Are We Near 'Peak Screen Size' for Smartphone Screen Growth? Is 6 Inches Too Big?

As I was working on the stats for the TomiAhonen Phone Book 2016 (was released last Friday if you missed the blog while on winter vacation), I did my various updates to the numbers. And I added more detail as I tend to do (now there is a separate chart just about the screen size growth over the past decade). And it had me thinking about the screen size issue again. Those who have read my blog for many years remember that three years ago I postulated my hypothesis that 'Screen Size Trumps Everything' and that turned out to be a pretty sharp blog of considerable insights and we saw even Apple finally agree to release its phablet screen size iPhone 6 Plus model etc.. It also predicted a growth in smartphone screen sizes. Now we may have reached the zenith of that evolution path. We are likely near the peak of how far screen sizes for the current form-factor smartphone concepts can grow. It is like my friend Christian Lindholm predicted back in 2007, that the physical dimensions of the gadget work with the human dimensions - our fingers typically - and the other restraints like sizes of our pockets and something a bit bigger than 5 inches was where Christian back then (in 2007 the largest phone screen size was the freshly-released iPhone with its massive 3.5 inches). The most popular premium and mid-range phone models sold today tend to be in that 5 inch size range say between 4.5 and 5.5 inches, and very few sell in any meaningful numbers in the over-6 inch range even though the 'phablet' size screen has now been around for us for five years. We seem to have now discovered the 'sweet spot'. So its time for me to speculate again. I think we have arrived at a kind of at least-temporary plateau and possibly the peak of how far this phone form factor will grow in screen size. We may see NEW form factors (Samsung rumored to give us a foldable screen, that folds like a book to give us twice the screen size in the same pocket size). But lets explore the evolution of the screen size. And good news: I have been drawing PICTURES for us... :-)  Isn't that nice

SCREEN SIZE TRUMPS EVERYTHING

So three years ago I said screen size trumps everything. It turned out to be more-or-less true, phones with larger screens outsold similar spec phones of smaller screens that had higher resolutions. Even Apple with its 'Retina Display' had to go to larger screens to maintain sales volumes. Screen size topped other specs from better cameras to 3D displays to pico projectors to any number of other features. In a store, two phones of same price side-by-side, of otherwise comparable specs, the one with the larger screen would usually be the winner. Fingerprint scanners, bendable phones, dual cameras, nothing was able to overcome the rule that Screen Size Trumps Everything. So first off, anyone thinking 'but my iPhone has a sharper screen' - go away, we deal with the normal consumers here, planetary sales have clearly proven the thesis to be true. It was the screen size that mattered most (while other items ALSO matter of course, starting with price).

Yes more pixel density means sharper image but that won't win you the race because... Screen Size Trumps Everything. We won't have that bogus argument here on this blog anymore. The matter is settled. BUT how far can screen size grow? THAT seems to have stalled. The original Samsung Galaxy Note that introduced the world to giant phablet-sized screens had a 5.3 inch screen. The latest burn-your-pants Galaxy Notes from 2016 were only slightly larger, at 5.7 inch size. The iPhone 6 Plus phablet response was 5.5 inches in size and the current iPhone 7 Plus is still at that same size. From roughly that 5.3 inch original Note at 5.3 inches, we've not 'jumped' in size and for the past 3 years the top flagship phablet screen sizes have not budged. We may have found that 'sweet spot' that for those who prefer a very large screen in their pockets, the 5.7 inch rough size is a kind of ceiling. Even if all available surface area of the phone were to be utilized, it means we are pretty close to the edge and likely in the next several years, this form factor will not grow past say 6 inches. There will be no dramatic jump in size anymore because a phone with a 7 or 8 inch screen would require us to wear the type of clown pants that MC Hammer had in his video 'You Can't Touch This'. And as so many non-phablet-screen flagship iPhone 7 and Samsung Galaxy models show by their sales, the smaller-brother version in the under-5 inch screen size sells in roughly similar numbers (may sell more) with about the same price, because for some people today, a 5.5 inch or larger-screen phone is TOO BIG. It won't fit comfortably in the pocket of the blue jeans, etc. A roughly 5 inch overall size, 4.7 inch to 5.2 inch, is perhaps the plantary optimal size for most consumers (again, brilliant guess by Christian Lindholm exactly ten years ago).

So I want to explore that growth. How did we get here, how did the screen growth appear. And that is where the measurement does not do justice to the issue. The screen sizes are measured diagonally (corner to corner) rather than by width or length. Meanwhile the phone screen aspect ratio has changed from the old (boxy) television-style narrow near-square format of 4x3 to the Apple innovation of the original iPhone 'wide screen' aspect ratio which was 4.5 x 3, and then onto the current phones that are aligned with modern TV screens at 19 x 6 proper widescreen format aspect ratio. So lets see how the iPhone revolutionized the smartphone screen race and instantly made all rivals obsolete in 2007, on the matter we later were to discover 'Screen Size Trumps Everything'. Here are a few leading flagship smartphones sold worldwide by their screen sizes (am using popular smartphones, excluding exotic super-expensive phones like the Nokia Commnunicator).




You can see the evolution is steady growth in screen sizes, and in any one year the largest screen might be 10% to 20% larger than the largest screen from the previous year or two. A very steady (and predictable) growth curve. Then as the flagships got these specs, soon the 'lower down' price phones would also get the ever-larger screens. This all changed instantly with the iPhone. Look what Apple did in 2007 to this steady progression and bear in mind what we now know 'Screen Size Trumps Everything'. Talk about a winner:





Yeah. Apple did not do 20% better, they did a massive 70% bigger than the largest screen on a rival phone! The Nokia N95, a brilliant phone that was far ahead of the iPhone 2G by almost every spec - but Screen Size Trumps Everthing, because of the newcomer iToy ('Not even 3G, not even a smartphone') having that massive screen, Apple won all the praise and Nokia was instead declared to be obsolete (even as the N95 outsold the original iPhone 2G).

But what happened next? We 'know' the story that Apple lost the plot about the smartphone screen races and went Retina Display instead of holding its lead, and eventually Samsung Galaxy took the lead but how quickly did that change happen, and was it radical? The original Samsung Galaxy only had a 3.2 inch touch screen. It wasn't even as big as the iPhone! Only the Samsung Galaxy S a year later, went bigger than the iPhone. And by how much? This is where Samsung pushed the race three years after the revolution of the original iPhone. The first Galaxy flagship that had a larger screen than the iPhone.. was only evolution, not revolution. Look at their size evolution. This is the Nokia/Ericsson story again, retold by Samsung. Slightly bigger than the biggest.




And that gave Samsung a lot to brag about but it was not revolution. Yes, Screen Size Trumps Everything and Galaxy had already a larger screen than the iPhone, but this was only evolution. Then Samsung did their monster move. They gambled on the idea of a superduper massive screen, as big a jump as the original iPhone was vs the Nokia N95, now what if Samsung did a similar jump vs its OWN Samsung Galaxy S? What if they nearly doubled THAT screen size? This was the second revolution in screen size races. The Galaxy Note:





Yeah. Now Samsung revolutionized the market by jumping the screen size race by 85%. It was not compared to the normal Galaxy class smartphones that the iPhone seemed 'too small' - it was this radical new phablet screen size which forced their hand. Now the Apple iPhone did seem as outdated as the Nokia N95 was against the original iPhone (and Apple was forced to eventually respond, but they took four more years to get to it). Because Screen Size Trumps Everything, the Note was unbeatable at the top end and phones with 3.5 inch and even 4 inch screens seemed just too small. A 5 inch screen could be a viable option vs a 5.5 inch screen but not a 4 inch screen anymore, which is what Apple did next with the iPhone 5. Not big enough, and they then rushed the 6 Plus out the very next year.

To complete the picture, this original 2011 Samsung Galaxy Note was not the modern size (modern size is 5.7 inches, the original was 5.3 inches) but the aspect ratio has also changed the modern phones are lower but wider so they are in that 16 x 9 aspect ratio like our plasma screen giant flatscreen TVs at home and all modern laptops too. So let me update the final picture that has the latest Note screen size (only outline), at 5.7 inches, wider but not as tall as the original Note (illustrated in green). This was the evolution of the phone screen sizes in the past 15 years.





And we had a rather regular increase in the sizes until the Note and phablet screen sizes, where the growth may now have stalled.

It may be too early to tell, but to me, the market seems to have stalled. There are plenty of options stretching a phablet screen to over-six-inches in size, and yet they don't take the market by storm. It does seem like the 'large' screen optimal size is about that 5.5 - 5.8 inch range like the Galaxy Note and iPhone Plus; the low end is somewhere above 4 inches, say 4.5 inches and a 'sweet spot' forms for most common smartphones to do a large-enough screen but small-enough-to-fit size with about 4.8 to 5.2 inch screen sizes. A bit like cars seem to settle to some 'standard' form factors and many rival models all produce 'citycars' or 'SUV's etc, we may have now discovered the main screen size form factors and these may live with us now for a decade or more.

With that, of course I hope we have not stopped innovating and the Samsung project of the foldable screen may bring a release from this straight-jacket to these sizes but I do think, for the immediate future, we have seen 'peak screen size' at just-under 6 inches and over the next several years, it will be marginal changes of no more than 10% growth from that and therefore, for most common users, the 'gains' out of a 'big jump' in screen size will have been seen and done - this issue will not impact our phones anymore. The camera races seem to have settled; the input method races (touch screen won) have settled and the screen sizes seem to have settled. What is the exact speed of the CPU or how much internal RAM a phone has, those are only of interest to us geeks, not the normal buyer. We may now have also passed the big motivators to upgrade phones. If the next iPhone 9 Uberplus and Galaxy Note 17 S Edge still have screen sizes of roughly 5.7 inches in size, then there is not much incentive to go replace the current phones, if those function reasonably well, for another year. Look at the table and see the two giant jumps in the screen sizes. That was revolution (twice) and that won't come back again in this form factor. This ability has been 'worked' and now we need other areas to drive the evolution. AR?

So for those who need the specs and stats on the phone industry (including yes, a chart of the screen sizes of all phones in use, over time) please see TomiAhonen Phone Book 2016. 100 tables and charts, 180 pages, best resource on handset industry. All data current as of December 2016 and costs only 10 Euros, ebook available as always, only from this one source.

Comments

[Olivier Barthelemy]

Indeed, screen size has always been my key criteria in choosing a phone. I go for huge... the article seems to be missing quite a few larger sizes that I've had the pleasure to own:

- the Huawei Mediapad X1, then X2, had a 7" screen. The X3 is overdue so that specific line might have been discontinued. I had a X1.
- several 6.44", mine is a Xiaomi Mi Max, IIRC Lenovo, Sony (Z Ultra), Asus and others have/had models in this size.
- Data-enabled Samsung tablets of all sizes (7", 8", 10", 12") have always had phone functionality. Many other OEMs too, though not all of them.

My journey has been to get the largest possible phone: 4.3" HTC HD2, 5.1" Galaxy Note v1, 6" Huawei Mate v1, 7" Huawei Mediapad X1, 6.44" Xiaomi Mi Max, then back down a bit. I do an awful lot of reading on my phone, so the larger the screen the better. I find reading really is best around 6", above that is mostly helpful for video. The 7" X1 also could help with very short gDocs/Office work sessions; the 6.44" 16:9 Mi Max is as good as the 7" 16:10 X1 for video, but office work in 16:9 isn't as comfortable.
Those sizes take a bit of getting used to, especially you don't grip the phone, you rest its back on your fingertips... now that I'm used to that, I struggle with small phones ;-p . I can handle all those phones single-handed w/ a few contortions, and never dropped one because of that ...non-grip. Also I'm big, so pocket room was barely an issue for the 7" X1. As I, and people around me, get older, we appreciate the larger display, fonts, distance of use, and keyboard.

My take is that, as for laptops, it's down to personal preference. Laptops cover the gamut from 10" to 17" (with a few smaller/larget outliers), there's no reason smartphones can't go from 4.7" to 7" (7/4.7 = 1.5 amplitude, compared to 1.7 for laptops). My 6.44" is to a 4.7" screen what a 24" desktop monitor is to a 17" (about 1.9x bigger area). I wouldn't go back to 17" on my desk either !

I do get the occasional amused stare (and have been called out for using something "too huge" since the 4.3" HD2 ;-p), especially when I take a call w/o my headset; but then again, I also get a lot of inquiries.

[Olivier Barthelemy]

Also, screen size has a loose relation to device size. Screen / Device ratio varies between 0.66 and 0.84 because bezels. The 6.4" (@84% screen) Xiaomi Mi Mix (not Max, Mix) is the same width as the 5.5" '@67% screen) Apple iPhone 6S+, and only 1cm longer.

[Wayne Borean]

Wonder if the next big thing will be phones that transmit video calls directly onto your retina...

[Winter]

Tomi,

I wonder what limits screen sizes more, average hand size or pocket size?

Hand sizes vary between men and women, and if hand size was the important factor, men would use larger phones than women. But I do not have the impression they do.

Pocket sizes are ambiguous. Women wear clothes with smaller pockets than men where phones can easily fall out (I have my suspicions of why waterproof phones are so popular ;-) ). But many women also use purses and handbags which allow large phones.

What do you think is the important factor?

[Olivier Barthelemy]

@ the one above me, I think situations matter too, as motivators but also as limitators:
- when I'm doing something on my phone, I'm usually not composing a symphony nor battling ninjas with my other hand, so single-handedness is oversold, except in specific cases (carrying stuff, holding on to a train's bars...)
- if you're spending 2hrs/day on the bus/metro/train, you probably value a large screen (for entertainment or to get stuff done) a lot more than if you're driving and can't use your screen that much (hopefully, not at all ^^)

[Tester]

@Winter:

"What do you think is the important factor?"

I think the key factor here is that you can comfortably hold the device with one hand, not necessarily control it one-handedly. And with > 6'' that will get increasingly more difficult, unless you got huge hands.

So all things considered there is little surprise in how things developed and where growth stopped.

It's really going to be interesting how this will impact the market. Of course there will always be people with a compulsive need to own the latest and greatest, but for the average user there is now very little incentive to buy a new phone every two years. The 5'' Android I got two years ago may not have the best specs anymore, but I don't use it for playing games and for all other purposes it's still fine. I'm going to use it until it breaks because I really don't see any potential feature that may render it obsolete.

Of course this also means that Apple will have a growing problem now keeping their success story of endless magic growth alive. They have basically saturated the market they can get and will ever more depend on replacement business - which of course will also slow down because new phones won't be the major upgrades anymore they were in the past.

I wonder how long it will take that the plateauing of features will bring the prices down. It should be clear that high end devices that only can distinguish themselves with marginal features from the mainstream offerings for half the price will have problems selling in quantity.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

How perfectly timed is this?

Statista has a fresh analysis of touch-screen device universe per new activations annually, divided by screen size. Mid-sized screen smartphones are most but their share declining. Phablet are second biggest slice, their share increasing. Tablets are flat. Tiny screen smartphone share is diminishing to nearly nothing

http://www.businessinsider.my/phablets-big-smartphones-holiday-chart-2017-1/?r=UK&IR=T#7Xl3WMs5HkmLSl75.97

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tester]

@Tomi:

That statistic is pretty worthless, actually, with a very bad division in size groups.

They should have made the splits at 4.5'' and another one at 5.3'', but as things stand, they lump small screen smartphones (~4'') with the smaller part of ~5'' phones and the larger ~5'' phones with the phablets, all resulting in a statistic that fails to show anything of value at all.

In that statistic the iPhone 3 and the iPhone 6 are in the same group which seems pretty ridiculous if you want to evaluate screen sizes.

[John A]

I prefeer a size around 5" inch, maybe a maximum of 5,5" inch. I guess with no bezels you can make a device relativly compact.

But I prefeer smaller phones outside thats fit in the pocket.

[Abdul Muis]

@Tomi,

Perhaps it's not as easy as it might seems.

At first,
Galaxy S vs. iToy, Samsung try to play safe. That's the right things to do. If samsung make galaxy S too large, it will create a whole new product category, and might not be able to steal Apple customer. And samsung also smart by making both the Galaxy S and Galaxy Note. So, they can get both the small screen & big screen customer... But unfortunately, this is NOT an apple to apple comparison at screen size. Please remember (1) that Galaxy Note is ALWAYS priced higher than the Galaxy S. (2) When the Galaxy Note was introduced, and steve Jobs say that it need to be sold with a sand paper in the box to make it small. It create a perception that too large = bad.

But then,
The market moved on, SLOWLY... from 4" (Galaxy S) to 4.3" (Galaxy S2) to 4.8" (Galaxy S3) to 5" (Galaxy S4) to 5.1" (Galaxy S5 & S6 & S7)... Meanwhile on Apple side, Apple introduce the 4.7" & 5.5" starting with iPhone 6, 6s, then iPhone 7. I (think that I) have put the link in your blog, a while ago, when your busy with the American election that say when Apple first introduce the 4.7" & 5.5", the 4.7" beat 5.5" by large margin, but with each generation, the 5.5" increase, and the 4.7" decrease..... Which means that people don't change to bigger screen as fast as it should be / as fast as before...

There might be several reason for this...
one is, the one hand vs. two hand argument seems to haunt U.S. journalist every now and then, perhaps this psychological barrier is the one that make the moves slower... second is, the big phone on the face make you look stupid argument make (most) people afraid to change the phone size beyond what the society use... Third, don't forget that Galaxy Note is more expensive than Galaxy S,... smaller iPhone is also cheaper than bigger iPhone. (so your argument of same price, different size not work here).

Please also note, that the big size phone so far...
1. Sony Xperia Z Ultra... have too much bezel, make it looks too big.
2. Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3... Not a flagship
3. Google Nexus 6... Only sold in a country where's the journalist always make one hand vs. two hand argument.

.... BUT....
If you look at Asian country such as Philippine, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand where's many use smartphone as their primary device to Internet, the stats will be different. Bigger screen is better, 6"+ is a godsend device!!! Having a 6"+ means they do not need to have phone+tablet, and also means having the optimum screen size on the go. I think many American with height of 170-190cm that always said that they prefer small iphone, or 4.7" iphone will be amaze to see 150cm asian girl using 6"+ phone...

I really puzzled at the one hand vs. two hand. Why anyone need to use their phone one hand? I could only think one reason to use the phone one hand by man. Nothing else.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Abdul & Wayne

Good points. I think its very clear from the general sales numbers that there was a big opportunity (possibly now fully capitalized) that amounted to roughly 1/4 of the total market, that we call phablets. Not as big obviously as the middle of the market but very large none the less. And Apple was foolish to avoid this because of the ability to also sell higher-priced phones with the larger screens.

There is also certainly a stage when the screen gets too big (for some buyers) and they won't see any gain from the larger phone. If you have multiple devices (=richer buyer) then its a far greater opportunity of choice, vs if its the only digital gadget (=modest affluence buyer) and then a large screen can double as the private TV screen and obviousy the internet browsing device where another richer buyer might have a separate laptop and tablet and TV. So especially in the 'not flagship' price range, the 'Asian girl' as you described it Abdul, the value of the largest-possible screen is considerable.

Part is a fashion/comfort migration. Wayne you might not be aware of the type of devices Abdul refers to. A 6.5 even 7 inch phablet screen stuck on your face - gosh it would get a lot of attention in many Western countries. In for example Hong Kong its totally normal. I am talking significantly larger devices than the iPhone 7 Plus.

So yeah, in some markets the market has already adjusted where this 'fashion' issue is passe and nobody really minds (ie Asia) but in other parts of the world, many who might like the largest screen possible, may find it just unnerving to then stick that device to your face to use the phone for example. Some will delay their migration to the screen size they might like, and settle for a smaller - but still very large screen like a small phablet screen, typically in the iPhone phablets size range.

I think there is some room to grow at the top for what will be acceptable and desirable. On the device itself, there is still some room to grow to the very edge of the handset (to shrink the bevel). That might gain something close to half an inch. But I doubt we'll get to 7 inch phablets, the upper limit (from major brands, their largest-screen phablet) will likely be in the low or mid 6.x inch sizes. And that will likely not be the most sold screen size.

Now on the BOTTOM end, we have had steady growth and the non-color screen, and non-touch screen phones have seen their tiny postage-stamp size screens grow and then across all phones, the total of touch screens is now more than half ie we are at those 3.2 inch, 3.5 inch very small touch-screens at the very cheapest end of the touch screen world. That seems small for us - rich and heavily mobile-addicted geekish experts - but the ORIGINAL iPhone at 3.5 inches was considered a huge screen. Nokia was at 2.6 inch screne size back then with the Nokia N95 and THAT was Nokia's largest outside their Communicator line.

As the LED screen manufacturing indsustry scale keeps growing (not just smartphones but other screens in various digital devices) it means costs keep coming down and the price differential between a non-touch screen 2.2 inch screen vs 3.2 inch small touch screen will become so slight, soon all phones with a color screen will be touch-screen phones. The bottom end keeps growing and it has quite a way to go.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[chithanh]

Last year, we saw experiments by Xiaomi, Lenovo and others to make screens with very slim bezels, in order to increase the screen size without increasing the device dimensions. This may help in making large screen phones more palatable for western customers.

If a 5.7" Galaxy Note 4 at 153.5 x 78.6 x 8.5 mm isn't too big for you, then the 6.4" Xiaomi Mi Mix at 158.8 x 81.9 x 7.9 mm might be ok too.

[Interesting]

In the world of smaller displays: Samsung smart watches have support for iOS. Someone care to explain why Samsung adds (to its in-house Tizen OS) support for iOS - the competitor-owned OS?

[chithanh]

@Interesting
Because that product line must be viable on its own, and not made artificially less attractive in order to help other Samsung divisions. This is actually a smart strategy.

Remember how Sony DVD players used to not play DivX/XviD/MPEG4-ASP because Sony Picture Entertainment did not want them to play pirated content. Except that did not stop piracy, and instead hurt sales of Sony DVD players.

Or how Microsoft had a "first and best on Windows" produxt policy for Office in order to make Windows Phone more attractive. Just it didn't help Windows Phone sales, but instead hurt Office, and after 1.5 billion+ personal computing devices without Microsoft Office, they finally caved in.

[MikaA]

I think the average maximum physical size of the phone is probably the size of your wallet.

With the development of augmented reality glasses, it may be so that the phone display becomes irrelevant at some point. The problem is that price of these displays at the moment are out of reach of the consumer markets.

If that were to happen, then we could observe a development such as Hololens where the computer and mobile phone is principally integrated to a headband. The other path could be that the mobile phones support these systems first providing them the computing power and the display feed. If that were to happen, you'd need more resolution from the phone then, and not that much display size.

Third thing that comes to mind is the combination of the mobile phone and the laptop. Were it easily possible to plug the mobile phone (currently this is still regrettably difficult) into a HDTV, one could get an actual replacement of the laptop.

[Per "wertigon" Ekström]

@Wayne, 80 is by far too optimistic, expect less than previous year, around 70-72M or so.

Remember Apple themselves expect around 200-210 ish for entire year.

[Abdul Muis]

@Tomi

Samsung today introduce a 6" phone in India, and say, moving forward, the smallest screen size of Samsung smartphone in India will be 5.5"

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/hardware/samsung-to-focus-on-large-screen-mobile-phones/articleshow/56645784.cms
Samsung to focus on large screen mobile phones

"......
Samsung will now focus on large screen devices with display sizes of 5.5 inches and upwards. Samsung today has two devices with screen sizes of six inches," Samsung India, VP (Mobile Business) Manu Sharma told reporters today.

[Tester]

@Wayne:

Since that's only percentages, don't let yourself be fooled. One factor that definitely helped boost Apple's percentage but not necessarily their sales numbers is the problems with the lastest Note. And this had been noted some months ago that it would have a visible effect on the numbers. Don't forget that the Note is also a high end phone and would have been strongest in the same markets.

[Abdul Muis]

And now we have a rumors that iPhone will raise the screen size....... from 4.7" & 5.5"......... to 5.2" & 5.8".

Samsung is also rumored to release 5.2" (some rumors say 5.7") & 6.2" Galaxy S8

[Istvan]

BATTERY SIZE!
Most phones still run out of juice in LESS than a day.
My BLU Studio energy lasts for 3 days of normal use or ~1 day of travelling and excessive use with its 5000mAh battery. We need phones with 8000-10k mAh batteries, to last a whole weekend trip (watching dozen movies over LTE in the car or from storage on the overseas flight, map-walk-navigation, browsing for nightclubs on the go...). Only the Oukitel K10000 Pro has that, but it looks stupid and does not support USA LTE bands.