Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Samsung Electronics is seeking to dazzle followers of the phablet with bigger screens, and even possibly with a curved one, in its attempt to fence off a segment of smartphones once mocked for their girth and size.
Phablets, a cross between a phone and a tablet, have been on a roll since late 2011 as tech-savvy consumers, particularly in the Gulf region, devote more time browsing data-heavy internet pages and downloading media content.
Even Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S4 smartphone, released in April, has a 5-inch screen that puts it in the phablet category for some analysts.
Now Samsung has kicked off global sales of its latest Galaxy Note 3 smartphone. The phablet, which boasts a 5.7-inch screen, will be available in 140 nations this month. It may cost around BD360.
Google’s Motorola unit recently launched a 5-inch Droid Ultra, and even Apple, which has stuck to a 3.5-inch form factor for its iPhone since its 2007 debut, is also exploring offering iPhones with larger screens, analysts believe.
“When we introduced the Note in 2011, a lot of people made a mockery of it and some even said it was doomed to fail,” Lee Young-hee, executive vice president of mobile marketing at Samsung, said. “But we noticed that people were carrying phones, music players and gaming machines, and we thought they may want just one device that can do it all.”
The Note 3’s screen is nearly two-thirds bigger than Apple’s iPhone, and manufacturers are increasingly adopting immense screens.
Huawei’s Ascend Mate has an even bigger 6.1-inch screen, and Sony’s Xperia Z Ultra boasts a 6.4-inch screen, making it only less than an inch smaller than Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet. Samsung’s Galaxy Mega has a 6.3-inch screen. LG Electronics is planning to launch its 5.2-inch Vu 3 on Friday.
