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> Its simply too large for the average user. > Why can't smartphone manufacturers understand that a longer battery life is whats lacking in mobile devices? I

by DCKing 12y ago

> Its simply too large for the average user. > Why can't smartphone manufacturers understand that a longer battery life is whats lacking in mobile devices? I think it's quite bold to speak in such factual terms when talking about the "average" consumer or the market. Your opinion does not necessarily apply to everyone, or even the majority of the users. Not that I disagree with you, mind. It seems to me that these manufacturers are a lot better at knowing what their market wants. I'm saying that because these companies employ a lot of people to figure out what people want to buy. You might be tempted to project your own opinion and common sense onto how the market should behave, but I think these companies are doing a better job at figuring it out. They have to. I don't think these companies are either stupid or not listening. It really seems to be the case that a large screen increases sales, and longer battery life doesn't. That might seem mystifying to you and me, but that really seems to be the case. Similarily, you can make phones from plastic, with confusing and slow software on it, sell them for premium price, and own 80% of the Android market in many countries. That is also mystifying to me, but that's what Samsung has accomplished. EDIT: People are replying to my post as if I said that phones with large screens are a good thing. I didn't.

skynetv2 12y ago
I moved from a Galaxy Nexus to LG G3, which is smaller than the Nexus 6 and I find it incredibly hard to use. Can barely use it with one hand and it doesnt fit in my shirt pocket, sticks out, cant put it in my pant pockets, because it will break. Its very inconvenient size wise. awesome phone though and excellent battery life. Galaxy Nexus was so small I could put it anywhere on me and it would be just fine. Awesome to hold in one hand. Google just excluded itself from a large market and is competing only in phablet space. I guess with Moto X staying in the more average size space, they want to get in to phablet space, which is fine.
- bane 12y ago
  > Can barely use it with one hand and it doesnt fit in my shirt pocket, sticks out, cant put it in my pant pockets, because it will break. Its very inconvenient size wise. awesome phone though and excellent battery life. I mean this in all seriousness, how small are your pants? When I got my Note, the first thing I checked was to see if it would fit in my pants pockets. No problem with a single pair. I keep seeing this complaint and the only conclusion I can come to is that people who complain about this really buy tight pants with tiny pockets. If I can't fit my entire hand comfortably into the pocket of whatever pants I'm buying, I'm simply not buying them. But I'm getting to be an old fart, and maybe the fashion you kids wear these days demands useless pockets you can't carry anything around in. But I've never understood this issue. Even women, who have next to useless pockets in their pants buy this size phone in huge numbers.
  - findjashua 12y ago
    "Even women, who have next to useless pockets in their pants buy this size phone in huge numbers." because they usually keep them in their handbag/purse?
  - foldr 12y ago
    > I keep seeing this complaint and the only conclusion I can come to is that people who complain about this really buy tight pants with tiny pockets. Well, yes, lots of guys wear tight pants. It's not really the size of the pockets that's the issue, it's just that the pants follow the curve of your outer thigh, so you can't put a big flat device in there.
  - pyrophane 12y ago
    I used to have a Note 3, and I found it annoying to carry around. The problem with my pants was not necessarily just how tight they were, but the depth of the pocket. Without really deep pockets the likes of which I don't seem to have on any of my pants, the Note jabbed me in the hip when I tried to sit down or climb stairs.
    - bane 12y ago
      I swear when I read issues like this I think I must be an absolutely gargantuan man with vast pockets of holding (I'm not and I don't). I mean really, if I can't fit my own not-very-large hand up to the wrist in pants I'm trying on I consider them defective and don't buy them. Turns out my Note is about the same size as my extended hand w/r to length and width and about 1/3rd as thick, so if I can fit my hand in my pants I can fit my phone. It also means I can fit my hands in my pockets when it's cold and to get stuff in and out of them.
  - cenhyperion 12y ago
    Most of my jeans have pretty small pockets (biggest thing I've noticed with higher end denim is the pockets are much smaller than levis, etc). An iPhone 5 sized device is about the max that will fit in there, a 6 (4.7 inches) borders on too large. But those pockets are plenty large for a phone, keys, wallet in my back pocket, and a few other small items. There's a difference between "useless pockets you can't carry anything around in" and useful pockets you can't carry a tablet-sized device in. So yeah, it's definitely an issue for both sexes. You may not buy pants that don't have large enough pockets, but I won't base my wardrobe around my phone and won't buy a phone that I can't easily fit in average sized pockets. I always associated massive phones as being marketed towards women seeing as, at least in western culture, they're generally the demographic that is able to conveniently carry them. Most men don't have the pocket space to carry a 6 inch phone, and I've heard a lot of complaints around the new iPhone screen size (the smaller, not the 6-plus) from both genders as being too large to conveniently carry.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  I moved from a Galaxy Nexus to an iPhone 5s, and was sorely disappointed with the smaller size. I plan on pre-ordering the Nexus 5 and selling my iPhone as soon as it arrives.
  - lmedinas 12y ago
    As a previous owner of a Galaxy Nexus and owner of a Nexus 5 (for a year). It's like comparing a rotten apple with a big nice Orange. The Galaxy Nexus was nice until it got the 4.2.x release imho, after that was pure trash. The Nexus 5 is an amazing device, the camera is not bad as people say, it's very fast and the screen is nice (GN was better for my eyes). And KitKat was the first release at the same level or better than iOS in terms of usability and quality. You won't be disapointed with the N5. Just make sure you buy a case, the back is very slippery and the device it's big :) As for iOS devices i had a iPad 3, which was the worse device Apple made due it's slow processor. And also I got it 1 month before the iPad 4 release. So really bad timing.
XorNot 12y ago
As the issue with bending phones demonstrates, plastic is hardly a failure of imagination in design and Samsung pretty clearly have that issue well understood.
eloisant 12y ago
Or, it's just that battery life is not something you realize when you're in the shop. You see the device, the screen, how responsive it is, but until you've lived a few days with the device you don't really know what the battery life is. So it's harder to market.
- LLWM 12y ago
  Or most people have their phones charging all day in their office and all night at home so it really doesn't matter that much.
  - transpy 12y ago
    Yes, because most people work in offices.
    - LLWM 12y ago
      I don't understand your pointless comment.
chrischen 12y ago
Considering Apple's main phone is under 5 inches, I think that statement is at least somewhat true. Sure some people will want phablets, but I'm sure Apple at least did their research for making more iPhone 6s than 6 Pluses.
- DCKing 12y ago
  We shouldn't use screen size as our only measure though. The iPhone 6 is a 4.7", but is quite a bit bigger than the 4.7" Moto X 2013, and about equal in size to the 5" Nexus 5 [1]. Apple uses a bit more bezel on their phones, so in physical dimensions they are closer to some of their Android competition than you might think based on screen size. [1]: http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Motorola-Moto-X,Apple-iPhone-6,Google-Nexus-5/phones/#/phones/size/Motorola-Moto-X,Apple-iPhone-6,Google-Nexus-5/phones/7885,8346,8148 http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Motorola-Moto-X,Apple-...
  - chrischen 12y ago
    I've held both and the iPhone 6 is noticeably smaller than the Nexus 5.
    - nilkn 12y ago
      I can echo what he says. The iPhone has absolutely enormous bezels, so much so that the iPhone 6 Plus is definitely larger than my Galaxy Note 3 despite its having a 5.7" screen. That was the first thing I noticed when I held them side by side at a store a few weeks ago.
    - morsch 12y ago
      iPhone 6: 138.1 x 67 x 6.9 mm (5.44 x 2.64 x 0.27 in) Nexus 5: 137.9 x 69.2 x 8.6 mm (5.43 x 2.72 x 0.34 in) So 63 cm^3 vs 82 cm^3 in volume, and 92.5 cm^2 vs 95.4 cm^2 in front area.
      - chrischen 12y ago
        It's the width that's what you feel when you hold it.
computerjunkie 12y ago
Good points, I guess I did make a sweeping generalisation on the "average user" part and I guess this is how the market will always work but it just slows down innovation dramatically for the sake of making that extra penny. Sigh.
- DCKing 12y ago
  Well, again, I get the feeling that you're perhaps unknowingly defining "innovation" to mean "improving the things I like". For one, I do think that these larger phones bring about new use cases that leave room for innovation. There is much more you can do with a large phone, such as having more immersive games & apps, make a phone viable for note taking and media consumption, use multiple apps at the same time (if you are so inclined), and all sorts of other new things that would be finnicky at best on smaller phones. Not that those are all self-evidently good things, but at least they seem to be innovative. Whereas a longer battery life doesn't get you anything new. It means you can do the same things, but now you can do the same things for two days instead of one. That's a good thing, sure, but it's not innovative. As a side note, bigger screened phones really do tend to have much longer battery life. These two things aren't opposed, they seem to go hand in hand.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
whizzkid 12y ago
I disagree with you. Just because a kid wants more chocolate does not mean you should give it to him. It may make him happy at first but is not good for him in long run. What are people/me saying here is that, we should/can achieve the same functionality with smaller phones. We should. In hundred years, people will laugh at these phones! Too big considering what it does and provides to people.
- derekp7 12y ago
  This reminds me of what a very wise person (a business owner I used to work for) once told me. In an answer to the question "Isn't the customer always right?", he told me "No, not always. And when they are wrong, it is our job to convince them otherwise. If successful you will have a customer for life."
- Tloewald 12y ago
  Most android handsets are sold as candy and not fruit and vegetables. More GHz, more pixels, more mAh, more inches. Why should this be any different?
  - mrtidy 12y ago
    I want more gee bees!
- asd 12y ago
  > In hundred years, people will laugh at these phones! In one hundred years, people will laugh at all phones.
- autocorrector 12y ago
  I don't understand your comment. Are you saying people who prefer thinner/lighter phones over longer-lived phones are misguided? Maybe they have different priorities than you. I don't see how this relates to regulating a child's junk food intake. Do you think companies should decide what we can buy?
  - david 12y ago
shirro 12y ago
I tried to post a point but got deleted by the Apple mafia on HN. The fact is I have seen large number of small handed users (asian females) comfortably carry and use large format phones like Galaxy Notes. The problem for the male dominated tech media and HN users is that they mostly do not carry a shoulder bag and cannot conceive of a device which does not fit in a pocket being useful. Add a bejewelled hello kitty pocket book case and carry it in your shoulder bag and a large phone is just fine. It is also great for people who use their phone mainly from their desk and carry a briefcase or backpack. A tradie will not be climbing on roofs with a Nexus 6 in their pocket. But it is a big market and there is room for differentiation.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- bane 12y ago
  Funny enough, when I'm in Korea, normal people there have phones that dwarf the Notes of the world (like 7") and being fashion conscious wear fitted trousers yet somehow have managed to figure out how to get along in their day, a seemingly impossible conundrum for the audience here.
  - sytelus 12y ago
    How do they carry these bricks? There is a research paper [1] that says 60% of men prefers to carry phone in their pocket and 13% with belt clip. This was old however and may be it's changed now? [1] http://research.nokia.com/sites/default/files/45590483.pdf http://research.nokia.com/sites/default/files/45590483.pdf
    - Thimothy 12y ago
      Easy to explain: Users don't really know what they want. Nobody likes the idea of changing their ways before finding a good reason to do so. Every male that I know that has a Note-sized smartphone said, before having one in their hands, that those things where too big for them. Now, none of them would go back to small screens.
deciplex 12y ago
>That might seem mystifying to you and me, but that really seems to be the case. It's not mystifying. A larger screen looks cooler in the store, and most people won't realize what a pain in the ass it is until they've already bought it and been using it for a few days. And, few people will ever make the connection that that enormous screen is why their phone is dead before they leave work to go home in the evening. It just means that increasing sales does not necessarily correlate with increased user satisfaction. Too much of a disparity there, for too long, and the market will eventually just collapse - no one will want to buy new phones anymore. (FWIW, I might be already there - I love my Nexus 4, was waiting for the Nexus 6, but now it looks like I won't be getting it after all.)
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

by DCKing 12y ago

skynetv2 12y ago

I moved from a Galaxy Nexus to LG G3, which is smaller than the Nexus 6 and I find it incredibly hard to use. Can barely use it with one hand and it doesnt fit in my shirt pocket, sticks out, cant put it in my pant pockets, because it will break. Its very inconvenient size wise. awesome phone though and excellent battery life. Galaxy Nexus was so small I could put it anywhere on me and it would be just fine. Awesome to hold in one hand. Google just excluded itself from a large market and is competing only in phablet space. I guess with Moto X staying in the more average size space, they want to get in to phablet space, which is fine.

bane 12y ago
> Can barely use it with one hand and it doesnt fit in my shirt pocket, sticks out, cant put it in my pant pockets, because it will break. Its very inconvenient size wise. awesome phone though and excellent battery life. I mean this in all seriousness, how small are your pants? When I got my Note, the first thing I checked was to see if it would fit in my pants pockets. No problem with a single pair. I keep seeing this complaint and the only conclusion I can come to is that people who complain about this really buy tight pants with tiny pockets. If I can't fit my entire hand comfortably into the pocket of whatever pants I'm buying, I'm simply not buying them. But I'm getting to be an old fart, and maybe the fashion you kids wear these days demands useless pockets you can't carry anything around in. But I've never understood this issue. Even women, who have next to useless pockets in their pants buy this size phone in huge numbers.
- findjashua 12y ago
  "Even women, who have next to useless pockets in their pants buy this size phone in huge numbers." because they usually keep them in their handbag/purse?
- foldr 12y ago
  > I keep seeing this complaint and the only conclusion I can come to is that people who complain about this really buy tight pants with tiny pockets. Well, yes, lots of guys wear tight pants. It's not really the size of the pockets that's the issue, it's just that the pants follow the curve of your outer thigh, so you can't put a big flat device in there.
- pyrophane 12y ago
  I used to have a Note 3, and I found it annoying to carry around. The problem with my pants was not necessarily just how tight they were, but the depth of the pocket. Without really deep pockets the likes of which I don't seem to have on any of my pants, the Note jabbed me in the hip when I tried to sit down or climb stairs.
  - bane 12y ago
    I swear when I read issues like this I think I must be an absolutely gargantuan man with vast pockets of holding (I'm not and I don't). I mean really, if I can't fit my own not-very-large hand up to the wrist in pants I'm trying on I consider them defective and don't buy them. Turns out my Note is about the same size as my extended hand w/r to length and width and about 1/3rd as thick, so if I can fit my hand in my pants I can fit my phone. It also means I can fit my hands in my pockets when it's cold and to get stuff in and out of them.
- cenhyperion 12y ago
  Most of my jeans have pretty small pockets (biggest thing I've noticed with higher end denim is the pockets are much smaller than levis, etc). An iPhone 5 sized device is about the max that will fit in there, a 6 (4.7 inches) borders on too large. But those pockets are plenty large for a phone, keys, wallet in my back pocket, and a few other small items. There's a difference between "useless pockets you can't carry anything around in" and useful pockets you can't carry a tablet-sized device in. So yeah, it's definitely an issue for both sexes. You may not buy pants that don't have large enough pockets, but I won't base my wardrobe around my phone and won't buy a phone that I can't easily fit in average sized pockets. I always associated massive phones as being marketed towards women seeing as, at least in western culture, they're generally the demographic that is able to conveniently carry them. Most men don't have the pocket space to carry a 6 inch phone, and I've heard a lot of complaints around the new iPhone screen size (the smaller, not the 6-plus) from both genders as being too large to conveniently carry.
toomuchtodo 12y ago
I moved from a Galaxy Nexus to an iPhone 5s, and was sorely disappointed with the smaller size. I plan on pre-ordering the Nexus 5 and selling my iPhone as soon as it arrives.
- lmedinas 12y ago
  As a previous owner of a Galaxy Nexus and owner of a Nexus 5 (for a year). It's like comparing a rotten apple with a big nice Orange. The Galaxy Nexus was nice until it got the 4.2.x release imho, after that was pure trash. The Nexus 5 is an amazing device, the camera is not bad as people say, it's very fast and the screen is nice (GN was better for my eyes). And KitKat was the first release at the same level or better than iOS in terms of usability and quality. You won't be disapointed with the N5. Just make sure you buy a case, the back is very slippery and the device it's big :) As for iOS devices i had a iPad 3, which was the worse device Apple made due it's slow processor. And also I got it 1 month before the iPad 4 release. So really bad timing.

XorNot 12y ago

As the issue with bending phones demonstrates, plastic is hardly a failure of imagination in design and Samsung pretty clearly have that issue well understood.

eloisant 12y ago

Or, it's just that battery life is not something you realize when you're in the shop. You see the device, the screen, how responsive it is, but until you've lived a few days with the device you don't really know what the battery life is. So it's harder to market.

LLWM 12y ago
Or most people have their phones charging all day in their office and all night at home so it really doesn't matter that much.
- transpy 12y ago
  Yes, because most people work in offices.
  - LLWM 12y ago
    I don't understand your pointless comment.

chrischen 12y ago

Considering Apple's main phone is under 5 inches, I think that statement is at least somewhat true. Sure some people will want phablets, but I'm sure Apple at least did their research for making more iPhone 6s than 6 Pluses.

DCKing 12y ago
We shouldn't use screen size as our only measure though. The iPhone 6 is a 4.7", but is quite a bit bigger than the 4.7" Moto X 2013, and about equal in size to the 5" Nexus 5 [1]. Apple uses a bit more bezel on their phones, so in physical dimensions they are closer to some of their Android competition than you might think based on screen size. [1]: http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Motorola-Moto-X,Apple-iPhone-6,Google-Nexus-5/phones/#/phones/size/Motorola-Moto-X,Apple-iPhone-6,Google-Nexus-5/phones/7885,8346,8148 http://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Motorola-Moto-X,Apple-...
- chrischen 12y ago
  I've held both and the iPhone 6 is noticeably smaller than the Nexus 5.
  - nilkn 12y ago
    I can echo what he says. The iPhone has absolutely enormous bezels, so much so that the iPhone 6 Plus is definitely larger than my Galaxy Note 3 despite its having a 5.7" screen. That was the first thing I noticed when I held them side by side at a store a few weeks ago.
  - morsch 12y ago
    iPhone 6: 138.1 x 67 x 6.9 mm (5.44 x 2.64 x 0.27 in) Nexus 5: 137.9 x 69.2 x 8.6 mm (5.43 x 2.72 x 0.34 in) So 63 cm^3 vs 82 cm^3 in volume, and 92.5 cm^2 vs 95.4 cm^2 in front area.
    - chrischen 12y ago
      It's the width that's what you feel when you hold it.

computerjunkie 12y ago

Good points, I guess I did make a sweeping generalisation on the "average user" part and I guess this is how the market will always work but it just slows down innovation dramatically for the sake of making that extra penny. Sigh.

DCKing 12y ago
Well, again, I get the feeling that you're perhaps unknowingly defining "innovation" to mean "improving the things I like". For one, I do think that these larger phones bring about new use cases that leave room for innovation. There is much more you can do with a large phone, such as having more immersive games & apps, make a phone viable for note taking and media consumption, use multiple apps at the same time (if you are so inclined), and all sorts of other new things that would be finnicky at best on smaller phones. Not that those are all self-evidently good things, but at least they seem to be innovative. Whereas a longer battery life doesn't get you anything new. It means you can do the same things, but now you can do the same things for two days instead of one. That's a good thing, sure, but it's not innovative. As a side note, bigger screened phones really do tend to have much longer battery life. These two things aren't opposed, they seem to go hand in hand.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

whizzkid 12y ago

I disagree with you. Just because a kid wants more chocolate does not mean you should give it to him. It may make him happy at first but is not good for him in long run. What are people/me saying here is that, we should/can achieve the same functionality with smaller phones. We should. In hundred years, people will laugh at these phones! Too big considering what it does and provides to people.

derekp7 12y ago
This reminds me of what a very wise person (a business owner I used to work for) once told me. In an answer to the question "Isn't the customer always right?", he told me "No, not always. And when they are wrong, it is our job to convince them otherwise. If successful you will have a customer for life."
Tloewald 12y ago
Most android handsets are sold as candy and not fruit and vegetables. More GHz, more pixels, more mAh, more inches. Why should this be any different?
- mrtidy 12y ago
  I want more gee bees!
asd 12y ago
> In hundred years, people will laugh at these phones! In one hundred years, people will laugh at all phones.
autocorrector 12y ago
I don't understand your comment. Are you saying people who prefer thinner/lighter phones over longer-lived phones are misguided? Maybe they have different priorities than you. I don't see how this relates to regulating a child's junk food intake. Do you think companies should decide what we can buy?
- david 12y ago

shirro 12y ago

I tried to post a point but got deleted by the Apple mafia on HN. The fact is I have seen large number of small handed users (asian females) comfortably carry and use large format phones like Galaxy Notes. The problem for the male dominated tech media and HN users is that they mostly do not carry a shoulder bag and cannot conceive of a device which does not fit in a pocket being useful. Add a bejewelled hello kitty pocket book case and carry it in your shoulder bag and a large phone is just fine. It is also great for people who use their phone mainly from their desk and carry a briefcase or backpack. A tradie will not be climbing on roofs with a Nexus 6 in their pocket. But it is a big market and there is room for differentiation.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
bane 12y ago
Funny enough, when I'm in Korea, normal people there have phones that dwarf the Notes of the world (like 7") and being fashion conscious wear fitted trousers yet somehow have managed to figure out how to get along in their day, a seemingly impossible conundrum for the audience here.
- sytelus 12y ago
  How do they carry these bricks? There is a research paper [1] that says 60% of men prefers to carry phone in their pocket and 13% with belt clip. This was old however and may be it's changed now? [1] http://research.nokia.com/sites/default/files/45590483.pdf http://research.nokia.com/sites/default/files/45590483.pdf
  - Thimothy 12y ago
    Easy to explain: Users don't really know what they want. Nobody likes the idea of changing their ways before finding a good reason to do so. Every male that I know that has a Note-sized smartphone said, before having one in their hands, that those things where too big for them. Now, none of them would go back to small screens.

deciplex 12y ago

>That might seem mystifying to you and me, but that really seems to be the case. It's not mystifying. A larger screen looks cooler in the store, and most people won't realize what a pain in the ass it is until they've already bought it and been using it for a few days. And, few people will ever make the connection that that enormous screen is why their phone is dead before they leave work to go home in the evening. It just means that increasing sales does not necessarily correlate with increased user satisfaction. Too much of a disparity there, for too long, and the market will eventually just collapse - no one will want to buy new phones anymore. (FWIW, I might be already there - I love my Nexus 4, was waiting for the Nexus 6, but now it looks like I won't be getting it after all.)

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]