• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, September 11, 2013

How big can your phone actually become and still be considered a phone?

I remember back in the day when a small phone was important.  I think it was around the Nokia 3310 or some similar model.  You could bounce it like a basketball and it would keep on working.  I even had a really cool model that was all chrome and slid open.  The buttons were small and texting was a massive pain in the fingers, but the calls were great and the phone was solid.  Life was simpler back then.

Nowadays the line is blurring between phones and tablets.  I’ve heard the term “phablet” used, and I don’t like it.  If a phone can’t fit in my pocket, then I don’t think it should be qualified as a phone.  In my humble opinion, bigger is not always better -- and I’m curious where this trend is going to bring us.

I’m not one of those users who believe your phone or tablet will take the place of your computer.  The engagement level on my computer is far deeper and more fulfilling than on my phone or tablet.   Typing longer emails and writing articles, etc.  are much easier on my laptop than  on my tablet.  Email on my phone is wonderful, but primarily so that when I get to my laptop, the volume is manageable.  I can’t respond in depth on my phone, and when I do it’s guaranteed to be in a typo-ridden manner. 

I wonder if in 2,000 years archeologists will uncover our bones and be amazed at the size of our fingers.  It’s possible that evolution will have created a race of human beings with extremely powerful thumbs and much smaller fingers, enabling them to type more efficiently on their phones and be better at video games. 

We like things big in the U.S., from SUVs to stadiums. We like our athletes to be big, which is why football is so popular and why baseball players take steroids.  The smaller Fiat 500 relaunched in America, doing pretty well, and now there’s a big Fiat.  There’s a big Mini (which makes no sense to me, personally).  We took the quarter-pounder and made it a double.  Our phones were getting smaller and smaller, which we thought made them smarter; then we decided you can’t be smart and small, so we went big.

But maybe -- just maybe -- bigger isn’t always better?

Trends are cyclical.  The next big thing will likely be small.  Phones will get thinner.  They will become flexible.  They will fold up and fit in your pocket again.  You won’t need to buy a bag to carry your phone -- at least, I hope not.

In media bigger isn’t always better, either. Bigger audiences are untargeted and inherently they have waste. Targeted audiences command higher premiums, so smaller is actually more profitable.

Maybe thin is in.  Maybe small is awesome.  Or maybe I missed something obvious.  What’s your big idea?