Reasons, Limits and Improvements of Display Growth

The world of smartphones has seen an increase in specification numbers, year after year. For most things, bigger numbers usually mean good things: more resolution, more processor frequency or cores, more storage, more camera resolution. We see phone performances improve up to 30% each year. We went from 8MP cameras to a 13MP standard in a short while, and now it seems flagships are not settling for under 16MP in 2015. A resolution of 720p was common for 2012 smartphones, then in 2013 most phones had Full HD screens, and finally in 2014 we saw plenty of 1440p phones, which is seemingly a new standard, even if HTC thinks otherwise. Soon we’ll see 4K screens on phones. Then there are some numbers that need to grow but haven’t done so proportionally just yet, like storage.

Like I said, bigger numbers usually mean better things. Power users can read past a single number and analyze many other factors, as camera quality and processor performance are not tied just to megapixel counts or core frequencies. But nevertheless, to the average consumer, a bigger number works as an easily digestible comparison benchmark: many people just pick the phone with the highest numbers across the board. This is good, most of the time: it generates a demand that pushes technology and competition. The only downside is that it might not necessarily push innovation, because that isn’t always easily quantifiable in a small number for consumers to directly compare back and forth.

Phone screens were subject to growth these past few years, although not necessarily due to consumer demand. After all, not everyone wants a huge phone just yet. But it is an undeniable truth that phones of all kinds are getting bigger.  There’s plenty of data to prove it, like these graphs courtesy of Medium. As you can see, the trend is very well defined and quite substantial too. It has only been accelerating.

But will it stop?

 

More room for fun… But why?

Let’s look at the most popular Android manufacturers’ last 3 years in the game:

• Samsung: Galaxy S3 was 4.8 inches -> Galaxy S4 was 5 inches -> Galaxy S5 was 5.1 inches.
  • It grew an average of 0.15 inches per iteration.
• LG: Optimus G was 4.7 inches -> G2 was 5.2 inches -> G3 was 5.5 inches. 
  • It grew an average of 0.4 inches per iteration.
• HTC: HTC One X 4.7 inches -> HTC One was 4.7 inches -> HTC One M8 5 inches.
  • It grew an average of 0.15 inches per iteration.

This doesn’t seem to account for such a huge and drastic change, but in reality, it is not just flagship sizes increasing. A big factor in the averaging of smartphone display sizes is the introduction and following proliferation of phablets, particularly pushed with the success of the Note line of phablets from Samsung.

Said line-up has also seen some pretty big jumps in size since its inception, but it has mostly settled for now. It debuted with a 5.3 inch that was criticized for being too big at the time of its release. And many still consider Note phones to be massive, as they would phablets in general. But regardless of the opinion of dissenters, Samsung’s phablet line-up is a success and many Android users’ favorite phone series. And now, what we considered “too big” is below many mainstream flagship line-ups from big manufacturers. Oppo, for example, released a 5.5 inch flagship in 2014. LG’s flagship was also 5.5 inches. OnePlus’ entry into the market was 5.5 inches. Sony’s Z3 is just under the size of the original Note phone. And then you’ve got the whale in the room, Google’s own vision for Android, the Nexus 6 and its massive 6 inch screen.

But what is exactly pushing all phones into a bigger screen territory? There are many possible explanations, and all hold some degree of truth to them. For example, it could just be that pocket-sized computers are the subconsciously ideal format for consumers, and that the convenience of packing all of your necessary computing tools in a pocket package is what drives the natural selection of market purchases towards higher degrees of success for those phones that happen to increase the screen sizes. Since there’s a lot of market analysis and logistics going down at OEM HQs, common trendsetting and adoption mechanisms to any economy push the industry towards these desires. This could be justifiable with the fact that more screen size allows for richer, more defined GUI’s as well.

Bigger screens could not be the indirect or direct result of conscious or subconscious consumer demand, however. Perhaps it was the manufacturers’ plan all along. Either because they see a bigger degree of productivity and entertainment in bigger screens, or because they serve as an excuse to keep pushing other areas of development, like screen technology which also requires a chipset boost to mitigate the performance hits from resolution bumps. Since a smartphone’s properties are deeply interconnected, a bigger screen can make the resolution advancements more noticeable and thus, justifiable. As a result, that would reinforce the need for the under-the-hood changes needed to keep up or improve the user experience. And albeit we haven’t see many battery hardware improvements, optimizations for battery life have to also be taken into account. The bump in screen sizes kindle many industries that contribute to smartphones’ hardware. When you consider that Samsung is in charge of high-end chipset development, high-resolution screens and more components usually sold to other manufacturers, it’d make sense that they would push these formats to maximize the demand for high-end specifications and improve their R&D revenue.

It could also just be a new market trend pushed by phablets and their undeniable success. That makes every player want to emulate Samsung’s Note gains by chipping in with their own phablet variant, even if many are lackluster “me too” attempts that don’t innovate nor excel. The influential phablets would affect the regular flagships too, going back to this trendsetter effect that makes manufacturers want to claim their slice of pie. While LG did some pretty big leaps to turn their main line-up into more of a phablet, companies like Samsung and HTC have been slower and subtler in their increases. And if the HTC Hima is anything to go by, HTC seems to have settled.

 

Less fat

While manufacturers are pushing for bigger screens, there’s also another trend which seems to help increase phablet appeal to those worried about their pockets being too small: bezels get smaller and smaller. The first phone that was notably and widely recognized in this regard was the LG G2, which featured a 75.9% screen-to-body ratio. This made for exquisitely thin bezels on the sides, which made it feel like a much smaller phone than it was. The G3 followed this trend with a respectable 75.3% screen-to-body ratio, which is rather good for a phablet, just above the Note 3’s 74.8%. Phones like the iPhone 6 plus, in constrast, suffer from poor handling due to their big bezels (67.8% ratio for this one), and some popular Android phones like the HTC M8 (a low 66.7%) have been criticized before for big bezels that take away from the phone.

There is a limit to how compact you can make a phone, however, and it is not equivalent to screen size just yet. A bezel-less phone would make handling a little too difficult without proper software corrections to accidental side touches. There’s been some incredible phones released as of late that take this bezel reduction trend very seriously, like the Aqua Sharp Crystal and its 78.5% screen-to-body ratio. Since this was the focus of the phone and its theme, Aquos established software measures to mitigate the accidental touches and it seems to have worked out rather nicely, so it might be able to be widely implemented. But without proper testing, we can’t yet conclude as to whether this will be the most efficient setup for a phone.

So while displays are getting bigger, dimensions also tend to get smaller. The net size increase is not simply tied to the iterative screen bumps as there’s a clear buffer effect on the receding bezels’ part.

Two screens are better than one

Something that caught my attention at Google I/O last year was the Android Wear announcement. During the conference, Google put a lot of emphasis on how Wear would help you keep your phone in your pocket by allowing you to reply to messages directly from your wrists. I remember thinking that this was fantastic for me, because phablets can be kind of annoying to take out of certain jeans or when you are sitting. But then I watched their promotional video and realized it’d be even more useful given the clear one-handed limitations that phablet sizes impose with their format.

Then, to my surprise, the Nexus 6 was announced and it once again confirmed the pattern of Google’s Nexus naming schemes correlating version number with screen sizes. At first this puzzled me. I love phablets, but I couldn’t see why Google was pushing for such a ridiculous screen size, out of nowhere. They had the highest average screen bump per iterative jump of any manufacturer now! Google’s upscaling was not subtle at all, and this led many to think that they their motive was to make phablets the standard in smartphones. Google executives later confirmed everyone’s suspicions by advocating for phablets, stating that it was a natural consumer choice once they are exposed to the concept for a week or two.

This ties in nicely with their smartwatch release: phablets are touted as the ultimate pocket media-consumption devices, and with Wear, the messaging and eventually phone duties of smartphones could be relegated to our wrists, making our phones come full circle with their most used purpose. In the future, we might see ourselves answering texts from our wrists more often than from our phone’s keyboards. And then a phone will gain some more exclusivity as that “personal computer” for your pocket that was previously mentioned. Nevertheless, given the foreseeable advancements in smartwatches (and those of their response-time bottlenecking factor, our data speeds and carrier restrictions), I can’t see this becoming a fully fledged reality in 2015. Could it be a long-term strategy? Conspiracies aside, Google must have thought exactly of what repercussions a smartwatch proliferation would have on smartphone uses, so their transition to phablets make sense.

Bigger hardware needs better software

Android was not designed with these kind of devices in mind. In fact, Android is still largely the same in navigation, interface essentials, and scaling. These paradigms were established when the devices’ screens didn’t venture north much farther than 4 inches. And just like Google had a Tablet UI (rest in peace) to mitigate the big tablet sizes, they should address some of the inconsistencies and annoyances that a traditional Android experience results in when you upscale it to a screen bigger than what the OS was designed for.

I already discussed how navigation in Android hasn’t seen much in the way of updates. What this means for a phablet, though, is quite significant: the UI design of Google, and their navigation offerings, are not as efficient as they could be on a phablet. The software annoyances do not adjust to the hardware limitations. And I’m not talking about the phone’s…

Our stout phalanges we call thumbs aren’t long enough to operate a phablet with one hand, and those who are used to right-handling their phone mostly have to ask for an extra hand when they deal with phablets. Just like those with big hands have trouble handling the tiny flip phones of the older days, now it’s those with average or small hands that suffer from the mobile trends. And phones just get taller and wider.

This one-hand operation restriction is promoted by Android’s design practices: Bottom software keys that our thumb can’t reach without hand gymnastics, for example. Considering PIE controls are popular and effective, a built-in alternative on this day and age would not hurt. But then there’s also in-app  design guidelines that place the action buttons and action bars on the left side of the screen, at the farthest side from our short finger. Then there’s the fact that the notification bar can also be troublesome for phablet users to reach without readjusting your holding and sacrificing grip.

Not only are these design schemes dangerous to the integrity of our fragile and expensive electronics, but they take flow away from one-handed user experience, and comfort. When I take the bus home after a day at university, the first thing I do is activate the one-handed mode on my Note 3, because browsing while hanging onto the bus with one hand is next to impossible on a screen this big, on a moving bus, without exposing the device to guaranteed drops. Whenever I need to take out my phone in a pinch to respond to a text, the motions go like this:

1. Take out phone with normal grip, turn it on.
2. Switch grip by sliding my hand to the top of the phone, to lower the notification bar and access it.
3. Once again slide the hand of the phone to the bottom, to access the keyboard.
4. Rest phone on fingers instead of palm to maximize thumb reach and be able to type out a message, slowly and careful in fear of dropping the phone

 

That’s 3 dangerous re-positions  that could destroy my phone if not careful. But it is also simply obnoxious to have to juggle my phone like that just to get a basic action done. In contrast, I can fully operate my S3 and my Nexus 5 one handed, without any hassle. There are other annoyances covered on the previously mentioned article, however, and I don’t want to repeat myself so if you want to learn more head over here.

 

Conclusion

It doesn’t really matter if the growing screens are an intricate scheme by manufacturers plotted to boost the industry and their personal revenues, or if they are an epi-phenomenon that circumvents around the desires of the costumer base as a whole. Phablets are here to stay and they are becoming the norm increasingly so. While there are pushes towards compact devices from companies like Sony, and while some like HTC seem to refuse to follow the trend (perhaps to target the demographic the trend leaves behind?), most manufacturers seem set on catering to the market’s trajectory.

As much as I love phablets, they still aren’t fully realized, because their operation just isn’t as fleshed out as it needs to be to provide the same comfort in user experience a regular phone does. And Google’s stubborness when it comes to implementing new features or mechanics might just hold phablets – and soon regular phones – back from achieving this potential. When Google killed the Tablet UI, many were rightfully angered. Now that Lollipop is out, a recurring complaint is that the Nexus 9 feels like a “blown-up phone”. And then there’s a lot of complaints about the Nexus 6 not offering things a phablet should offer, like the Note line-up and the G3 do with their one-handed modes, software key alternatives and customization, and multitasking.

Google seems to be sticking with a “unified” Android that looks and behaves the same across phones and tablets. I think this is hurtful for the Operating System, in a way – but only because Google refuses to integrate features to the OS in fear that they might not be as useful on some platform, or would be pointless on another. And to be sincere, I somewhat understand their point of view: I constantly overestimate the average Android user, and it is only when I am called to troubleshoot the phones of family and friends that I understand that the casual user really has no idea how the OS works, how to operate it or navigate it.

So once again we see a lot of conflicts at hand: Bigger phones with smaller bezels that get harder to handle but are better at the essence of smartphone uses, yet their software limits these uses and the experience inside and outside the device’s screen – and this software can’t easily be adjusted, as a drastic change or a complex one would understandably confuse many users. I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be to want to design a very productive software functionality but at the same time streamline it to the lowest common denominator and lose some in the process. And while being very good at managing your phone isn’t an indicator of intelligence or viceversa, intelligence can determine your capabilities when it comes to operating technology. Despite all the access to knowledge and education that technology provides, even first world nations see declines in intelligence that almost reach a whole standard deviation. How will software look like 40 years from now if simplification keeps undermining some of the possibilities technology can offer?

Google has a hard job in their hands, but I think that promoting the phablet market when their own software isn’t ready for it wasn’t a right move. And leaving Google out, other manufacturers still haven’t been applying proper adjustments to the software experience to make it compatible with phablet strengths and weaknesses. Regardless of phablets, regular phones are growing out of thumb range at a fast rate as well, and if that doesn’t stop at some reasonable point, they too will be constrained by the current software design. Big phones are good, when done right. Perhaps my views will change if smartwatches do take over like some analysts predict they will, but as of now, I think devices should focus on getting the big screen right. And if the fact that “mini phablets” (essentially 5 inch phones – yes, that pointless) are actually a thing now isn’t any indication of what OEMs head towards, I don’t know what is.

 

Big thanks to Medium for supplying the graphs in this article.

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