Modern smartphones are getting better and better – they are substitutes for many things. In addition to the design features, which are something individual, everyone recognizes the fact that modern devices are improving. In addition to being more powerful, they are getting bigger and heavier. At some moments it even starts to strain. Personally, I recall with nostalgia the times when smartphones were lighter. At the same time, I am glad that they have become more productive. I would like to combine pleasant heaviness and high productivity. Perhaps someone will do something similar, but so far the development vector speaks for itself. Until when will this continue?
A large smartphone doesn't look strange now.
The largest modern smartphone
The average size of smartphones has been growing steadily for over a decade. This is especially noticeable against the background of the fact that the size of the hand of a modern person has not changed during this time. Except for those who were children and raised. By the way, growing up with smartphones is very convenient.
Smartphones are getting bigger and manufacturers have stopped making smaller models. If you want a phone on Android that is easy to operate with one hand and fits comfortably in the pocket of skinny jeans, then you won't have much choice. Several patterns come to mind. For example, Sony Xperia XZ Compact. It was very neat, but did not “enter” users. The iPhone SE gained much more popularity, but it was larger in size. All the same, as statistics show, requests for ”iPhone SE 2” break all records.
Now smartphones have the screen diagonal that was previously available only to tablets. For example, the screen size of the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra is 6.9 inches.
Yes, we can say that it can be used with one hand, although it takes practice, but it is still very heavy. Its weight is a whopping 222 grams. It sounds just like a number, but if you put it in the pocket of loose shorts, then there is a risk of being left without them. Especially if you walk a little briskly.
'So what if the screen is small? The body is big. ' It was like that before.
Weighting is inevitable due to the large amount of glass and metal used in the structure. And also because of the large battery, which is needed in order to feed the gluttonous screen and powerful processor of this smartphone.
Why the size of smartphones is increasing
It is not necessary to say that only the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra is so big. Even Apple, which has always adhered to a more compact size, even in the days of iPhone 6 began to produce “plus versions”, the screen diagonal of which was 0.8 inches larger than the screen of the basic version. With the release of the iPhone XS Max and iPhone 11 Pro Max, the trend is intimidating. The smartphone has become just huge. If you use a smartphone with one hand and hold the device with your little finger, you can immediately notice it. Sometimes the finger may just start to hurt. And if you put on a Smart Battery Case, you can fight off hooligans in the alley.
Due to the fact that manufacturers did not have the courage (and maybe even savvy) to make smartphones large at once, we got used to the increase gradually – by several grams and fractions of an inch per year. If someone takes a huge phone out of his pocket and presses it to his head, we no longer remember the joke that “I bought a Samsung smartphone, now the wind is not blowing in my face”. Once upon a time, the Galaxy Note seemed to us something awkward. Now we are also looking at gadgets that then seemed good in size.
There was such a thing.
So gradually we lost the word 'phablet', as well as several other words from an earlier era that I talked about earlier. The phablet, or plafond, as it was also called, was the middle link between phones and tablets. Now the values of the diagonals have met and the intermediate link is gone.
What is a big phone for?
Large screens are well suited for some tasks. For example, for watching videos or playing games. In addition, the large size of the case allows you to place more useful elements inside. For example, a battery. True, we still need to figure out what is primary. Manufacturers make the screen slightly larger and take up space in the enlarged case with the battery, or add a couple of millimeters to the size of the case for the battery and at the same time enlarge the screen.
The question is when users will already say “Enough!” and will stop voting in rubles for large devices. This was hoped for until the Sony Xperia 1 came out last year, which showed that you can grow in height even further. Before that, we thought that smartphones can only grow proportionally, but it turned out that they cannot. Sony even found the ideal smartphone width as they think. I have heard more than once from company representatives that their research has led to an ideal case width of 72 mm. From this they made a start when they made the flagships of recent years.
This is how the size of smartphones Huawei of the 'P' series changed over time.
Why did they stop making small phones
So why have manufacturers stopped making small devices when there is demand for them? Many people complain about the large size of the flagships. People need a flagship, but small. Let it shoot well, work quickly, but be compact – this is the logic of many, mainly adults, people who do not need a phone to be 24/7 in social networks and games.
There can be only one answer. It is not profitable. We can say that someone will buy anyway, but the production of a smartphone costs a lot of money. It is necessary to develop it, take away its production capacity in order to assemble it, to distribute at least a couple of million pieces around the world so that they are available everywhere. And still it is necessary to provide services with a stock of spare parts.
So over time, the size and weight of Samsung Galaxy models grew.
At the same time, do not forget that no one will buy a small smartphone for big money. It turns out that it should be as big in hardware, and at a price of 100-150, or better 200-250 dollars cheaper. It is only unfortunate analysts who calculate the company's profit according to the formula “price in the store minus the cost of components”, and then they say that companies have $ 400-700 from each pipe. But you have to take him, pay for the store, for the seller, for advertising, for development, finally. Large companies spend 7-12 billion dollars a year on development and this amount must be repaid. As a result, the $ 100 difference becomes very significant.
For lovers of something smaller, there is the Pixel series “a” and iPhone, which, almost two years after the presentation, is among the ten best-selling smartphones. People love compact devices and are ready to buy them. There just aren't that many. If a couple more compact models are released, the buyer will have more choice. But their number will not change. Apple and Google has enough demand to produce compact smartphones, but if there are not two, but four, then the production and sale of “babies” will become unprofitable. It's not for nothing that Sony abandoned its Compact line, and Samsung never revealed a successor to the Galaxy S10e.
In state employees, everything is a little different. There you can find compact smartphones. Well, and those who are ready to pay 1,000+ dollars are cautious about compacts and want, as in a Russian saying, for all the money of bread.