back to article PhabletPhace: All the cool kids are doing it in Asia

Large smartphones, aka “phablets” have have captured a big (fondle)slab of the mobile phone market in Asia. That pronouncement comes from analyst outfit IDC's new Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker, which identifies folks willing to use a phablet – a tablet with built-in phone and at least a seven-inch screen – as a new …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Phones with a 7"+ screen???

    Geez, I guess Apple needs to add voice capability to the next iPad Mini and capture the high (7.9") end of this weird new market!

    1. big_D Silver badge

      Re: Phones with a 7"+ screen???

      People are spending less and less time using their phone to talk and more and more time to surf and use apps. If you talk for less than 10 minutes a month on your phone, but use it in data mode for several hours a day, I can see a larger screen being more useful.

      1. Alan Denman

        Re: Phones with a 7"+ screen???

        "I can see a larger screen being more useful"

        People are too afraid of being called a black sheep. When the white phablet arrives sheepies will rejoice.

    2. Michael Jennings

      Re: Phones with a 7"+ screen???

      These are people who have never owned PCs, and don't make a lot of voice calls.

  2. Roj Blake Silver badge

    Bluetooth

    Who cares if you look like a prat with 7 inches next to face when you have a bluetooth earpiece?

    1. sabroni Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Exactly!

      Why use your phablet to look prattish when a simple bluetooth earpiece does the same job?

    2. thomas k.

      Re: Bluetooth

      Yes, I'd be curious to know if these peeps use a headset or just slap the slab up side their face to make calls. Seems to me a headset would sort of defeat the purpose of having a phab.

      1. Michael Jennings

        Re: Bluetooth

        If you they are making most of your calls indoors and there is not a lot of ambient noise, they may just be putting everyone on speaker, too.

  3. David Paul Morgan
    Go

    makes sense...

    as for some folk, this is their main/only "networked communications device"

    An ideal size for business folk on the move.

    If you link your bluetooth headphones, then you can take calls and/or listen to your music on the go.

    Add dual-sim and it's an ideal travelling/roaming companion.

    now, where did I leave my old HTC-Flyer? I sense a CM 'upgrade' project coming along, to keep up with "the kids".

    (I have a downloaded ROM which enables the 'voice' part of the hardware AND keeps the pen functionality...)

  4. David Paul Morgan
    Thumb Up

    incidentally...

    ... how do Chinese and Japanese people write text using a smartphone?

    I would have imagined that stylus input for brush-strokes would have been ideal..?

  5. DarkWalker

    I actually use a Note 10.1 like this. Apart from needing to take it everywhere — which I would do anyway — I don't see any inconvenience, as long as I'm using a bluetooth headset.

    Besides, being able to just tap a button and start taking notes, like a real paper notebook, is a huge help for me.

  6. Alan Denman

    re - willingness to use a whopping big phone is an Asian thing not seen elsewhere.

    There are exceptions to the self conscious sheepish westerners who are slaves to emotional marketing.

    We seem far too used to being told what to do.

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