By Yoon Ja-young
Once upon a time a small cell phone that fit comfortably into a pocket was trendy and covetable. Manufacturers competed to make handsets smaller. Tastes seem to be reversing recently as manufacturers are releasing smartphones with bigger screens with each latest edition. High-definition video content becoming increasingly available thanks to the improvement of mobile networks is behind this.
The Optimus Vu by LG Electronics, scheduled to be presented at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, around the end of this month, has a 5 inch screen.
“It maximizes the ‘joy of viewing’ with a huge screen, combining a tablet’s strength of a large display and the convenient portability of smartphones,” said an LG Electronics spokesperson. Though the phone has a wider screen, it is only 8.5 millimeters thick and weighs 168 grams. It supports the firm’s fourth-generation (4G) Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network.
The decision to incorporate a bigger screen was prompted by the success of Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Note, which boasts a 5.3 inch Super AMOLED screen. It drew attention thanks to the exceptional size of the screen as well as the stylus pen with which users can write manually on the screen.
The product broke the stereotypical belief in the smartphone market that big screens are doomed to fail, with consumers wanting something that combined a smartphone and a tablet. It has sold 1 million in the global market, including 500,000 locally.
Encouraged by its success, Samsung is planning to enlarge the screen of the Galaxy S3 to 4.6 inches.
The competition between large-screen smartphones is expected to become fiercer here as Pantech is also planning to release a 5-inch model this year.
The pursuit of wider displays clearly contrasts with a couple of years ago when the smartphone market was dominated by 3.5 inch phones, including the iPhone 3. Screen sizes started to increase last year to between 4.2 and 4.7 inches, and eventually passed the 5 inch mark.
Though Samsung’s Galaxy Note has heated up demand for smartphones with big screens, it was not the first. Dell released the Streak, a 5-inch smartphone in 2010, but the model failed here as it was considered inconvenient and unnecessary.
The improvement to mobile networks, including the introduction of LTE services has changed the situation. Now LTE, with faster download times than 3G networks, offers diversified high-definition multi-media content. Since this makes viewing more of a factor, smartphones with bigger screens have become popular.
The manufacturers’ move to produce bigger screens is backed by a survey on smart devices by the Korea Internet Security Agency. When asked what they consider when choosing a smartphone, 46.8 percent said they took size and the quality of the display into account. When asked why they use tablets, 55.6 percent explained that they chose the device over smartphones as they didn’t like the small screens.