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It’s official 5-inch displays or smaller are more popular!

Robin MaxwellSeptember 20, 2013

At the start of the week we posted a poll asking which if GizChina readers wanted larger 6.44-inch phablets. Well the results are in and we can confirm that smaller screen are still more popular by a long stretch!

After visiting a few Chinesephone manufacturers this week and seeing some of them preferring to launch larger phablet style phones we thought we would put it to the GizChina community to see if this is what you really want.

The reason for this poll was not to hate on large screen devices or push opinions, but to point out to Chinesephone makers that what we really want to see from them are great quality, bug free products. We don’t want them to start producing bigger and bigger phones if they haven’t created their best 5-inch (for example) phone. Also, I agree that it isn’t really the screen size that is the issues here but the overall phone size, this is also a problem as most of the 6.44-inch phablets had very large bezels making them larger still.

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We have left the poll running so feel free to make your votes now, but it is pretty clear from the current results that 6.44-inch phables are not as popular as companies are hoping for. Surprisingly, and worryingly for Oppo, 5.9-inch is the least popular!

It is no surprise that 5-inch phones are in the number one spot and smaller than 5-inch comes in second! Come on Chinesephone makers more devices like the Xiaomi Mi2a, Moto X and HTC One Mini are wanted!

[poll id=”3″]

We’ll be posting further polls in the future so keep posted.

Disclaimer: We may be compensated by some of the companies whose products we talk about, but our articles and reviews are always our honest opinions. For more details, you can check out our editorial guidelines and learn about how we use affiliate links.

About the author

Robin Maxwell
Hi, Robin Maxwell here! Mobile technology is my passions, and while I've been known to dabble with iOS devices I'm a firm Android convert, currently waiting for the Oppo Find 5 to launch!!

September 20, 2013
Well,
I recently changed my Note II for a Oppo Find 5, one of the primary reasons are the overall Size. I thought I`ll be fine with my note but after just 6 month I accepted that it is just to big. Used the stylus once or twice so I need a Phone not a tablet.
The only positive ting on the most 5+ devices is that they are come with a much bigger battery. And for users like me with not much screen time it is great to have a phone running 2-3 full days without worries.
Now I’m back to 5″ and have to charge daily again 🙁

Specialist
September 20, 2013
I think it’s so typical that all these Chinese phone makers once again think more = more. They don’t understand the concept of a MOBILE PHONE. I’ve put a lot of thought into this and right now, the ideal size for a phone is between 4″ and 4.5″. While Chinese phone makers only care about specifications they make phones with a useless HD screen and multiple cores that drain you battery while in fact they should focus on making a more energy efficient and stable phone. As much as I like to believe that Android is best, most companies really fail to meet the demands of customers. It’s a battle about getting the highest resolutions or most cored that has gone way too far. For me the perfect phone would be: 4.5″ 720p (honestly, 1024p is bullshit and completely unnecessary, only thing it does is drain your battery and ruin your phone’s performance) narrow bezel with 3000 mAh battery and a dual core 2.0 ghz processor with a vanilla android optimised for maximum performance.
- September 23, 2013
  I’d like to also see a phone like that, but maybe just a little bigger such as say 5″
  But most importantly 720p with 2gig of ram and a quadcore processor.
Mike
September 21, 2013
Currently in France but I have been living in Korea for 5 years and 60% of my Korean friends have these huge phones and I don’t see any of them going for smaller displays…The trend is cleary to bigger displays. Anyway this is not the issue here. This article claims “It’s official 5-inch displays or smaller are more popular!” which should be “It’s official 5-inch displays or smaller are more popular among Gizchina readers”.
- anony
  September 21, 2013
  So you’re arguing semantic that no one really care about nor will it impact anything? Okay.
  - Mike
    September 22, 2013

DifferVS
September 22, 2013
I prefer 4.0 – 4.5 inch display. Easy to hold and to put on pocket. So, far i like xiaomi mi2s and willing to buy it soon. Maybe. 🙂

Job_CF
September 28, 2013
Years ago, I have seen maintainance workers walking round with phones as big as a brick. Phones started getting smaller and easy to carry around. I still use a not-a-smart Nokia sometimes. Just 84 gms and the battery lasts for over a week.
As the phones got smarter and smarter and people started watching vidoes and playing games, they got bigger and heavier.
The Lenovo A820 that I bought recently has a 4.5″ display, measures 135 x 68.2 x 9.9 mm and weighs 152 gms with 2000 mAh battery.
Its big and heavy enough as it is.
So I voted for ‘Smaller’.
Big displays? Yeah, I like them and dream about a Nokia size phone with 10+ inch 3D Holographic Display.
Groud
October 24, 2013
Most unreliable poll one can ever have and where’s why:
1.) People prefer smaller screens but the 6.4″ is more popular than the 5.9″ one?
2.) What’s the demographic of your sample group? Phablet sales are equalling the combined sales of Tablets and Laptops. Needless to say, they are very popular. Chinese manufactures are making large phones because it is what is popular in the most unsaturated smartphone market i.e. not Europe, North America, places where people are fearful of irrational none issues like phone fitting in their pockets and people laughing them because of the size of their phones(cultural immaturity and ignorance respectively). Markets like Korea, Japan and China are what matters and where tech trends usually start. Chinese OEMs will continue on this route because it will be profitable.
3.) There is an element of bias for these people who are “stuck” with < 5" displays. I bet if everyone who voted were asked to trade in their small display phone for a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 they would do it in a heart beat.
4.) How many of your sample group have actually experienced using one of these large devices? How will you know for certain that you don't like a certain car without at least test driving.
- Yeti hand
  February 4, 2017