I love phablets. Those monster-sized smartphones that lots of people like to carry around these days. Because of their larger displays, they are excellent for reading, browsing the web, watching videos, viewing images and other tasks along those lines. They are also usually very good with battery life. However, I find that personally, I tend to be more comfortable with a more handy smartphone if the performance difference is minimal. Let me illustrate with two real life scenarios.

Lumia 1520 versus Lumia 930
When I got my hands on the Lumia 1520, it was love at first touch (clear your head of that fleshy image, people!). It was powerful and had the best battery life I have experienced on any smartphone ever. Yet, when the Lumia 930 hit the streets, I quickly felt more comfortable with it and chose it over the 1520. Minus the size difference (and the much poorer battery life of the L930), both have the same processor, same RAM, and same internal storage. In other words, they were evenly matched. The handier 5-inch Lumia 930 became my preferred smartphone of the two. Let’s see a more recent example.

BlackBerry Passport versus BlackBerry Classic
I love the BlackBerry Passport. It is one heck of a device and I have sworn by it. Then along came the Classic – smaller, and in this case has a less powerful processor, smaller RAM, and even less capable camera. Yet, no matter how many times I have switched back to the Passport after completing my review of the Classic, I find myself longing for its handier, smaller form. In the last one week, I have switched between the Passport and the Classic every other day (and members of the Mobility Team are tired of my vacillation already). Well, I eventually made up my mind which to use daily. You guessed right – the Classic. Again, the handier device wins.

No; I don’t dislike phablets. I have used quite a number of good ones. Samsung Galaxy Note II, Lumia 1520, TECNO Phantom Z, HTC Desire 816, BlackBerry Passport, and Motorola Nexus 6 (which is really one heck of a device) are examples.

Perhaps it is because I like to travel light. I certainly love being able to use a device with one hand only. Perhaps there is some other reason that I am yet to finger. Perhaps it also helps that in both examples I cited above, the handier devices have classier designs than their bigger siblings. Whatever it is, it does seem that I prefer regular-sized devices (in the range of the size of 5-inches) to phablets.

Read more at: When monster-sized smartphones won’t do