| Melody |
February 16th, 2016 8:34 AM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by Team Fail
(Post 9121056)
The thing about small screens is that they're easier to manipulate, especially if you only have one hand. They fit in more places, and are in general just nicer for use. However, the smaller the phone, the less components that can fit in, especially when a battery takes up a large portion of that space. On the contrary, if a phone is larger, you can do more at once on any given screen. Samsung has added a one-handed mode to their newer devices where it will reduce the size of the screen and direct it to either the left or right-hand side of the screen so that you can control the phone entirely with one hand, which is a nice solution to the issue.
Smaller phones are disappearing faster and faster though as people want to be able to watch movies and take photos and browse the web, though. We'll get to the point that any phone under 4" won't really be a thing anymore, and larger phones, even phablets, will be the most popular.
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I don't mind smaller screens; they aren't the worst things. They certainly have uses. But as for Samsung's "fix" it feels more like a sloppy hack; turning off certain pixels and reducing the overall screen DPI. Basically it changes from your standard screen resolution, to a smaller one, but doesn't scale the whole screen to that resolution. Seems like it would make things more difficult for developers to develop UIs for, as they now have to consider how the interface looks on that mode.
I will say that small screens are less capable of displaying certain kinds of information in a friendly readable format, and I simply do adore my Nexus 6 as being the perfect balance between large and small. Can I one hand it? No, but that's a small sacrifice to make considering the density of information that you can present on a 6 inch screen, High Definition content included.
I find that often a small screen phone is better for users who might not rely so heavily on their smartphone. The smaller screen makes usage a little bit less convenient; and thus usage patterns are reduced significantly. That's not always a bad thing though; couple this with the lower power draw (in mAh) and you do get longer life from smaller screens, in terms of screen-on time to battery life. On lower end models such as say the Samsung Galaxy Core Prime the smaller screen enables the device to be produced at a lower cost per unit; which makes it easy to obtain for those on a budget.
Smaller screens will always have both advantages and downsides.
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