So long, small phones

misk@sopuli.xyz to Technology@lemmy.world – 555 points –
So long, small phones
theverge.com
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There was a time where 7" was a damn tablet (looking at you, my old pal nexus 7)

7" plus an inch of bezels on each side. A Nexus 7 was nearly 10 inches.

Those bezels are useful though. The bigger and heavier the device the better grip you need in it.

Modern devices try to get around it with crazy accidental touch recognition that works some of the time. But older tablets with bezels give you a place to grip it without the need for touch rejection.

Modern devices try to get around it with crazy accidental touch recognition that works some of the time.

What you do is you take your thousand dollar fragile crystal oblong and you wrap it in a 30 dollar hunk of plastic that adds the correct bezels for actual human interaction and also provides a moderate amount of physical protection and strength.

It's not an entirely unreasonable approach since the part that's most susceptible to wear and tear is cheap and replacable vs wear on the fragile crystal and metal slab of magic.

True. This could have been implemented by manufacturers, like Nokia did with the shells for their 33xx-series phones. Instead they seem to be focused on style rather than usability.

I can't think of anyone in my social circle who owns and uses a phone sans-case in exactly the way the manufacturer sells it. It's in a wallet case, or a normal case, or it's got a clear jelly case, or a case that facilitates mounting in the car, etc etc.

I am always surprised at the colour of my phone on the rare occasion I take it out of its case, it's white, and my case - that entirely wraps it - is black.

I never use cases. I like my phone to look the way it’s supposed to.

I do use a screen protector, but that’s it.

Interesting.

See much everyday damage? How long do you keep your phones?

2 years or so. The edges get slight dings from keys/change. They resell on eBay for same price as any other used phone, and I include very detailed pics.

I miss my bezel'd phones. It was nice having something I could grip onto that wasn't screen.

Using diagonal screen size to measure phones doesn't work because of bezels and taller aspect ratios. The 5.5" iPhone 6 Plus (2014) is pretty much the same size as the 6.7" iPhone 15 Pro Max

I actually carried a 7 inch tablet in my pocket before it was cool, bezels and all. This was back on Android 2.3 when people would moan about tablet UIs and say that it's just a giant phone, to which I would say: Yea, and having a giant phone is awesome.