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Phablet Reviews: Before and After the iPhone 6

Posted by timothy on from the but-that-was-different dept.

Velcroman1 writes Bigger is better. No, wait, bigger is worse. Well, which is it? Apple's newly supersized 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and the jumbo, 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus are a marked departure for the company, which has clung to the same, small screen size for years. It has gone so far as to publicly deride larger phones from competitors, notably Samsung, even as their sales grew to record highs. Tech reviewers over the years have tended to side with Apple, in general saddling reviews of the Samsung Galaxy Note – a 5.3-inch device that kicked off the phablet push in 2012 – with asides about how big the darn thing was. Are tech reviewers being fair when they review the iPhone 6 Plus? Here's what some of them said today, compared with how they reviewed earlier phablets and big phones from the competition.

5 of 277 comments (clear)

  1. Very sad by halivar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hate, hate, hate, hate large phones. If I needed a bigger screen, I'll pull out my tablet or my laptop. I'm a skinny guy, I wear tight-ish jeans (fiance hates it, but I gotta be me), and pulling a big-ass phone out of my front pocket is a pain in my ass, and that's with an IPhone 5S.

    I'm going to pass on the 6 and hope they come out with a traditional-sized one for the 6S or 7.

    1. Re:Very sad by NeverVotedBush · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I got the iPhone 6 (not the 6 Plus) trading up from a 4S. Still getting used to the 6. For me it is too thin but that's just an opportunity to get a thicker and more protective case.

      But if it wasn't for being able to supersize the icons on the display and Apple Pay, I think I would return it. It's really too big at least until I acclimate - if I acclimate. No way in hell I'd get the 6 Plus unless I got the big gold chain to wear it around my neck and make the display a clock face...

      As phones go, I really liked the size of the 4S better. And so far, I'm not very impressed by the quality of the phone connections. Dropped calls and lots of garbled speech. My 4S had better call quality so far by far. I may still return the 6 if I can't get that figured out as the main reason I have it is to use it as a phone.

  2. I'm pleasantly surprised. by geekoid · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm pleasantly surprised by the number of people in the article that basically said the same thing in both reviews. I couple of people magically changed their tunes with the Apple 6, but not as many as I thought.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  3. Hipsters are passe ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Wait, I thought hipsters were the guys who liked the new things?

    They liked the new things that coincided with their generation hitting their prime. The new things as the next generation hits its prime, the new things that are different than "their" things, not so much.

    Skinny jeans are becoming passe, soon to be laughed at when seen in photos, "OMG, look at those pants, can you believe we/they wore those". At least for guys. Tight jeans for women will always be fashionable.

    Yes there will be die hards. Every generation has those too.

    Like if you had an iPad and an iPhone you were a hipster, but if you had an old Android and a Lenovo laptop you were a legitimate human being.

    Poor analogy. The iPhone vs Android thing is strongly correlated with zip code, in other words income. Its simply a matter of getting what you want vs getting what your finances force you to settle for. Sure there are a few who shriek about the "walled garden", a loud minority, sort of like Linux desktop users.

    Perhaps I'm being a little hard on the Linux users. Many of those at Linux conferences are carrying MacBooks.

  4. Re:what?!?! by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So, what you're saying is... you didn't read the original reviews, the article or even the summary? The quotes are pretty clear.

    On the Galaxy:

    It’s still too big for a smartphone After testing it over the past week and a half, the awkwardness that came with carrying such a large, “notice me” phone outweighed the benefits of it, for me.

    – Lauren Goode

    Same person on the iPhone6:

    Maybe I’m getting old, and my eyes are getting worse. Or maybe I’m stuck in Apple’s reality-distortion field (help). But something strange happened this week. I started to like a phablet.

    – Lauren Goode

    Translation: Your new feature sux because it's not Apple! Oh... Apple did it to? Yay! I like it now!