Aug 19, 2013
Mobile
Samsung’s New 6.3-Inch ‘Galaxy Mega’ Phone Pushes the Limits
There was a time when companies tried to make mobile phones as small as they possibly could. This is not that time.
Samsung Electronics, which (literally) pushed the boundaries of the smartphone with its Galaxy Note line, is going where no phone maker has gone before with the Galaxy Mega.
The Galaxy Note II sports a 5.5-inch screen. The Mega, making its U.S. debut this month, brings a 6.3-inch screen to the “phablet” party, although you might need custom pockets if you actually want to bring it to a party. (Find the specs of the Mega here.)
By comparison, the original iPhones had just a 3.5-inch display, and Apple only raised that size to 4 inches last year with the latest model. It’s been less than three years since Steve Jobs went on a rant about the evils of devices that tried to slip in between the smartphone and tablet.
“No tablet can compete with the mobility of a smartphone, its ease of fitting into your pocket or purse, its unobtrusiveness when used in a crowd,” Mr. Jobs said.
Unobtrusive, the Mega is not – unless you use it to hide your face. It’s 6.5 inches long and 3.5 inches wide. But it builds on the popularity of the Note, which found a niche in the crowded and competitive smartphone market.
For those not quite into the cookie-sheet look, AT&T said Monday it will begin selling the HTC One mini. The smaller version of HTC’s flagship smartphone has a “miniature” 4.3-inch screen, still bigger than the upsized iPhone.
The new devices continue the trend to build a phone for every palm and pocket.
And while handset makers seem to keep pushing the limits with bigger phones, they aren’t likely to match the original 1980s brick phone: the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x with its 13-inch height and unwieldy 28 ounces. (Think Gordon Gekko)
More:
I HATE tiny phones, tiny keys, tiny screens, and I think the reason they were made so small was because…they could make them really, really small
I’m glad for the bigger screens now that the novelty of tiny is over. If there is a demand for compact-ness, how about a phone with a small screen for calls, but a large pull-out screen for more serious phoning and texting.
I think Apple and Tim Cook should just add phone capability to the Ipad mini, problem solved!
Just what I was looking for, a phone with a larger screen. How does it handle?
“The Bricks were pretty big alright, but I bet you could cram some pretty powerful computing and gigs of memory in there now. A pocket Cray anyone?”
This tongue-in-cheek suggestion points up a big difference between the age of the Bricks and now. There’s no need to put a Cray on your smartphone now, because the Cray can be up in the “cloud” to which your smartphone is connected. The cloud is now where the power is; your phone is just your link to it.
People, on average, are older.
Older people can’t see small type,
You can sell a larger screen to these older people who don’t need to slip it into their pockets and go to a party because a lot of them don’t go out all that much. I also don’t buy the pocket/portability argument for women, many of whom don’t have pockets in a lot of their clothing and just toss it in their purse.