Smart Phone Screens Increasing In Size

Bigger Is Actually Better

When the iPhone came out with its 3.5 inch screen, it was seen as the standard for the future. There were some other phones out there which had 3 inch screens or larger, but that had established the new benchmark for what people wanted to see in a smart phone. For Apple, that size has not changed since the first iPhone was rolled out in 2007. Rumors of Apple increasing the size to 4 inches for the iPhone 4S never materialized and one must assume that it will increase with the iPhone 5. That is because people want to see larger screens. There is no other to state it that size does make a difference.

In a report from Strategy Analytics, they found from a survey that the range of screen size for a smart phone which people desired is in the 4 to 4.5 inch range and that is an increase. One of the key observations was that the thickness of phone came into play as well. With the current trend to make phones thinner, it fits in with that particular finding in the survey results. Another factor was differences between men and women, where women desired phones which were smaller in size over all.

In the area of phone types, iPhone owners did not desire screens as large as Android owners which can be traced to the size of recent Android phones, some of which are over 4.5 inches in size. This is pushing beyond the survey results and could be presenting what the future may be holding for us all. Recent product offerings may be moving things even further than the current range of desired screens size to have it become 4.5 to 5 inches in size as the new range. This is mainly because of the Samsung Galaxy Note coming in at 5.3 inches which compared to most smart phones is very large.

With the convergence of smart phones and tablets, we can expect the idea of providing a larger screen on a smart phone to continue and 5 inches to become the standard. That is going to be dependent on several factors to make that become the case. One of the primary ones is going to be battery life. We have already seen that poor battery life impacts 4G LTE phones and cause some to reconsider the idea of purchasing a 4G LTE smart phone. This one items is going to have to be addressed or it will impact smart phone sales in the future. Larger screen sizes are going to require higher battery drain and thus the need for far better battery life than what we see today. Rumors of the reduction in the bezel around smart phones is one solution as the screens can increase, but not the size of the phones.

If the larger screens result in heavy smart phones in the future, that will impact sales as the screens get larger. If bigger batteries are the only solution to the battery life issues, then people are going to be looking at phones below the 4.5 inch size. The goal is to have a smart phone that easily fits into your pocket and if it weighs a lot, you are going to notice it during the day. That is not the trend that we have been seeing in recent years.

One of the biggest drivers for larger screen sizes is going to be much higher resolution on smart phones. This trend is all important in the convergence of smart phones and tablets. If a larger smart phone is to replace a 7 inch tablet, the only way that it will do that is through greatly increased resolution. You only have to look at the significantly increased resolution on the new iPad to understand how that changes the market over night. The increased screen resolution on Android smart phones has been increasing steadily over the past year and looks to be increasing far further this year as well.

What do you think is a good screen size on a smart phone?