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Comment by Tyrannosaurs | Hacker News Reader

While I must admit the personally I'm completely cold on phablets (to me they offer the inconvenience of the bulk of a tablet with the limitations of a phone), I know at least a couple of people who love their Galaxy Notes and those sales numbers suggest that they're not alone.

I think the interesting question is is this a sign of a significant new market segment, or is it something more niche which Samsung have just nailed with the Note but won't ever grow too much beyond it's current size (at least as a proportion of the overall market)?

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I just got my Note 2 a few days ago. I upgraded from an S2 and can't be happier.

I find that ~95% of my phone use is for texting/email/consumption and very little actual talking. Now I also have the ability to draw on my phone, which means I can actually be somewhat productive with it... and taking personal notes in shorthand is way faster than typing. For me, this is a tablet that fits comfortably in my pocket that happens to make/receive phone calls. It's the PDA we all wish we had back in the 90's.

When you say it fits comfortably in your pocket, how physically active do you tend to be?

Personally I have small kids so spend a bunch of time running around after them, bending down to pick them up and tidy up after them and so on.

Do you think a Note is compatible with that or is the size such that it fits comfortably if you're walking around normally but much more might be a problem?

EDIT: Thanks for all the responses. Food for thought muddying my already unclear thoughts on what I want from a tablet with what I might want from a phone.

I first ran into the Note when it was only in South Korea. Everybody who owned one was significantly active: a construction site manager, an architect with a kid (who used it extensively for site sketches), a mother of 2, a couple college kids, a salesman with extensive travel requirements...not to mention that the best way of getting around in Seoul is pretty much on foot and public transport.

I will say that most of them also carried around a pre-charged second battery since finding charge points can be a problem when out and about in a big city (without holing up at a coffee shop (if you can find a plug) for an hour).

They all loved it, and one of their friends with an S3 was planning on "upgrading" to it. It was a little big for small pockets, but was perfectly fine holding and using it if you can get over the requirement of only using one hand to operate a phone (I haven't used one hand ever, even with my old flipphones back in the day).

It did look a little funky being used as a phone, but when lots of people have one it tends to look more normal.

Well, to be fair, I'm 6'4" with a 36" inseam and my pants have big pockets... so I don't think that would be an issue for me (I have 2 as well). Part of my usage case, however, is that when I am home, the phone is rarely in my pocket. I tend to keep my phones on the island in the kitchen unless I'm using them.

At work, I do a fair amount of bending/squatting as a computer tech and I haven't had to shift it around at all. It's thin enough that it doesn't seem to get in the way.

The main issue with pockets is thickness, and the Note is as thin as any other smartphone. I usually carry it in my jacket or coat pocket, although it does fit comfortably in slim-fit jeans.

I'd say if you wear tight jeans and bend down a lot it's a bit risky. But otherwise fine. Pop into a phone shop and see!

I think the sales of these and similar phones suggest a combination of two things that Apple may have underestimated:

Bigger screens are better

A lot of people want the biggest/most powerful phone that they can comfortably afford, use and cary around. Higher end androids have been growing in average screen size from the starting point set by the iphone.

Diversity = Choice = Good

Among those people who want big phones, there is diversity in pocket size, hand size, purse size & willingness to carry things around. Look at the other stuff they take with them. A lot of women carry around a big purse, for example. It might have 3-4 things bigger than a note in there that go everywhere. I choose a wallet for slimness. My mother's is a good 10X bigger than mine. If you carry around a wallet the size of a brick, a galaxy note is not an issue. When I wear a jacket, I can comfortably take a nexus 7 or kindle with me everywhere.

By committing to a single model Apple gains a lot. But, they also need to target a low common denominator for size. I wouldn't be surprised to see an iPhone 3', 4', 5' at some point.

Bigger screens are better is a stretch. This is selling less than either the iPhone or the S3 both of which have smaller screens.

While someone somewhere will buy a phone with pretty much any screen size you can name, there are going to be demand peaks around certain sizes. Where those are will take a few years with more choice to become clear, but the fact that the S3 out sells the Note (both well reviewed, similarly functional, same manufacturer so otherwise pretty comparable) suggests pretty strongly that demand for "phone" sizes is still greater than "phablet" sizes.

And I think Apple get that choice is good - the iPad Mini is a very direct representation of that, ditto the fact that there are now three different iPhones. They're not throwing out phones the way Samsung are because there are other trade offs in doing that, but I think they get that not everyone wants the same thing.

Well, these phones haven't had the hype machine of either of those two behind them, which can manipulate demand to some extent.

Either way it seems that there is significant demand here, even if it's not at the same level as the 4.x inch devices.

I love mine (Note 1). It does fit in my jeans pocket just fine. It lives in there with my keys and somehow hasn't been destroyed or scratched.

And the screen is just wonderful. I've only had it a few months and I'm already thinking about whether I can justify getting a Note 2 for my, uh, business needs :)

Phone in the same pocket as your keys!? shudder

I never use cases; the last phone I've had any kind of screen damage on was ye olde Nokia E71, by dropping an open pocketknife directly on the face. Said phone is still in use.

And I haven't even got it in a protective case of any sort!

I'm a risk-loving rebel me :)

wow! better than a tablet (i mean for biz needs) ?

That probably depends what your business needs are. I'm just starting out freelancing/contracting, so my business needs are minimal. I'm just thinking I can maybe justify a business phone (toy) out of pre-tax profits... especially if/when I start making android apps.

I don't own a tablet but the Note has replaced my netbook as casual browsing device, and it's big enough that watching movies or tv episodes on the train or plane isn't uncomfortable. Only real niggle - headphone volume output could be louder.

I think the market is pretty confused right now. As compared to 2007 when Apple first launched its iPhone and then again when it launched the iPad.

I guess we don't really know the resolution we as human beings prefer. With Linus Torvalds asking for a new Desktop Resolution as a standard I think we would need to wait and watch for the disruption to kick in.

(Resolution is not the same as Size. Resolution = pixels per inch; size = number of inches. OK?)

The interesting thing about the Galaxy Note is that as it moves the slider between the 7" tablet and 3.5-4" smartphone sizes it hits an interesting sweet spot. It's obviously better than the regular phone at displaying text, albeit not as good as the 7" (which is roughly the same display area as an A-format paperback book -- this is not a coincidence, IMO). But it's vastly better than the 7" format at being a mobile phone: the separation of microphone (at bottom) and speaker (at top) make the 7" form factor something of a non-starter for voice calls unless a headset or speakerphone system is used. (A curved 7" tablet, mimicking the shape of a traditional phone handset, might work better as a phone, but would be far less pocketable.)

So my guess is that phablets will have a strong niche market among people who do a lot of textual/web work on the move but don't want to carry a phone and a tablet around. The real issue this opens is text input -- how to do it best when your device is uncomfortably large for one-handed use, but too cramped for two-handed -- and the pen is a relatively elegant solution to this, whatever Steve Jobs might have thought about the "scribble thing". In some ways it may make sense to view the Galaxy Note as the logical descendant of the Apple Newton (beefed up, different OS, added phone/internet functions) than of the regular Android/iOS multi-touch phone lineage.

> Resolution = pixels per inch; size = number of inches.

I tend to think the same way you do, with resolution meaning pixels per inch, which is a very important number to me. But I don't think that is how the term is commonly used.

Resolution usually means the total number of pixels in each dimension, independent of the size of those pixels. Just look at any display product spec: You'll almost always see "Display resolution 1600x900" (or whatever the numbers are) and almost never see "Display resolution 123 pixels per inch". In most cases you're left to calculate the pixels per inch on your own.

For lack of a better term, I've taken to using "density" or "pixel density" to refer to pixels per inch, or else just use DPI or PPI or spell it out.

Why pixels per inch? Why not pixels per centimeter? Isn't metric system the standard? :)

Metric is rational and a standard ... except that a good chunk of our global computer industry is dominated by American corporations, and they still run on the width of the King's Finger :)

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