I was exchanging some quaint old email with my good friend Richi Jennings yesterday after he wrote a thought-provoking piece on the Samsung Galaxy Note in one of Hewlett-Packard’s (HP’s) house rags.
In fairness, he did tweet his post. So, it was not out of sentiment that he responded to my query via email, but because he felt he needed more than 140 characters to warm to his subject. His tone on the Note was rather hopeful, and so I marveled that a captive organ of HP would permit a positive article on what arguably could be labeled a competitor’s product. He said the editors are quite liberal in that respect.
At the core of his piece was a slightly upbeat attitude toward a category as of yesterday sporting the moniker “phablet,” a cross between a phone and a tablet. The phablet could be thought of as a large phone or a small tablet. Practically speaking, it is a form factor with an approximately 5” diagonal screen, these days with multitouch input.
I tried to trace this term back as far as I could, but was able to find no clear origin (although several authors incorrectly claimed precedence). However, the term seems to come into common usage sometime in 2008. Some of you will remember the Dell Streak 5, a 5” Android number, built on a Qualcomm Snapdragon (ARM) platform, that made its debut in 2010. The Streak 5 is no longer available, due to poor sales.
But the Streak’s failure does not mean the category is a bust. Jennings cites early buggy Android, poor marketing, insufficient battery, and fragility as shortcomings of the Streak. Samsung, on the other hand, has managed to sell millions of Galaxy Notes since its introduction overseas in October 2011 and is introducing it in the United States this month.
The Note has a slightly larger screen than the Streak (5.3” vs. 5”), but is essentially the same form factor. It also runs on Snapdragon, but sports a later version of Android. Despite Apple’s scorn for styluses, the Note makes good use of one.
So, why should the Note work as a form factor?
I think it's reasonable to say that iOS has made viewing of video content at close range acceptable. I remember Philips theorizing about this subject in 2006 at an advisory council in Eindhoven. The idea was that the geometry of a 1 meter screen 2 meters away from the victim was the same as a 10 centimeter screen 20 centimeters away. The quality of the video experience, therefore, depended mainly on pixel density, brightness, contrast, saturation, and a few other video variables.
Philips’s psycho-perceptual insight was that audio makes more difference in the assessment of quality than video. Thus, someone could have predicted at that moment that the iPhone and iPod Touch would provide a perfectly acceptable means to watch movies, a view of which many, including Philips, were skeptical at the time.
Thus, although the Streak had various issues, its main problem may have been that it was before its time. The benefit of a phablet is that it can still fit in a pocket, the chief criterion for phone-like portability, and yet it offers more precious screen real estate than most phones.
And, as Jennings points out, “physical size is one thing, but don't forget that the 5" Note actually has more pixels (1280 x 800) than the 10" iPad (1024 × 768).” The Note’s screen features the latest in Super AMOLED technology, which uses organic compounds for electroluminescence, active matrix technology to address pixels, and in-cell capacitive sensor arrays for touch input. Input can be done with either fingers for ease of use or the stylus for greater precision.
If a phablet is designed right, the size compromise works out. Otherwise, it’s either an unwieldy phone or a too-tiny tablet.
Although common wisdom holds that you wouldn’t want to hold something the size of a ham sandwich up to the side of your head, a wireless headset does somewhat mitigate the potential issue of dealing with an unwieldy phone.
Samsung is now taking preorders for the 4G LTE version in the United States. It can be had for a one-time charge of $300 with a two-year contract from AT&T.
© 2012 Endpoint Technologies Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.
Twitter: RogerKay
