It’s been a few weeks since I finally got my phone upgrade from my trusty old HTC Hero and went with the Samsung Galaxy. There’s one big change in how I use the new phone.
Since I saw Dustin Curtis’ post 3.5 Inches recently, I thought he was onto something and it made sense that a slightly smaller handset like the iPhone with it’s 3.5″ screen would be “easier” to use and handle than the significantly bigger Samsung Galaxy at 4.21″
There was one thing that bugged me about the end of the post and that’s the notion that it’s a “mistake” to make a bigger screen simply because of thumb reach.
This is an example of one of those design decisions that you don’t usually notice until you see someone doing it wrong. It’s one of the things that makes Apple products Apple products.Dustin Curtis
My experience
I’ve now had the Samsung for a few weeks and I absolutely love it.
Of course I do agree with the sentiment of Dustin’s (among many others) suggestion about thumb reach but it omits something that I’ve only recently discovered myself doing and that’s changing how I grip and hold the phone.
The “pinkie drop”
As someone who by no means could claim ownership of Andre The Giant sized hands, the big screen was initially all sorts of problem for me as I’d moved from a smaller phone to what is definitely a significant sized unit but I’ve found that now I very comfortably “cradle” the bottom of the phone with my pinkie while browsing etc and to reach the top portions of the screen, I simply move my little finger down half an inch.
My grip on the phone is fine, it’s easy to shuffle around and for things like using maps, quite often I find that’s a two handed job pinching and scrolling around anyway. In those cases, sometimes, a bigger phone to grab onto and use is actually a benefit.
It’s become entirely natural behaviour and I don’t think the extra screen size is a mistake. I value it and love the Galaxy for it.
A “new 4 inch iOS Device”
As a timely addendum, I’ve just seen a rumour on CultofMac that suppliers are shipping 4″ displays for a “new iOS device”. Read into that what you will but I’d suggest if you’re a current iPhone user, you might want to start practising your “pinkie drop” for your next phone.