a smartphone is a phone, not a tablet. it needs to go in your pocket. so 5" is much too big, even todays 4" phones are much too big for the majority of people. sure, some geeks like to carry a brick to show off this "awesome amoled screen" but not the majority of buyers, they don't care. common sense is really lost here at zdnet.
digitimes' record is spotty at best, most of their so called "reports" in the past were only rumor mongering. they know nothing. i am convinced apple thinks that even the iphone 4 is still a bit too big and tries to shrink the overall size of the phone further without compromising on screen real estate.
they will go to a 4" screen the moment it is feasible to get to an overall phone-size that is equal or smaller than the current generation, they will not introduce one of those current 4" bricks.
Technology can be funny sometimes. A device like the 5-inch Dell Streak—a tablet-phone tweener that was nearly mocked at first—can wind up defining the next smartphone battleground.
How else to you explain Apple reportedly pushing 4-inches for its next iPhone? And you can’t help but notice the screen creep everywhere. Four to 5-inches is the new battleground. We’re headed to a smartphone market that has Hummers and sub-compacts with little in between.
DigiTimes reports that Apple will expand the iPhone’s screen to 4 inches. In other words, DigiTimes is arguing that Apple needs to fill the void between the smartphone and iPad, which sports a 10-inch screen. I guess 7-inch tablets matter after all.
Also: Apple plots iPhone nano: In praise of smaller devices
Indeed, Samsung, HTC, Acer and others are all pushing that 5-inch screen. These are superphones. These phones are also pretty damn bulky.
But for me the biggest takeaway is that Dell’s Streak, which is now billed as a superphone, defined a market. Who knew?
