Size matters

Singapore welcomes the iPhone 6 and 6Plus today with the usual long queues at the sales outlets. The difference this year however is bigger than ever. Literally.

It is intriguing how fast technology and consumers' perceptions change.

Not long ago in 2010/ 11, I was excited to get the Dell Streak 5, one of the biggest smartphones then. The 5” WVGA display was ground breaking. At 152.9 x 79.1 x 10 mm, it was “humongous” for the standard back then. I remember running into curious strangers in the lift and train, who started conversation with me because of the device. It was fun. I also remember a colleague in the office, a proud American Apple user, laughed at it and jokingly asked if it was a calculator.

Fast forward to 2014, smartphones with 5” display is the norm today, albeit with much smaller overall size. Phablets are seen everywhere, over 5”, 6”, and even bigger. Now even Apple who takes pride in setting market standards is following this route, contradicts the legendary founder Steve Jobs’ words. Well, just like many other things he said that eventually slap his face. The iPhone 6Plus is in fact, bigger than other devices with the similar display size. With a dimension of 158.1 x 77.8 x 7.1 mm, the 6Plus is even longer than the “calculator” Dell Streak.

Arguably, the length of the device matters more than the width, and thickness, if the variances are just +/- a few mm. You will know what I mean when sitting down with the phone in your jeans. Let’s look at the more recent popular devices with similar display size:

	iPhone 6Plus	Galaxy Note 3	LG G3
Display	5.5”	5.7”	5.5”
Length	158.1 mm	151.2	146.3 mm

It is clear that iPhone 6Plus is much longer, but with the same or smaller display.

Another interesting thing I noticed when talking to the excited Apple fans - Most of them have the perception that 6Plus is smaller than these similar devices. Some only thought about the display size, for example ‘6Plus 5.5" is smaller than the 5.7” Note’.

It is good to have choices. Maybe iPhone 7Plus will have a stylus. Maybe iPhone will finally ditch its old fashioned physical home button, so they can remove those thick bezels. Why not?