I say the screen grows constantly and the part of the phone that isn’t screen decreases constantly. It’s just that at some point the sum is getting smaller
More like corporations realized that people with larger screens tend to browse more content and spend more time in their phones, so they made it the only available option, whether you like it or not.
Angry upvote!
And as a fan of large screens (like projectors), I couldn’t be happier. Hence why I own a foldable, because most phone screens still aren’t large enough to satisfy me.
I am so opposite of this - you could never sell me a foldable - I can’t even find one Android game that is worth playing that isn’t a remake of an old PC game. That folding will eventually kill the device earlier than a non fold. I just don’t see the draw… I have a tablet or laptop or pc for games and other stuff.
Don’t know what to tell you, because I’ve owned four different foldables and none of them ever had any issues. They’re just durable and reliable as any other phone.
You remind me of the kind of people who avoid OLEDs, because they still believe that burn-in is an issue that wasn’t solved years ago…
Not sure it’s really relevant how long someone spends on their phone. The only thing that matters to them are sales, and the simple matter is that larger screens sell better than their smaller counterparts.
Look at all that screen real estate. Utterly wasted on ads and super tall fonts.
Don’t forget all the margins around everything for no reason
Well, I like reading comfortably
Same, so for that reason the ads should gtfo to make more space for the text 👍
(And fonts that are tall but not wide aren’t very comfortable imo)
Super tall fonts?
Yes, look at the screen resolution of your phone (mine is at 1080x2340 by 6.38 to 2.97 inches) and then at an old palm PDA from the early 2000s with 320x320 (or at tops 320x480 by 4.8 to 3.1 inches) and now compare what amount of text you can display on each. The Phone should be able to display soo much more Text, but it doesn’t because the Fonts are so tall.
Thats what I mean.
“Owning your hardware” implies the bootloader is unlockable and relockable.
The screen size boom was later. Look at the iphone 5
Apple was slow to adopt larger screens. The Android phones of that time were roughly an inch larger. Apple rarely blazed any trails.
https://www.droid-life.com/2012/12/20/top-10-android-phones-of-2012/
Exactly. Apples biggest success has been looking at all the options being tested by other manufacturers, choosing the option they want, then completely eliminating all other options and convincing people in droves that what they are offering is what you want.
To be fair, until about a decade ago, they did generally
stealpick the best of available options.and that it was their idea
Phones with large screens used to be called phablets, nobody calls them that anymore because they’re all phablets now.
I must have been in a coma for that. When was this?
It’s unfortunate. I’d love a small, privacy respecting phone. Bonus points if it has an eink display.
That’s exactly what the Mudita Kompakt is ! Give it a try it’s great!
Nice recommendation! I’m definitely going to look further into it. It appears to be Google-free, which is wonderful. Thanks for taking the time to share!
Phablets were larger than modern screens; in the 8-9" range. You were lucky to fit one in a back pocket.
Phablets were in the 5-7" range, everything above that was definitely a tablet.
No, I saw 4" media devices be called media tablets (hello Archos) whole phones were stuck on 2.5" to 3"
And after that as phone sizes grew, 6-7" screens were called phablets
i would kill for button based menu navigation to come back
Why
ergonomic, don’t have to move your hands.
tactile, don’t have to watch the phone to navigate if you are familiar with what you are doing
“safer” since you can rest your hands while holding your device without worrying about accidental touch inputs that means you can have a firmer grip
But it eats into tbr screen size if implemented the old school Blackberry way, instead what I’d prefer is a under the screen slide out keyboard + navigation pad, like the Blackberry priv, or even the LG wing with the second display screen could have been an amazing form factor, allowing you to control the main display from the smaller customizable touch display at the bottom, at least my main screen wouldn’t have all these finger smudges
Yes, but even just for menu navigation without keyboard would be an improvement. wouldn’t have to use more space than the old physical home buttons.
However typing is the more frustrating element, so it would be nice.
ergonomic, don’t have to move your hands.
I can’t even begin to understand what you mean by this. It sounds like maybe you’re an iPhone user, which has almost no native universal controls. Android has options like gestures or a digital button bar, which allow for universal navigation from the same location that physical buttons would be in.
tactile, don’t have to watch the phone to navigate if you are familiar with what you are doing
Those buttons are contextually dynamic. You wouldn’t be able to use them without looking at the screen anyway.
“safer” since you can rest your hands while holding your device without worrying about accidental touch inputs that means you can have a firmer grip
How are you firmly gripping buttons without pushing them? This makes no sense.
It sounds like you have rose tinted glasses inspired by the inferiority of iOS, but I’m making assumptions.
2015
And then all innovation ended
You can’t really improve much on the current phone. The screen is almost 100% of the phone’s surface. There are no moving parts. What else could You improve?
Look at the design of Blackberry Priv, or the LG Wing, they could keep the big screen and still figure out more innovative layouts, if they wanted to and if there was enough customer demand
i don’t think maximizing screen surface area percentage is that great, actually. i’d much rather have my physical navigation buttons back. also that “notch” thing that so many new phones are doing is stupid af.
Tallest on the left, shortest on the right…SIZE!
They got bigger so there was more room for ads.
I absolutely hate that phones got so darn big. Im stuck with iPhone 13 mini even though I hate iOS with no clear upgrade path
we
could watch stuffcould watch adsAnd porn
I wish 2g and 3g weren’t being dismantled. I want to go back to using my old razr
The weight scale is misrepresented, though.
Good catch!
Now I’m mad
They got a lot smaller than that.
“we” = “they”
And what if I don’t want to watch “stuff” on my phone? My phone is supposed to be a portable “swiss-army-knife” of digital tools.
They made tablets for the other “stuff”
I think most of the population are on tiktok and that crack, need big screen for maximum experience…
I’ll never forget circa 2005, my friend was at the Montreal jazz festival or something. He told me about it and he said he took a video. He whipped out his phone that was basically a really thick pen. He showed me a video of another friend doing goofy stuff. Even on this tiny phonewith a tiny screen, it was really enough. I miss the time when someone took out his phone and you actually had no idea what to expect.
