Look at any major line of smartphones, and you will notice a common pattern. Screens are growing from year to year, from model to model.
Let's start with a revision of the most famous line of Android-smartphone. Just look at the size chart devices Samsung, to understand that the trend is increasing. Not to be outdone, HTC also increases the size of their screens, and Nokia is trying not to fall out of the industry trend with its line of Lumia.
Apple once called 4-inch screen iPhone «brilliant display of common sense," but also goes by competitors. Evidence suggests that the interest in increasing the size of the Californian giant screen is small, but according to rumors, the company's flagship smartphone in 2014 will get a screen with a diagonal of 4.7 inches.
Increasing the size of phones: it's a reality
Perhaps only grow flagship phones? To determine how common is this trend, analysts calculated the ratio between the release date of the model and the size of the screen for more than a thousand phones. The schedule summarizes the data for several hundred of the most popular devices.
It turned out that the general trend is not only smartphones Apple and Samsung. There is a close connection between the release date of the model and the size of its screen.
Until 2011, almost all phones on the market had a size of 2.5 to 4 inches. Since 2013, less than 4 inches phones have almost disappeared. The following graph clearly confirms this trend.
Why phones transform into tablets? Surely this trend many reasons. Observers Inosmi collected five different scenarios from least likely to most of the obvious.
Scenario 1. Marketing ploy. Matter how many new-fangled features developers nor was thrust into a new product, there is nothing that is attracting attention as a new design of the smartphone, especially if it has increased the display.
iPhone 5 debuted with support for LTE and the new A6 chip, but the main news media became enlarged screen size. Screen models attracted buyers NTS One 2013 of 4.7 inches, but the company could not resist adding another model M8 0.3 inches. Then Samsung made with its advertising campaign "next big thing". She began almost continuously screens increase its line of Galaxy S 4.8 inch (S III) to 4.99 inches and S4 to 5.1 inches in S5.
This is a nice and neat theory, but ultimately it's just a theory and nothing more. There are too many variables to draw the conclusion that increasing the size of the screen - it's just a marketing strategy of advertisers, even if a large screen leads to increased sales. The situation with the Samsung seems to be the most convincing, but it is still a special case.
Scenario number 2. Apple made a mistake with the screen size?
When in 2007 Apple released the first iPhone, the industry rushed to copy almost all the details of its design - from the interface with application icons and visual voicemail to the apparatus without buttons and screen size of 3.5 inches. At first it seemed that Apple can not go wrong.
Only in 2010, when the first model Galaxy S and Droid X, the market appeared reasonable alternatives iPhone. For producers in their quest to get ahead of Apple through innovation inspiration came. Yes, iPhone is sleek and shiny, but people really need a large area of the screen. The rest, as they say, is history.
Perhaps this is a grain of truth, but the theory is too elegant and clear.
Scenario number 3. Changes are observed mainly in small lineup most famous brands and models.
More refined version of the scenario number 2 suggests that increasing the size of the screen of the smartphone is a consequence of the trends noted in only a few legendary phones, each of which increased the size of the screen, and each of them has made a mini-revolution.
It is quite reasonable. On the market there are more than 1000 phones, but on sales figures and media headlines dominated by less than a dozen titles. With each successful change (say, a clearer picture on the screen of the iPhone 4, improved camera on early models DROID) remaining notable phones quickly follow the leader. Probably the same thing applies to the screen size.
But will it work unit larger than 4 inches? DROID X proved that the "big" (for its time) phone can be quite successful. And if it is more than 5 inches? Galaxy Note II size 5.5 inches initiated a series of giant phones.
"Theory of trend setting" for the most popular smartphones, probably adequately explains the changes occurring in the market. But it does not explain those dramatic macro changes that we are seeing in the industry.
Scenario number 4. Manufacturers have always wanted to make great phones - but until recently the technology simply does not allow this.
In 2007 pixels and increase the battery life was very difficult. Post adequate food by 5-inch high-resolution display was simply impossible. Today's batteries and display technology enable manufacturers to make large 6-inch screens that work without charging more than a day.
To understand this, it is enough to see how the increased pixel density and capacity of the batteries from the line Samsung Galaxy S for five generations.
This is the simplest explanation, and perhaps the best to date. It shows why the manufacturers had not pitched in manufacturing machines for more than 4 inches, and is now routinely produce models by 5 inches or more.
However, this theory is not clear why a phone manufacturer in 2013 virtually abandoned production vehicles of less than 4 inches.
Scenario number 5. Smartphone into a central computer.
Back in 2007, it was far from clear whether the smartphone become the main product in its market segment, as it is today - a device capable of over time to replace the majority of personal computers. Seven years ago, the smartphone has been a combination of the three less important products: music player, mobile browser and cell phone networks. Today smartphone connects people around the world better than anything before it. The inhabitants of the Third World can not be cars and computers, but all of them have smartphones.
But what does this have to the screen size? As smartphone into our basic device performing the operation of computers and even televisions, we need a product that can change like a chameleon, to perform all these functions.
Prior to 2010, additional screen sizes were not needed. In the end, we are using the phone rang, listening to music, "Surf" on the Internet, using a poor mobile interface, and did take notes, to perform real work, when we get to your computer.
Today web design interfaces are often designed primarily for mobile format. Smartphone - it's not just a phone, it is a hybrid of several devices. Often, it turns into the most common means of communicating with the world. A large screen enables the mobile device to perform all of these functions at once.
We sometimes make fun of "planshetofony" the size of a small tablet computer. But perhaps we are all moving in this direction. Maybe bigger is better.