Why smaller is sometimes better

Stephen Withers
Tuesday, 11 October 2011 12:04

Opinion and Analysis

 

There's a meme spreading that says Apple was right to stay with a 3.5in screen for the iPhone family despite calls for more real estate. The argument is that you can't easily reach the opposite corners when using a 4+in device one-handed, but I call shenanigans.

 

The opinion of Dustin Curtis that a smartphone with a 3.5in screen (specifically the iPhone 4) can be operated one handed but a 4.21in screen can't, has been spreading. The argument is based on the idea that the larger screen size has a significant area that's unswept by your thumb during single-handed operation.

 

Since I currently have the use of an HTC phone with the larger screen, I thought I'd put the theory to the test. While it probably depends on exactly how you hold the phone, I found practically the entire screen surface was in reach of my thumb.

If anything, it was harder to reach the corners of the screen that were closest to my thumb (ie, the left corners when holding the phone in my left hand). If an admittedly non-scientific survey of my iTWire colleagues is anything to go by, my thumbs are of normal length!

But how often do you want to use a phone one-handed anyway? My normal habit - with conventional and touchscreen phones - is to hold it in one hand and operate it with the other. The main exception is when I'm entering text on a touchscreen phone in landscape orientation or on a QWERY handset, in which case I tend to hold it two-handed and use both thumbs.

While I take Mr Curtis' point that you'd use it one-handed "while you're walking down the street looking at Google Maps", I don't see that there's much need to do anything other than swiping the map in order to see the next part of your route. Adjusting the scale with a pinch is an inherently two-handed operation.

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