Stumbling towards the ideal mobile screen size

Mobile devices come with screen sizes ranging from tiny to huge. A Samsung Gear watch has a 1.5 inch display while tablet screens can go up to 12 inches or more. Is there an idea size for getting work done on the move? It turns out there is.

Two years ago NPD InStat, a research company, found a clear link between screen size and the type of task that’s practical on a mobile device.
As a rule of thumb, devices with screens of up to seven inches are suitable for consuming content. Smaller screens work fine for reading text, websites and emails. They are OK for watching short videos and perfect for listening to music.
If you want to be productive writing documents, answering emails or crunching numbers in a spreadsheet, you’ll need a display that’s seven inches or more. Bigger screens give a better experience when it comes to viewing more complex websites or reading documents with more than a page of text. They are better for watching longer videos.
Of course, there’s nothing to stop you writing a long document on, say, an iPhone 5S with its four-inch display, but to do the job justice you need something larger.
The iPhone 5S has one advantage – most people can work a four-inch touch screen single-handed. On the other hand, many struggle to read the tiny text in some phone apps.
NPD InStat’s seven-inch rule of thumb explains why smartphone screens have been getting progressively larger in recent years. The best-known jumbo-sized phone is Samsung’s Note 3 with a 5.7-inch display that needs a stylus.
However, as Kantar Worldpanel, another research company, points out, there’s a practical limit to smartphone size. Kantar says phone buyers gravitate to devices in the 4.7 to five inch range. It doesn’t matter how thin and light devices are, anything bigger than five inches can’t realistically fit in a pocket.  
Kantar reports that in 2013 the majority of people with phones smaller than 4.4 inches switched to a bigger device when they replaced their smartphone. Most of those who started with larger phones didn’t move up a size.
Tablet screens start where the biggest phones stop. While many people are happy with smaller tablet screens (the 7.9-inch iPad Mini is a hot seller), the best size for your needs comes down to how much you value portability and the applications you plan to use.
Smaller tablets will easily fit in a bag. Although they aren’t heavy, larger tablets require more carrying effort and protections.
Smaller tablets are fine if you need to refer to documents or tick boxes on an electronic form. If you have access to the right kind of network they can handle video conferencing. At a pinch they can do pretty much everything larger tablets can do.
Just as phone buyers found over time there’s a screen size sweet spot, something similar happened with tablets. 2013 saw a number of devices with displays bigger than the 9.7-inch screen on Apple’s iPad Air.
You can appreciate the tablet maker’s logic: “If bigger smartphones are popular, why wouldn’t bigger tablets be crowd pleasers?”
It didn’t take long for the market to answer the question: bigger isn’t necessary better. Samsung’s whopping 12.2-inch Galaxy Note Pro weighs 753 grams while the iPad Air is just 470 grams. It may not sound much, but the size and the weight make a huge difference to mobility. Plans for other large tablets are now scrapped. The market has spoken.