Phablet. What are they and why are they popular?

Greetings Everyone!

Technology started with an enormously big and heavy mobile phone. The first mobile phone, created in the year 1973 by the American company Motorola, the same company who were credited for the creation of the transceiver which the astronaut Neil Armstrong used to communicate from his space shuttle to NASA (Interesting, isn't it? I bet you didn't knew that). The mobile phone which was named DYNATac weighed 2.2 pounds/0.997903kg (heaviest till date, eh?). The phone operated on radio signals. As a result it didn't worked on elevators and places where radio signals were not reachable.

The First Mobile Phone : Where will you fit that in your pocket anyway?

As years passed by,new and new devices came into being in the late 20th century, Nokia introduced its new mobile phone. That time two companies were the only ones to rule the mobile market. Nokia introduced its first GSM handset device in the year 1992. In the beginning of the 21st century, Nokia introduced a new device(The Nokia 1100) in the year 2003 which became viral. It shipped 3 million units worldwide.

The impregnable Nokia 1100

As years passed by, Nokia introduced the first touch-screen mobile phone,the Nokia 7710 released in the Q4 2004. The introductory touch phone also was a hit in the mobile market.

The Nokia 7710

As years passed by, the introduction of smartphones came into play. A smartphone, or smart phone, is a mobile phone built on a mobile operating system, with more advanced computing capability and connectivity than a feature phone.The first smartphones combined the functions of a personal digital assistant (PDA), including email functionality, with a mobile phone. Later models added the functionality of portable media players, low-end compact digital cameras, pocket video cameras, and GPS navigation units to form one multi-use device. Many modern smartphones also include high-resolution touchscreens and web browsers that display standard web pages as well as mobile-optimized sites. High-speed data access is provided by Wi-Fi, mobile broadband, NFC and Bluetooth. In recent years, the rapid development of mobile app markets and of mobile commerce have been drivers of smartphone adoption.Apple, Blackberry and Samsung started ruling the mobile market. The introduction of the iPhone by Apple and the Galaxy models by Samsung became viral all over the world.

 

The newest addition by Apple Inc. : The iPhone 5S

Then there was the introduction of the tablet. A tablet computer, or simply tablet, is a mobile computer with display, circuitry and battery in a single unit. Tablets are equipped with sensors, including cameras, microphone, accelerometer and touchscreen, with finger or stylus gestures replacing computer mouse and keyboard. The most successful tablet was the iPad by Apple.

The iPad 1st Gen

Thus to combine the features of a phone and a tablet came the introduction to phablets. A phablet a portmanteau of the words phone and tablet is a class of mobile device designed to combine or straddle the functions of a smartphone and tablet. Phablets are characterized by the use of large screens, typically with a diagonal size between 5 to 6.9 inches (130 to 180 mm), which complements screen-intensive activity such as mobile web browsing and multimedia viewing. Phablets may also include software optimized for an integral self-storing stylus to facilitate sketching, note-taking and annotation. While Samsung's Galaxy Note is largely credited with pioneering the worldwide phablet market when launched in 2011 examples of early devices with similar form factors date back all the way to 1993.

The Dell Streak received mixed reviews for its large size and dated software despite its pioneering design.

Market Impact of Phablets :

In January 2013, IHS reported that 25.6 million phablet devices were sold in 2012 and estimated that these figures would grow to 60.4 million in 2013, and 146 million by 2016. Barclays projected sales of phablets rising from 27 million in 2012 to 230 million in 2015.In September 2013 International Data Corporation (IDC) reported that its research indicated that phablet size smartphones "overtook shipments of both laptops and tablets in Asia in the second quarter of 2013." Whilst unveiling the aforementioned Ascend Mate, Huawei CEO Richard Yu considered the phablet to be the future of smartphones due to their "all-in-one" nature.

In a 2013 analysis, Engadget identified dropping screen prices, increasing screen power efficiency, increasing battery life and the evolving importance of multimedia viewing as critical factors in the popularity of the phablet. In 2012, Forbes Magazine noted that while most clothing cannot hold a typical tablet computer, men's clothing in particular could and may well adapt to accommodate phablets. Doug Conklyn, vice president of global design for Dockers told Fox News that the company reworked the size of its pants pockets "to accommodate the growing size of smartphones."

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