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Comment by ethank | Hacker News Reader

4.6" screen? Do they not understand user experience at all? The arms race on screen sizes is getting ridiculous. It's like having a paperback book in your pocket. Why can't they increase pixel density but keep it in a dimension good for one handed operation with normal sized thumbs?

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How hard is it to not buy the phone? There are other phones out there, including the iPhone that have smaller screens.

I have a Droid X, and while at first it felt a bit big, I've totally fallen in love with having a ton of screen real estate. I have relatively small hands, and I rarely have issues.

Also, I think the stuff about Apple having found the One True Size because it fits your hand for one handed action is bullshit, since one of the main novel interactions -- pinch-to-zoom -- requires two hands.

It's a simple matter of preference. I think it's fantastic that I have a range of sizes to choose from. I wish everyone would let me decide for myself.

Who isn't letting you decide? But as an app developer the screen war makes for pain. The UX gets different (if not more difficult) as you increase screen size. A good app UX has to account for modes of operation.

Please feel absolutely free to not develop for Android. As a user, I'll pick having a choice of form factor over not causing some developer pain. (And for the record, I'm pretty happy with my choice of 252 dpi 3.7" - but happier still that I had the choice.)

Not disagreeing with virtues associated with compactness and pixel density, but to quote Tim Bray: "When I switch from the NG to my Nexus S, I think “This is pleasingly compact.” Then when I switch back to the NG I think “My eyes are happy.” Because the upside, of course, is that you have a great big honkin’ huge ginormous beautiful screen!" via http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2011/10/18/ICS-and-Ga...

It's the same size as the screen on the Nexus S, but the buttons are now just a part of the screen, so the diagonal is bigger.

That doesn't address the question. The nexus S was and is a bear to use. Your thumb can't cover the width of the screen and the usable arc in one finger operation doesn't give you 100% coverage.

It's a matter of personal preference. Also depends on how big your hand is. I am, for instance, not satisfied with my 4 inch screen and selling my Nexus S to buy a 4.3 inch android.

Speak for yourself. My S' screen is no match for my mighty bear claw.

The Nexus S has a 4" screen. The Galaxy Nexus is 4.65".

Yeah, it's physically bigger. Nexus S is 124 x 63 x 10.8 mm, Galaxy Nexus is 135.5 x 68 x 8.9 mm. (Both probably with an asterisk on thickness, but...)

Because Samsung can't get high enough pixel density with AMOLED. They want more resolution, so they are forced to just keep making the screens bigger, use Pentile subpixel layouts, or, in this case, both.

You're wrong.

This screen has an HD resolution screen with ~316 ppi. So they made a bigger and higher pixel density screen. With AMOLED.

You're going to feel awfully silly when this thing gets reviewed and it's Pentile. If it was RGB, Samsung would have said so by now. It was the whole reason they put the "+" in their last screen iteration. Notice how this one has no "+"? Every AMOLED screen is Pentile unless you hear the magic word: RGB.

"Samsung can't get high enough pixel density with AMOLED" was what I was arguing with. The pixel density is very high. They weren't "forced to just keep making the screens bigger" as you claimed.

The pixel density is high, but the subpixel density is less impressive.

Sorry, I would have been more clear if I said "subpixel density".

Here we go:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/20/the-scourge-of-pentile-retu...

But thanks anyway for the downvote. ;)

They aren't using a pentile layout anymore - it resulted in fuzziness while rendering line art.

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