energy is being spent on the screen size,doubt LG or Samsung would argue it's the best size, it's just another option just like ... 3.2".Each has it's own plusses and minuses.
I just got a Infuse 4G, I am 6'1 my hands are above average size. I wanted the Note but I am saving for other things and I got the Infuse for free + contact continued for another 2 years and I had to pay for tax ($46).
I like the large display much better to type on for a phone without a physical keyboard. Battery life is decent, you need to charge it and completely discharge it twice before you get full life and you also need to make sure you charge it full.
Considering Europeans are generally smaller and Asians even smaller and they like to large phones just means most Americans are size phonic and locked in on the size of the IPhone as the "ideal" size.
The other companies had to do something to break the strangle hold Apple has on the smartphone market. Size is one way to combat that, I welcome these larger devices.
A larger display makes it MUCH more "fun" to type on the phone. I recently switched from 3.2" to 4.2", while typing on the 3.2" screen was utterly frustrating, typing on the 4.2" screen is OK.
PS: AFAIK (wikipedia seems to say so too) the average European male isn't smaller than the average American male, regarding the body height.
The streak was the perfect size for me. Just Dell did not support it properly and AT&T gimped it. I can't wait to get my hands on the Galaxy Note when my contract ends but I'll be buying off contract this time. :)
This thing looks chunky; it takes the worst aspect of the Galaxy Note (the width, which makes it very hard to use in one handed operation) and makes it even wider and a bit shorter. 1.5 GHz Snapdragon (slower than 1.2 GHz Exynos), 1024x768 IPS screen (the RGB stripe is nice, but give me AMOLED anyday), and a much .smaller battery make this look like a loser compared to the GNote.
This thing will be better than the GNote at reading webpages and documents in portrait mode and..... that's about it. For Youtube, video, and anything in landscape mode, the Note will absolutely crush this.
I have been using a Galaxy Note for a few months now (since it came on the market) and I find the size just right. It has replaced a previous phone, a tablet, a GPS, a netbook, a Kindle and a point and shoot camera. I am out of home for 100+ days a year so it makes a big difference. As far as size is concerned, the question for me is: does it fit into a shirt pocket? The Galaxy Note does, but I have doubts about anything wider.
I agree: anything that doesn't fit a shirt pocket ceases being a primary phone to me, and the Note's about as wide as fits.
I'm sure there's not a wasted mm inside, but I do wish they could near-eliminate the wide bezel ends (top and bottom) making nearly all of the face a screen. The size of the camera chip probably limits narrowing the top bezel, but ICS reduces the need for the Std 4 Buttons at the bottom -- and 'not sure I'd mind them being moved to the back. Make it shorter and it would be more stable in the pocket.
The top and bottom parts in portrait come into their own in landscape as one is usually holding each end between thumb and fingers. There would be a tendency to cover the viewable area, or trigger off things inadvertantly otherwise.
I must say I am pleased that Samsung, LG and other companies are continuing to explore the larger phone or "phablet" designs. I have had my Streak for half a year now and although support from Dell has been non-existent the user community is hugely active and enthusiastic, which is great and testifies to the popularity of the phone.
In terms of usage, I use mine for a lot of entertainment consumption. The screen for me is perfect for gaming, watching Youtube on the train to and from work and I get all my reading done on my Streak. Typing is also a breeze because everything is just bigger and I don't find myself accidentally Swyping into the wrong letters like I do on smaller phones. I've since used my wife's much smaller phone and now find it incredibly cramped for reading and typing, and gaming is out of the question altogether as the screen is just too small!
Whenever I take my phone out people are generally wowed by it, but many question it's portability. I honestly can say it fits easily in my pocket and when I take it out jogging it hardly feels like it's there. I'd say it's about an inch taller than my wallet but much slimmer. When the time comes to move on from it I really hope that the 5 inch phone will have grown in development and I will have a viable upgrade to choose from!
Considering that I got an Archos 5 26 (!) months ago (late 2009), for 235 euros, I am appalled that these devices go for 600-800 euros. Yes, there's better screens and 3G/4G modems and cameras and faster SoCs in there, but nonetheless, the markup is quite insane, considering that they come without USB-host and HDMI output, and don't look half as pretty. At least 32G flash has now become standard - microSD is missing on the LG though...
On the other hand, the 5 inch form factor is ideal for me, as I need a dedicated telephone and a "portable computer" - essentially replacing a netbook. 5 inches fit into jacket/ coat pockets and easily disappear into any carry-on bag.
I just wish for a drop in replacement of the Archos, with a more efficient SoC and better GPS, and built in 4G. Willing to pay 300 euro, for a version with 32G flash, not more. Oh well, I'm pretty sure that at Archos they are currently looking into how to fit a 4430 into a 5-6" shell, possibly with support for their USB-3G modem. Until my A5IT dies, I can wait :D
The Archos isn't even remotely comparable to the specification of the Note, the Archos has a basic budget specification as you'd expect for the price whereas the Note's hardware is considerably superior in every way which costs money. that's like claiming an Intel i5 is massively overpriced against the cost of an Atom processor. The Note also does have USB host and HDMI output with a couple of cheap cables. I actually think the Note is surprisingly good value for money as it's cheaper than a Nexus despite having a bigger screen, better camera, removable storage, stylus digitiser, faster processor, better graphics card and larger battery.
At what point do we stop calling something like that a phone and call it a tablet? Honestly, clothing designers will have to start making much bigger pants pockets if this is going to be the new norm in size. I personally think that something the size of the Nexus S is perfect for a phone and don't want one any bigger.
That's the beauty of this phone size - it doesn't need bigger pockets, it fits fine in any pocket I could fit my previous 3.5in phone (Nokia N900) and it's lighter as well. Going up from the Note are the 7in tablets which I think it's fair to say those are too big for phones.
I don't think we'll need the 20:20 hindsight to prove it too.
I actually wonder what LG was thinking? Different can be good, but sometimes there are good reasons why some stuff is not tried.
Human hand size does not change according to Moore's Law or the next iteration of some SoC.
3:4 ratio can be OK if it is at some cute and cuddly size. If we are talking phablets, it probably will be unwieldy. Too wide.
Screens do get bigger the more they approach the square (assuming 4 right angles) areawise. Simplest math. Therefore, the same diagonal measure (say, 5 or 42 inches) is bigger if it is on a 4:3 screen.
But: The Samsung Note is on the borderline of being graspable by one medium sized hand. And (IMHO apart from the design/material and the horrid laggy Samsung s/w overlay) it gets more things right.
I don't think this LG device will get anywhere, besides being a rare curiousity.
With the Galaxy Nexus hardware being very disappointing (not even expandable storage) I went for the Note and not regretted it for a moment. Yes, it does seem quite big when you take it out of the packaging and is quite odd to use for phone calls for the first few days but I'm entirely used to it now and going to struggle to go back to a normal sized phone. I used the Note exactly the same way as my previous phone (N900) and have no problems putting it in pockets or similar, it's not as heavy as you'd expect for the size and it's surprisingly slender making the Streak look a little bulky.
I've never understood the point of a tablet after buying one to try it out, they just seem far too basic rather than offering a more powerful balance between phone and laptop so the Note is ideal for me as you get some of the large screen benefit of the tablet without having to carry around a separate device. Web browsing in particular is superb even over the large 4.3in screen on the Galaxy S2 as you can fit so much on the screen without having to zoom or move the screen around. The Note hardware is also considerably better than the Galaxy Nexus as it has expandable storage, a better camera, better graphics card, larger battery and stylus digitiser.
I'm not saying the Note's size is for everyone but I wouldn't just dismiss it out of hand as it's far more usable on paper than it sounds. It's considerably smaller than the Galaxy Tab as the bezel is extremely small and the device thin.
All the "power smartphone users" I've known in my life either rely upon speaker phone if their environment isn't prohibitive to it (a personal office or house call vs. cubicles in the middle of a call center), or headsets (bluetooth in particular, conversely it's been my experience that people who don't really need it will bitch about products that don't support it because they can easily imagine usage scenarios) if it is, and tend to be unnaturally proficient at doing tasks on their phone while talking away. Either way these people who permanently have their phones in their hands and headsets latched onto their ear could care less about how ridiculous they look and would simply relish the larger screen's increased productivity.
On the other hand such people run down their batteries almost as fast as they run down their Starbucks, so Samsung did a really smart thing and included a high capacity removable battery (to a slightly lesser extent they nailed it with the Galaxy Nexus LTE too), whereas LG's integrated yet still lower capacity battery (compared to say the Droid Razr MAXX from the chart) is going to automatically turn their perspective audience away regardless of what it actually ends out capable of.
As a side note, I agree with the presently circulating opinion that if Microsoft ever gets their act together they're in the best position to capitalize not only on this market of personal users, but even more so with professionals since I can easily imagine the guy who came out to repair my internet connection ditching his company provided blackberry and netbook for either a single device running windows which is synched up to a workstation SOMEWHERE, or a windows phone AND slate/tablet which are (what M$ is really hoping for). In theory Apple could do the same thing if they were willing to burn a LOT of cash to repair their reputation among IT guys since they're the ones who are closest to a unified platform, and god knows Google wants to have a monopoly on everything, but whether deserved or not (I think it is) people just have more faith in Microsoft... which is another topic, I'm sure.
I have carried Galaxy Tab with me for more than a half year now, and I'm very much looking forward into getting the same amount of pixels in a package that still fits into pocket.
There's still a huge border around the screen though which IMO could be reduced quite a bit to shrink the overall dimensions of this beast while keeping the screen size the same.
I want such devices on the market as an option, for everyday usage I pefer medium sized devices though.
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solipsism - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link
I can see uses in certain industries that a handheld device that can recreate images well and/or allow for good reading and data input where a phone-size is too small and a tablet-size is too big, but I can't see much use in the consumer space. Am I missing something that will appeal to the average user?Bote - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link
There is a market for those of us over 6 foot. The enhanced capabilities because of size are a benefit to be sure, but I've used a Streak for nearly 2 years and it is about the only thing that feels and looks right in my hands. This month I will upgrade to the nearly identically sized Note. And really only because Dell has not properly supported my phone. I still get great comments when people see it, use it more often than my tablet and can hold a conversation comfortably.Even her Infuse looks oversized in my girlfriend's hands. With so many options on the market, can't it just be about comfort?
djfourmoney - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
Comfort? Why you have a GF with small hands? My girl is 6'0 tall...chucknelson - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
Disagree with your first sentence there. I'm 6'5" and don't see any need or desire for a gigantic phone. Just because you and I may be taller does not mean holding a giant 5" device to our head looks normal - it will still look ridiculous.dasgetier - Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - link
Not to criticize you here, to each his own, but:I don't think it should be about how you LOOK while holding your phone, it should be about you, feeling comfortable (physically) doing so.
We have been trained for conformity so much, such things shouldn't bother us as much as they do..
Patanjali - Saturday, February 25, 2012 - link
As a phone, I can hold the Note against my head with open fingers, whereas I have to hold a 4s tightly with my fingertips for fear of dropping it.It fits easily into business pants pockets and sometimes I have to check that I have got it because it feels so light.
And almost no-one notices the size of the phone in use. It is only 23% larger than a GS2. It only looks large the first itme one sees it face on. After that, it is a very useful phone and out and about web browser.
kmmatney - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
I'm on the fence on this one. There are certainly times I wished a had a bigger screen, but I also like a phone not taking up too much space in my pocket. Maybe they should come up with a better way to make a dual screen phone.jjj - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link
Too much energy is being spent on the screen size,doubt LG or Samsung would argue it's the best size, it's just another option just like ... 3.2".Each has it's own plusses and minuses.djfourmoney - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
I just got a Infuse 4G, I am 6'1 my hands are above average size. I wanted the Note but I am saving for other things and I got the Infuse for free + contact continued for another 2 years and I had to pay for tax ($46).I like the large display much better to type on for a phone without a physical keyboard. Battery life is decent, you need to charge it and completely discharge it twice before you get full life and you also need to make sure you charge it full.
Considering Europeans are generally smaller and Asians even smaller and they like to large phones just means most Americans are size phonic and locked in on the size of the IPhone as the "ideal" size.
The other companies had to do something to break the strangle hold Apple has on the smartphone market. Size is one way to combat that, I welcome these larger devices.
dasgetier - Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - link
A larger display makes it MUCH more "fun" to type on the phone. I recently switched from 3.2" to 4.2", while typing on the 3.2" screen was utterly frustrating, typing on the 4.2" screen is OK.PS: AFAIK (wikipedia seems to say so too) the average European male isn't smaller than the average American male, regarding the body height.
Patanjali - Saturday, February 25, 2012 - link
Which means that most could use a larger phone, and those who don't use a phone solely single-handed will not be limited by size in the same way.djfourmoney - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
About as much energy is spent writing that post or running your mouth.rykerabel - Monday, February 20, 2012 - link
The streak was the perfect size for me. Just Dell did not support it properly and AT&T gimped it. I can't wait to get my hands on the Galaxy Note when my contract ends but I'll be buying off contract this time. :)jiffylube1024 - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
This thing looks chunky; it takes the worst aspect of the Galaxy Note (the width, which makes it very hard to use in one handed operation) and makes it even wider and a bit shorter. 1.5 GHz Snapdragon (slower than 1.2 GHz Exynos), 1024x768 IPS screen (the RGB stripe is nice, but give me AMOLED anyday), and a much .smaller battery make this look like a loser compared to the GNote.This thing will be better than the GNote at reading webpages and documents in portrait mode and..... that's about it. For Youtube, video, and anything in landscape mode, the Note will absolutely crush this.
dasgetier - Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - link
I agree, the 4:3 aspect ratio doesn't seem to be a good choice for this kind of device.abergon - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
I have been using a Galaxy Note for a few months now (since it came on the market) and I find the size just right. It has replaced a previous phone, a tablet, a GPS, a netbook, a Kindle and a point and shoot camera. I am out of home for 100+ days a year so it makes a big difference. As far as size is concerned, the question for me is: does it fit into a shirt pocket? The Galaxy Note does, but I have doubts about anything wider.djfourmoney - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
Shirt pockets and skinny jeans, c'mon people. I don't have shirt pockets, i don't work some corny office job.Basilisk - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
I agree: anything that doesn't fit a shirt pocket ceases being a primary phone to me, and the Note's about as wide as fits.I'm sure there's not a wasted mm inside, but I do wish they could near-eliminate the wide bezel ends (top and bottom) making nearly all of the face a screen. The size of the camera chip probably limits narrowing the top bezel, but ICS reduces the need for the Std 4 Buttons at the bottom -- and 'not sure I'd mind them being moved to the back. Make it shorter and it would be more stable in the pocket.
Patanjali - Saturday, February 25, 2012 - link
The top and bottom parts in portrait come into their own in landscape as one is usually holding each end between thumb and fingers. There would be a tendency to cover the viewable area, or trigger off things inadvertantly otherwise.Plastichairball - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
I must say I am pleased that Samsung, LG and other companies are continuing to explore the larger phone or "phablet" designs. I have had my Streak for half a year now and although support from Dell has been non-existent the user community is hugely active and enthusiastic, which is great and testifies to the popularity of the phone.In terms of usage, I use mine for a lot of entertainment consumption. The screen for me is perfect for gaming, watching Youtube on the train to and from work and I get all my reading done on my Streak. Typing is also a breeze because everything is just bigger and I don't find myself accidentally Swyping into the wrong letters like I do on smaller phones. I've since used my wife's much smaller phone and now find it incredibly cramped for reading and typing, and gaming is out of the question altogether as the screen is just too small!
Whenever I take my phone out people are generally wowed by it, but many question it's portability. I honestly can say it fits easily in my pocket and when I take it out jogging it hardly feels like it's there. I'd say it's about an inch taller than my wallet but much slimmer. When the time comes to move on from it I really hope that the 5 inch phone will have grown in development and I will have a viable upgrade to choose from!
Rick83 - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
Considering that I got an Archos 5 26 (!) months ago (late 2009), for 235 euros, I am appalled that these devices go for 600-800 euros. Yes, there's better screens and 3G/4G modems and cameras and faster SoCs in there, but nonetheless, the markup is quite insane, considering that they come without USB-host and HDMI output, and don't look half as pretty. At least 32G flash has now become standard - microSD is missing on the LG though...On the other hand, the 5 inch form factor is ideal for me, as I need a dedicated telephone and a "portable computer" - essentially replacing a netbook. 5 inches fit into jacket/ coat pockets and easily disappear into any carry-on bag.
I just wish for a drop in replacement of the Archos, with a more efficient SoC and better GPS, and built in 4G. Willing to pay 300 euro, for a version with 32G flash, not more.
Oh well, I'm pretty sure that at Archos they are currently looking into how to fit a 4430 into a 5-6" shell, possibly with support for their USB-3G modem.
Until my A5IT dies, I can wait :D
Johnmcl7 - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
The Archos isn't even remotely comparable to the specification of the Note, the Archos has a basic budget specification as you'd expect for the price whereas the Note's hardware is considerably superior in every way which costs money. that's like claiming an Intel i5 is massively overpriced against the cost of an Atom processor. The Note also does have USB host and HDMI output with a couple of cheap cables. I actually think the Note is surprisingly good value for money as it's cheaper than a Nexus despite having a bigger screen, better camera, removable storage, stylus digitiser, faster processor, better graphics card and larger battery.John
piroroadkill - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
Don't put batteries in your phones smaller than RAZR MAXX. Motorola can do it in a tiny size, so can you.solipsism - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
Note that Moto has used a non-user replaceable battery. I'm all for those but it seem most here think it's evil.MeesterNid - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
At what point do we stop calling something like that a phone and call it a tablet? Honestly, clothing designers will have to start making much bigger pants pockets if this is going to be the new norm in size. I personally think that something the size of the Nexus S is perfect for a phone and don't want one any bigger.Johnmcl7 - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
That's the beauty of this phone size - it doesn't need bigger pockets, it fits fine in any pocket I could fit my previous 3.5in phone (Nokia N900) and it's lighter as well. Going up from the Note are the 7in tablets which I think it's fair to say those are too big for phones.John
dasgetier - Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - link
Those new phones are quite thin, I guess that helps fitting them into the same pockets as wellnosirree - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
I don't think we'll need the 20:20 hindsight to prove it too.I actually wonder what LG was thinking? Different can be good, but sometimes there are good reasons why some stuff is not tried.
Human hand size does not change according to Moore's Law or the next iteration of some SoC.
3:4 ratio can be OK if it is at some cute and cuddly size. If we are talking phablets, it probably will be unwieldy. Too wide.
Screens do get bigger the more they approach the square (assuming 4 right angles) areawise. Simplest math. Therefore, the same diagonal measure (say, 5 or 42 inches) is bigger if it is on a 4:3 screen.
But: The Samsung Note is on the borderline of being graspable by one medium sized hand. And (IMHO apart from the design/material and the horrid laggy Samsung s/w overlay) it gets more things right.
I don't think this LG device will get anywhere, besides being a rare curiousity.
Johnmcl7 - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
With the Galaxy Nexus hardware being very disappointing (not even expandable storage) I went for the Note and not regretted it for a moment. Yes, it does seem quite big when you take it out of the packaging and is quite odd to use for phone calls for the first few days but I'm entirely used to it now and going to struggle to go back to a normal sized phone. I used the Note exactly the same way as my previous phone (N900) and have no problems putting it in pockets or similar, it's not as heavy as you'd expect for the size and it's surprisingly slender making the Streak look a little bulky.I've never understood the point of a tablet after buying one to try it out, they just seem far too basic rather than offering a more powerful balance between phone and laptop so the Note is ideal for me as you get some of the large screen benefit of the tablet without having to carry around a separate device. Web browsing in particular is superb even over the large 4.3in screen on the Galaxy S2 as you can fit so much on the screen without having to zoom or move the screen around. The Note hardware is also considerably better than the Galaxy Nexus as it has expandable storage, a better camera, better graphics card, larger battery and stylus digitiser.
I'm not saying the Note's size is for everyone but I wouldn't just dismiss it out of hand as it's far more usable on paper than it sounds. It's considerably smaller than the Galaxy Tab as the bezel is extremely small and the device thin.
John
randinspace - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
All the "power smartphone users" I've known in my life either rely upon speaker phone if their environment isn't prohibitive to it (a personal office or house call vs. cubicles in the middle of a call center), or headsets (bluetooth in particular, conversely it's been my experience that people who don't really need it will bitch about products that don't support it because they can easily imagine usage scenarios) if it is, and tend to be unnaturally proficient at doing tasks on their phone while talking away. Either way these people who permanently have their phones in their hands and headsets latched onto their ear could care less about how ridiculous they look and would simply relish the larger screen's increased productivity.On the other hand such people run down their batteries almost as fast as they run down their Starbucks, so Samsung did a really smart thing and included a high capacity removable battery (to a slightly lesser extent they nailed it with the Galaxy Nexus LTE too), whereas LG's integrated yet still lower capacity battery (compared to say the Droid Razr MAXX from the chart) is going to automatically turn their perspective audience away regardless of what it actually ends out capable of.
As a side note, I agree with the presently circulating opinion that if Microsoft ever gets their act together they're in the best position to capitalize not only on this market of personal users, but even more so with professionals since I can easily imagine the guy who came out to repair my internet connection ditching his company provided blackberry and netbook for either a single device running windows which is synched up to a workstation SOMEWHERE, or a windows phone AND slate/tablet which are (what M$ is really hoping for). In theory Apple could do the same thing if they were willing to burn a LOT of cash to repair their reputation among IT guys since they're the ones who are closest to a unified platform, and god knows Google wants to have a monopoly on everything, but whether deserved or not (I think it is) people just have more faith in Microsoft... which is another topic, I'm sure.
Zds - Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - link
I have carried Galaxy Tab with me for more than a half year now, and I'm very much looking forward into getting the same amount of pixels in a package that still fits into pocket.niva - Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - link
Yup, that's what she said.There's still a huge border around the screen though which IMO could be reduced quite a bit to shrink the overall dimensions of this beast while keeping the screen size the same.
I want such devices on the market as an option, for everyday usage I pefer medium sized devices though.