Are regular smartphones on the cusp of getting too big?

I wonder how much optimization Apple (and to a lesser extent WP) are able to squeeze out to improve battery life by having tighter control over hardware and software integration. Is it on the order of ~10% or a magnitude higher?

Android due to its very nature still has a lot of optimizations that can be made.

Probably not a gigantic amount, but it obviously has the advantage of knowing what hardware it'll use (this LCD, that processor). Given that Apple's Mac optimizations are usually spectacular, I'd say there's a meaningful difference. The proof will be in the pudding, of course... if there's 4.7-inch iPhone with epic battery life compared to similarly-sized rivals, we'll know.

Right now, I'm just happy that there's a wave of normal-sized phones that will last all day for serious users, not just the casual crowd.
 
I was all hot to upgrade to the Nokia 1520 last fall, still clinging to a Samsung Focus, a first-gen WP running Mango WP7 (2010).

But the instant I slipped that six-inch phablet into my pocket, I said "Oh,hell no!"
 
Well that quickly turned into "Apple is shit, fuck their marketing etc"

Can we for once have a discussion in this section without always going off on the Apple hate tangent?


Anyways, I think 4.7" is my limit for screen size. My GS3 was that size and anything bigger just isn't for me.
 
What do you get for standby? Note 3 does over six days with always on WIFI as a secondary VOIP phone.

Well the iPhone 5s quoted standby time is 250 hours, so about 10 days. I have seen that it can last at least a week in standby with wifi and cellular enabled in my experience.

But of course if you leave the screen off and all the data and processing chips at their lowest power states (aka standby) a phone with a battery twice the size of the iPhone will probably last longer. Apple is not magic, they use similar ARM and wireless technology as the rest and the power usages of those chips are similar.

When I leave my phone on standby overnight over an 8 hour night it usually loses about 4% power in that 8 hours of standby. So that looks to be about 200hours at that usage to completely drain it.

And that's not even complete standby. I'm not sure how far the chips and radios come out of standby during that time, but my phone switches to do not disturb mode at night (so notifications don't vibrate, make sound, or illuminate the screen), but it still listens for and receives push notifications so that when I wake up I typically have a bunch of push notifications like emails on my lock screen already waiting for me.

Back to the discussion about size. I also have a tablet so I like my phone to be smaller. I can understand that for people who don't have a tablet or perhaps poor eyesight that a larger phone would be welcome. I've definitely never been against the choice of larger phone models. I just want there to remain smaller ones available too with still top-notch hardware specs / performance and decent pixel densities.
 
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Regular smartphones are already too big. The Galaxy Mini 2 and the iPod Touch 4th Gen are the ideal form factors for a personal communications device.

I blame Netflix, YouTube and the movie studios for the size creep as well as the encroachment of smartphones into the tablet ecosystem.
 
I won't be content until I can see my entire face profile pasted on the glass.

Seriously, I like my phone small.
 
Regular smartphones are already too big. The Galaxy Mini 2 and the iPod Touch 4th Gen are the ideal form factors for a personal communications device.

I blame Netflix, YouTube and the movie studios for the size creep as well as the encroachment of smartphones into the tablet ecosystem.

Blame as you will I never watch Netflix and hardly ever watch youtube on my galaxy note 3. Its about having a phone that can do more faster.
 
Anyways, I think 4.7" is my limit for screen size. My GS3 was that size and anything bigger just isn't for me.

Is your limit screen size or phone size? What if there was a 5.2" display in the same body?

I think market has conclusively spoken in favor of larger and larger phones. The oem's aren't idiots, they make them bigger because people want them. Even Apple had to give in, which tells you a lot.
 
Regular smartphones are already too big. The Galaxy Mini 2 and the iPod Touch 4th Gen are the ideal form factors for a personal communications device.

I blame Netflix, YouTube and the movie studios for the size creep as well as the encroachment of smartphones into the tablet ecosystem.

What exactly is the point of a smartphone if you don't consume content? Even regular web browsing is much more pleasant on a larger phone. I don't want Netflix/movies/tv on my phone or even a tablet. I can wait till I get home to my tv for that. There's no reason someone has to watch tv on their phones unless they are traveling.
 
Its about having a phone that can do more faster.

You can get amazingly fast hardware into an even smaller profile than we have now. "Doing more faster" is a hardware and UI issue, not a screen size issue.
 
Regular smartphones are already too big. The Galaxy Mini 2 and the iPod Touch 4th Gen are the ideal form factors for a personal communications device.

I blame Netflix, YouTube and the movie studios for the size creep as well as the encroachment of smartphones into the tablet ecosystem.

If they are to blame then I shall thank them for the OEM's releasing larger phones. I hate small screens and I will not be going sub 5" ever again on a mobile device (maybe a watch).

Also, what are "regular" smartphones? All/Most of the OEMs release smartphones in just about every size.
 
Well the iPhone 5s quoted standby time is 250 hours, so about 10 days. I have seen that it can last at least a week in standby with wifi and cellular enabled in my experience.

Real use carries more weight but Note 3 specs show 420 hours stand-by with 3G. So, overall iPhone is more middle of the pack considering it's driving less than 720p resolution display, low DRAM, no 802.11ac, no IR, lesser camera, etc.
 
Also, what are "regular" smartphones? All/Most of the OEMs release smartphones in just about every size.

Regular as in the flagship models currently available. The iPhone 4S was the last flagship phone with a screen less than 4", but I don't like the form factor of the iPhone 4/4S.
 
Its about having a phone that can do more faster.

Like what? Decoding the human genome project while drawing like a modern day Picasso while dictating a novel?

Most people don't use the computing capabilities of their mobile devices just as they don't use the computing capabilities of their desktop devices.
 
Real use carries more weight but Note 3 specs show 420 hours stand-by with 3G. So, overall iPhone is more middle of the pack considering it's driving less than 720p resolution display, low DRAM, no 802.11ac, no IR, lesser camera, etc.

Well right, the only real use I have is something I had to extrapolate. 4% drain in 8 hours of standby. I don't see why that would not be able to be reasonably accurately extrapolated.

The only thing in that list though that would affect standby life is the 802.11ac wireless. Though I'm not exactly sure about the benefit of faster wireless than N which is already over 100mbit. Most people aren't doing large file transfers to their phones heh.

The iPhone was near the top for web browsing time 12/151 (top 8%) and pretty high for video playback 24/151 (top 15%) in battery life benchmark list so I would consider that pretty strong.

The iPhone was lower in that list for talk time, this this is mainly because the screen is off and the processor is in a pretty low power state while in a phone call. So it's obvious a larger battery comes to play here since both phones are powering a similar cell radio at similar power levels during a call so the bigger battery flat out wins no matter how good or bad your power management is.

But again, I want a smaller phone so I have to compare the iPhone to the GS4 Mini and HTC One Mini and all the other < 4.5" phones and for me the iPhone comes out on top.
 
Some battery life comparisons for standby.

Nokia 1-2 weeks, default battery,1 week on shipped firmware, 2 weeks on updated. Also barely any drain during use. eg. 1 hour call might use 2-3% battery.
Galaxy ACE on shipped firmware and default battery 2-3 days battery life. Moderate drain during calls eg. 1 hour call about 10-15% battery use.
Galaxy ACE with aftermarket battery, cyanogen mod 7.2 and disabled services that cause wakelocks approx 10-12 days life when idle. However CM7.2 seems to cause higher drain during calls, 1 hour call probably at least 20% drain.
Galaxy S2 with shipped firmware and original battery (this phone was brought used), approx 3-4 days idle. With a sentinel rom (based on AOSP) I did manage to get approx 1-2 weeks idle battery life out of it tho. When I leant this phone to my sister for a couple of weeks (with default rom) she commented that it drains extremely fast compared to iphone's, as she leaves 3G on it was draining in a single day.
Galaxy S3, with shipped rom averaged similiar but a bit worse than S2 2-4 days idle.
Galaxy S3 with aftermarket battery and managed services (greenify etc.) I can sometimes get 10 days idle but its far from consistent, it can still easily drain within half a week, and drains quite fast with screen on.

All above info's are as follows.

min brightness
3G disabled.
screen rotate disabled.

Also on the ACE background data transfer disabled (on android 4.x this functionality removed).
 
You can get amazingly fast hardware into an even smaller profile than we have now. "Doing more faster" is a hardware and UI issue, not a screen size issue.

You are making the typical mistake of ignoring the screen no matter how fast you make current phones with current software the screen size will always limit your capabilities. With the note I can see more information on one screen, spend less time zooming and panning around to find the information I want. I can type faster, take notes faster, find directions faster and see more of the route ahead of me. It also has the stylus which allows me to take more accurate and detailed notes and do more precise pointing. If I take a picture I can analyze and judge if the picture was good or should be retaken faster with the larger screen before the opportunity passes by. The limitations of phones are being overcome with the note 3. The same exact reason people put 27 inch displays on their desktop you can do more faster. It is simply more efficient. Claiming that most people don't utilize their hardware is a straw man argument. So what most people don't game on PCs because they don't have a GPU worth anything. Does that mean that gaming on PCs is useless? Is the reason they don't game because no one needs to or is it because they have low end GPUs which create a poor experience. Most of mobile phone use is in the second camp, you have a small screen, of course you don't "decode the human genome project" because it takes you way to long to do anything. With a precise stylus and large screen a lot of stuff gets much easier to do. Does that make ultrabooks superior to everything else? Was it the chicken or the egg? Who cares I have it all no one needs a smart phone yet we have them, and I will take and put to use what I have the best I can with the software provided. And as more people convert companies will start meeting the demand.
 
You are making the typical mistake of ignoring the screen no matter how fast you make current phones with current software the screen size will always limit your capabilities. With the note I can see more information on one screen, spend less time zooming and panning around to find the information I want. I can type faster, take notes faster, find directions faster and see more of the route ahead of me. It also has the stylus which allows me to take more accurate and detailed notes and do more precise pointing. If I take a picture I can analyze and judge if the picture was good or should be retaken faster with the larger screen before the opportunity passes by.

These are UI issues that can be resolved without resorting to a larger form factor screen. I like that you enjoy your large screen phone. That's great, but it's not the only answer to these problems. This is especially important to me as I develop apps that must work excellently on screens as small as about 3" all the way up to about 6". We are considering offering 5"+ users tablet-focused apps because our UI research on tablets seems to better inform development for devices that simply cannot be used in their entirety with one hand. The Note is special because it was designed as a two-handed device from the start and has a different TouchWiz and stock apps to compensate.
 
Some issues can be resolved with UI changes, but guess what we live in the real world and apple has had their phones for how long with small screens and have not resolved the issues. So I can sit around and pretend that if I buy small phones long enough someone will solve their issues or I can just buy the galaxy note 3 and have it now.

Second normal humans have limits to what they can see and manipulate based on factors like their eye sight, age, how big their fingers are. And no amount of optimization and fancy tricks will ever make the advantages of a larger screen in those areas go away. No finger or software is ever going to be as accurate as a fine tipped stylus. And no finger can ever draw as accurately with as much in view on a small screen as it can on a larger screen.

you can be as lazy as you want as a developer and the note will take your application and run it as well as a smaller phone. But if you put in the extra work to take advantage of increased capabilities the note will race with it.

Also the note with a simple gesture turns into a 1 handed device. Swipe back and forth on the edge just like you would in windows 8 and the screen shrinks down for 1 handed operation.

The answer to these problems will never happen, that's why the answer is to solve the problem yourself. Think of it like a GPU in gaming. Bunch of crying kids constantly saying game X or driver Y isn't optimized. I can sit around all day hoping that company X is suddenly going to have an epiphany and start doing a better job but after a decade of that not happening I think we can be pretty sure it never will happen. Or I can solve the problem right now by just buying a more powerful GPU and enjoying the game. Same is true in the mobile world. How many years has it now been since smart phones took off, yet I still run into tons of websites which have a broken mobile site that either works poorly or is missing features that main website has. I can sit around crying and saying well all websites should support mobile or I can just use the large screen and go into desktop mode to view the website and be done with it.
 
Going from a 3.5" to a 5.5" phone experience is a little like going from a dumb feature phone with pathetic WAP browsers and music players to a real smartphone - there's just no going back.

No amount of software tricks or optimizations will ever make up for lack or real estate and information density.
 
Also the note with a simple gesture turns into a 1 handed device. Swipe back and forth on the edge just like you would in windows 8 and the screen shrinks down for 1 handed operation.

Except that this shrink alters the scaling of the app without taking the text size into account. Many apps become just as unusable in shrunken mode as they were in full screen mode.

You are in the 97th percentile if you have thumbs long enough to utilize all touch points on 5.5" screen with one hand. You are in an even smaller category if you have the thumbs necessary to use an even larger device like the Note completely. The Note is not a one-handed device and cannot be for at least 97% of the population.

I've designed apps to work on every single size of phone currently available. I've seen it all. It's awesome that you like your phone, but it's simply not the optimal sized device for most humans to use.
 
While I feel your pain in developing for these varying sizes, the market just isn't supporting your argument.

Phones are getting bigger and people are buying more of them. Good news though! We may have hit a zenith with phone size with devices like the Note series and "mid" series like the S5!
 
While I feel your pain in developing for these varying sizes, the market just isn't supporting your argument.

Phones are getting bigger and people are buying more of them. Good news though! We may have hit a zenith with phone size with devices like the Note series and "mid" series like the S5!

That's just the way these things go a lot of the time. UX research is not marketing and can't really be used to create desire, only better refine what is already desired. UX isn't concerned with one-upping a competitor or moving more units, and so its ability to be a force of change in many instances is limited. We use it to differentiate our approach to building mobile software, to profitable success.

I think there's room for more blending of products in the phablet space, which might lead to some even larger "phone" devices. As video calling become more commonplace, people may start to completely rethink the way the traditional phone even fits into their life, leading to a larger market for devices not ever intended to be used one-handed. This is one of the reasons we have focused more on tablet UX over the past year or so.
 
Funny, Droid Life just posted an article on this today.

I think flagships are getting bigger simply because it costs more to miniaturize the hardware and OEMs don't want to spend more to make it that small. Either that, or they simply don't have the engineering talent to make it small enough.
 
Except that this shrink alters the scaling of the app without taking the text size into account. Many apps become just as unusable in shrunken mode as they were in full screen mode.

You are in the 97th percentile if you have thumbs long enough to utilize all touch points on 5.5" screen with one hand. You are in an even smaller category if you have the thumbs necessary to use an even larger device like the Note completely. The Note is not a one-handed device and cannot be for at least 97% of the population.

I've designed apps to work on every single size of phone currently available. I've seen it all. It's awesome that you like your phone, but it's simply not the optimal sized device for most humans to use.

This feature has worked fine for me in everything I have used it for. If you have a specific problem that may be an issue with your software. If any app didn't work well enough for me to use it, shrug I would either change to a competing app or use 2 hands for that rare occurrence. The better question is if you know all this is such a problem then why don't you design the solutions.
 
I got a idea.

reduce font sizes.

This screen real estate issue is artifically created.

Everytime the resolution is increased on a new model the font size gets bumped with it meaning you dont gain real estate.

eg. The font size on my S3 using android 4.3 or 4.4 is the same as on my ace even tho the ace is a much lower resolution. Meaning the real actual font size on the 4.3/4.4 android versions is much bigger. This is also apparent when visiting websites designed for touch devices, they have large font sizes.

Putting a 27" monitor on the desktop isnt the same thing as its not a portable deivce whilst a phone is.

Personally I feel some people have lost touch when it comes to phone development, using android AOSP android is now aweful as a phone as the contact/dialer app is plain rubbish. Its the main reason I still use touchwiz as that still has a half decent app (albeit very laggy). But I will take lag over poor app design. The best dialer I have ever seen on android is CM7.2's dialer. Sadly CM7.2 will only work for legacy phones. As so called rom developers seem incapable of doing aything out of the box.

Sadly this is another thing thats frustrated me.

95% of custom roms, are basically reskinning, removing some apps and some OS/kernel tuning. Also alot of these custom roms in fact probably all of them I have tried are buggy. It isnt helped of course that android itself is buggy eg. all of recent android 4.1.x versions have broken wireless on the s3 where 5ghz band isnt useable. Also annoyed features keep getting cut everytime android jumps up a major version, eg. on 4.4 and 4.3 the quick toggle function for 2g/3g is removed, no apparent reason given its just gone. I wont goto iphone as I dont like apple and their even more locked down system, but right now its likely my ace (or even nokia) will be made my main phone again and my s3 just a portable computing device.

Each new rom seems to also have performance regressions,( excluding 4.4 on this due to lack of testing and apparent slimming down to work on older phones). My s3 feels often more laggier than my ace, which is ridiculous given the hardware spec differences. By this I mean the ace is aweful when running any decent sized app such as games, multimedia and even the play store. But the actual OS navigation and dialer, the ace is way snappier. The S3 does get fast on AOSP tho but AOSP is a no go for me until someone ships a AOSP rom with a good dialer eg. the CM7.2 dialer.
 
Funny, Droid Life just posted an article on this today.

I think flagships are getting bigger simply because it costs more to miniaturize the hardware and OEMs don't want to spend more to make it that small. Either that, or they simply don't have the engineering talent to make it small enough.

You are correct on this part. It cost OEM more to figure out how to pack all these power into a smaller form factor. Especially since Android relies heavily on spec to perform, at the same time these top specs are power hungry. They are having a hard time putting everything together.

On Android, bigger screen does not mean more contents, it just mean bigger font for those who have trouble reading.

For myself, I like smaller form factor because its easier to use with one hand, and ITS A PHONE!! That is why I choose xperia Z1 Compact.
 
You know what is EXTREMELY funny? All the Apple fanboys saying that the "maximum" size they would EVER use is 4.7".... guess what size iPhone 6 is supposed to be?? Classic!
 
This feature has worked fine for me in everything I have used it for. If you have a specific problem that may be an issue with your software. If any app didn't work well enough for me to use it, shrug I would either change to a competing app or use 2 hands for that rare occurrence. The better question is if you know all this is such a problem then why don't you design the solutions.

We do design the solutions for our users. :cool: Merely "working well enough" isn't what we do, but if that's what you do, I'm glad you have the device that suits you.
 
Funny, Droid Life just posted an article on this today.

I think flagships are getting bigger simply because it costs more to miniaturize the hardware and OEMs don't want to spend more to make it that small. Either that, or they simply don't have the engineering talent to make it small enough.

It's a big factor. A spec race to the top ( gotta have 64 bits! gotta have 8 cpu cores! gotta have gaming gpu! ) combined with a price race to the bottom has left OEMs with few choices but to go big. Meanwhile the size inflates and battery life levels off but the phone experience barely gets better from year to year.

Something's gotta give.
 
You are correct on this part. It cost OEM more to figure out how to pack all these power into a smaller form factor. Especially since Android relies heavily on spec to perform, at the same time these top specs are power hungry. They are having a hard time putting everything together.

That may only apply if it packs the same specs and features into something smaller but the iPhone doesn't count since it's nearly a third of the resolution, third of the DRAM, half of the cores, half of an OS, half of the camera, etc.

On Android, bigger screen does not mean more contents, it just mean bigger font for those who have trouble reading.

A bigger display with higher resolution means less pinch and zoom to read the same web page. Even if the iPhone has an equivalent screen size you'll still need to zoom to read text because the resolution is so low. That's the problem I have with my 9.7" iPad2 because the 1024x768 resolution is so crappy I have to zoom to read text whereas on the Note 3 I don't, even when in desktop mode.

Nice effort though.
 
That may only apply if it packs the same specs and features into something smaller but the iPhone doesn't count since it's nearly a third of the resolution, third of the DRAM, half of the cores, half of an OS, half of the camera, etc.



A bigger display with higher resolution means less pinch and zoom to read the same web page. Even if the iPhone has an equivalent screen size you'll still need to zoom to read text because the resolution is so low. That's the problem I have with my 9.7" iPad2 because the 1024x768 resolution is so crappy I have to zoom to read text whereas on the Note 3 I don't, even when in desktop mode.

Nice effort though.

iPhone's resolution is good for its size, its on the same league as Z1 Compact. You won't notice any difference as you increase the PPI. Even with 1GB of RAM, it still runs smoother than any Android phones out there. With that dual-core, it still beats any QualComm chips. Camera with 8MP is still taking a better shot than my Z1 Compact with 20MP, except Lumia 1020.
Don't underestimate iPhone because they are Apple's product with crappier looking specs on paper.

Even Samsung internal development knows about increasing spec will not bring anything new and better experience. It just specs.

I rarely do pinch to zoom on both iPhone 5S 4" screen and 5" 1080P PadFone. it's readable for both devices, except on bigger screen is impossible to use it with one hand for me.
I have also tried Vivo X3S which have ridiculous resolution with 490PPI, there is no difference viewing it compare to Z Ultra, or even Notice 3. it's all about marketing.

Comparing to iPad 2 is a apple to orange, especially that thing came out more than 3 years ago. It's like saying Asus EEE Pad Transformer is unusable compare to my PadFone with Tablet.
 
You know what is EXTREMELY funny? All the Apple fanboys saying that the "maximum" size they would EVER use is 4.7".... guess what size iPhone 6 is supposed to be?? Classic!

It couldn't be that not everyone want's a 5.5" phone, oh no, it has to be fanboys :roll eyes:

I would rather get a Z1 compact than a full sized Z1(or Z2, w/e they are on now) because I have no need for a huge screen/phone. I know it's hard for you to understand this without calling me a fanboy.

FYI, I said my max is 4.7" screen size, I would prefer a phone with a screen between 4.3-4.5" though.
 
It's a big factor. A spec race to the top ( gotta have 64 bits! gotta have 8 cpu cores! gotta have gaming gpu! ) combined with a price race to the bottom has left OEMs with few choices but to go big. Meanwhile the size inflates and battery life levels off but the phone experience barely gets better from year to year.

Something's gotta give.

The mobile phone market is almost in exact parity of the laptop market. If we want to concentrate on performance per watt instead of absolute power we will have to wait for another competent competitor to Qualcomm to drive that. Unfortunately right now all we have is Samsung's exynos, which is having a harder time entering our market due to the lte patents both Apple and Qualcomm own.
 
The newer S5 being even bigger defeats the purpose of the Note. With the minimal features the S5 has to offer, it wouldn't even be worth the upgrade. Features I need are OS dependent anyway which I can customize w/ a rom. My 2 cents.
 
Even Samsung internal development knows about increasing spec will not bring anything new and better experience. It just specs.

Wrong. Some people are content with a low end iPhone built for obsolescence but for informed consumers specs do make a difference since they push their phone to do things such as Chrome Remote Desktop at full 1920x1080 streaming a YouTube video with virtually no delay that's possible on Snapdragon 800 but not lower, augmented reality, future proofing, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U213Tscosfw#t=415
 
The newer S5 being even bigger defeats the purpose of the Note. With the minimal features the S5 has to offer, it wouldn't even be worth the upgrade. Features I need are OS dependent anyway which I can customize w/ a rom. My 2 cents.

If you put the two right next to each other you'd be hard pressed to notice the slight change in size.

There are some substantial upgrades to the S5 over the S4, which has been hashed to death.
 
Wrong. Some people are content with a low end iPhone built for obsolescence but for informed consumers specs do make a difference since they push their phone to do things such as Chrome Remote Desktop at full 1920x1080 streaming a YouTube video with virtually no delay that's possible on Snapdragon 800 but not lower, augmented reality, future proofing, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U213Tscosfw#t=415

Huh? What are you trying say about the quote?

I can do 1080p streaming on almost anything, even on a old Asus Transformer the legendary Tegra chips. Was even streaming/control through games just fine.

About that augmented Reality, you should check there were tons of app on it that can do just fine even on a older qualcomm variant. heck even a iPhone 4 or a 3DS just play as smoothly. It's depending on developer and algorithm behind it. It doesn't say anything about the power or future proofing.(Who would use the same phone for more than 5 years? what future proofing?)
 
Doesn't make sense to you since you're used to a dumb iPhone.

Use Chrome Remote Desktop on your phone to control your PC at 1080p over WIFI playing a 1080p YouTube video. Note 3 handles it fine with minimal latency while maintaining maximum detail.
 
You are correct on this part. It cost OEM more to figure out how to pack all these power into a smaller form factor. Especially since Android relies heavily on spec to perform, at the same time these top specs are power hungry. They are having a hard time putting everything together.

On Android, bigger screen does not mean more contents, it just mean bigger font for those who have trouble reading.

For myself, I like smaller form factor because its easier to use with one hand, and ITS A PHONE!! That is why I choose xperia Z1 Compact.

Do you have anything to actually back this up because this doesn't really make sense. The only powerful part of the whole phone are 2 things. Screen and SOC, that's it. Its easy to make the screen smaller if you want and as a bonus it consumes less power if it is smaller. So that only leaves the SOC which has been getting more, not less efficient. Battery life has been going up, if what you are saying is correct battery life would be staying the same as batteries become bigger not going up.

Also a bigger screen does mean more content, you can change the font size in the internet browser or set default zoom levels in various apps.

The only argument for miniaturization would have to come from other hardware, IE cameras, IR emitters, and so on. IMO the bigger issue is that companies have seen a trend of people wanting bigger devices and they have seen increased sales with each year of delivering that. So that is what they will keep doing every year until it finally back fires or they realize 1 phone is now encroaching on another phone in their lines territory. IE at some point Samsung will say the S7 is getting to close to the note 5.
 
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