5 reasons the phablet is fabulous
5 reasons my phablet is fabulous
Crave's Michael Franco has been living with an awfully
big phone for just over four months. His conclusion? Size really does matter.
by Michael Franco @writermfranco July 23, 2014 9:48 AM PDT
Not long ago, I wrote about some trepidation I was having
about giving up my iPhone and switching to an Android device for the first
time. That hesitation largely disintegrated once I held my new phone in my
hand. It was the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 and it felt big, but good.
After having gotten to know the Note 3 for a few months,
I'm back to say: iPhone? What iPhone?
This big new slab of tech has been much more satisfying
to use than my iPhone ever was. Sure I miss some of the ease with which my old
phone integrated with iTunes, but beyond that, I can't really think of a reason
I'd rather go back to Mac than forward with the Note.
Now before you accuse CNET or me of being a shill for
Samsung, please know this is a personal piece about a personal decision to buy
the Note 3. It just happens to be the phone I own, not some kind of publicity
stunt from Samsung (although I wish they had given me this monster for free!).
Now that that's out of the way, here are five reasons I'm
loving my phablet, and why you might consider upsizing as well.
Bigger really IS better (You knew that was coming, didn't
you?)
Far and away the best thing about this phone is its
downright huge screen size. Sure I've had to put up with jokes from friends who
ask to borrow my "mini TV" when they need to look something up or
make a call, but I chalk that up to jealousy.
Clocking in at 5.7 inches, the Note 3's screen is big
enough that I can actually enjoy a night of binge-watching
"Supernatural" without feeling like I'm viewing the episodes through
a keyhole. It also makes surfing the Net a super-pleasurable experience. I can
actually read the text and view the photos -- no squinting needed. Lastly, I
pretty much do all my e-reading on this thing now, from books to magazines. In
fact, I haven't had to boot up my old iPad for use as a reader since I got the
phone. Heck, it's almost the size of a small paperback anyway, so it seems
natural for this purpose.
So I've come to the conclusion that big is good. Sure, it
can be a bit tricky to pull the phone out of the pocket of my jeans when I'm
driving, but otherwise, the size has been a non-issue in terms of carrying the
thing around. The fact that it's super thin means you get used to having it on
your person in about two days.
I will say, though, that I find Samsung's split screen
feature a little silly. The screen's not THAT big, so I'm not sure you'd ever
see value in having two different windows open at once on the thing, but maybe
there are people out there who take advantage of the feature. I'm not one of
them.
The 'write' stuff
I'm a writer, right? So since I got this phone, I no longer
need to carry around a separate pad to write down story ideas or bits of bad
poetry the world will never see. Instead, I just whip out the pen and actually
write down whatever's on my mind. It's a super fast process and I find that
there's a real difference between what I produce when I actually write words
instead of thumbing them out. Somehow thumbing seems too utilitarian for
creativity. It's perfectly suited for texts and quick emails but not so much
for writing down more detailed reflections or story ideas. For that I like
going old school on my new-school tech by using a pen.
One of the cooler features of Samsung's S-Note app is
that you can actually send your handwritten notes to someone as PDFs in an
email attachment, something I discovered when a friend asked to see the reading
list a bunch of us had compiled on vacation a few weeks ago.
Plus, I'll admit it. I just feels super cool to slide
that pen out and wield it like a sword over the battlefield of my phone (can
you tell I watch too much "Game of Thrones")? So few people have the
Note that the pen is still a novelty that gets you noticed. The Leo in me likes
getting noticed.
That being said, I don't really use the pen's
handwriting-to-text feature. I find it a bit awkward, sort of like the
shorthand freak show some of us tried to master in the early days of PDAs. But
for jotting down actual thoughts, shopping lists, movie recommendations and
stuff like that, the pen is mightier than the thumbs.
Swiftly swooping
I know you can get the SwiftKey predictive keyboard on
other phones, but when the keyboard is as big as it is on the Note 3, you can
really fly along when you're typing text or emails. My manly pointer finger
seems downright dainty swooping over those jumbo keys.
Gargantuan gaming
I'm a big tower defense guy, so getting to play Tower
Madness and Field Runners on this thing after using the diminutive screen of my
iPhone for so long was like going from an early Game Boy system straight to the
arcade of the future. Puzzle games like The Room are super gorgeous, and when I
play Border Siege, I can easily taken in the whole world map -- a vital
component of planning world domination.
Pretty as a picture
The Note 3 takes really nice photos thanks to its
13-megapixel camera. But what good are great photos if you're looking at them
on the screen that's roughly the size of a post-it note. With this generous
screen size, you can really satisfyingly ogle the photos you take, enjoying
many more details than you'd see with a smaller screen. I even recently
downloaded the 500px app just so that I could enjoy the work of photographers
who are leaps better than me on my nice big screen.
You can also actually seriously edit your shots on the
Note's screen without the need to get back to your computer.
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