I have fixed the Phablet problem (1 Viewer)

[Hanson]

There are so many reasons a large screen device is better than one with a puny little screen -- easier to read, easier to input, room for larger batteries, and better for video and games. Basically, the Note 2 trounces the iPhone 5 on a multitude of tasks simply because the screen is larger.

But the phablet falters in one area -- one handed operation ranges from difficult to impossible depending on your task. I use my Note 2 one-handed 80% of the time. But pecking out a quick text is difficult one handed. Reaching the reply button on the upper right hand corner with my left thumb is difficult one handed. Tapping the pane switcher in Chrome one handed is, well, a pain.

But I figured out how to fix all of this. And I wonder if Samsung has it in store for the Note 3. The fix is "scale to one-handed mode".

There is already a one-handed keyboard feature on the GN2 that allows you to shrink the keyboard and move it to the bottom left corner. This allows you to type with one hand. But it has a couple of disadvantages -- first off, it's a feature of the stock keyboard only, and you'll have to pry SwiftKey out of my cold, dead hands. Secondly, it's just for the keyboard -- all of those tap targets in the upper corners are still out of reach.

My solution is an extension of this one-handed keyboard. Since the screens are now 1080p, why not scale the entire screen to shrink down to the right or left corner? On a 5.9" screen (like the rumored Note 3), it would shrink down to about 4", or the same size as the iPhone 5 screen. Now you can manipulate the entire screen one-handed. There are multiple ways to have this activate one-handed with either hand -- for instance, a double tap of the menu or back button.

 

[TonyD]

Phablet?

 

[DaveF]

I use my Note 2 one-handed 80% of the time. ... My solution is an extension of this one-handed keyboard. Since the screens are now 1080p, why not scale the entire screen to shrink down to the right or left corner? On a 5.9" screen (like the rumored Note 3), it would shrink down to about 4", or the same size as the iPhone 5 screen. .

20% of the time, your phone is fine. 80% of the time you'd rather have an iphone5 screen. You could get an iPhone 5, and wish you had a GSN2 only 20% of the time. Seems like you'd be 4x happier.

 

[Hanson]

You smoking something? Your post is wholly unrelated to mine.

I use the Note 2 one handed 80% of the time. 20% of the time, I need both hands. There's nothing wrong with using two hands. It does not make it deficient, and it does not mean I have any desire to use an iPhone.

In certain circumstances, usually when the other hand is occupied, being able to operate the entire screen one-handed would be great. The best solution would be something like this:

At that point, there would be no reason for ANYONE to get a tiny iPhone.

As it turns out,someone did make an app like this in Google Play, but it's only for rooted phones, and is apparently slow and unstable. Having this baked into the skin would be much more useful.

 

[DaveF]

I guess I'm not following. Your post says that 80% of the time you use your 6" phone, you wish it were shrunk to a 4" screen. To which I think, you'd be happier with a 4" phone.

 

[Hanson]

Dave, you are completely missing the boat and missing by so much that I don't even know where to begin. Your interpretation of what I'm saying is totally backwards like you're commenting from Bizarro World.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Yeah, Hanson's post can be interpreted as saying he finds it difficult to operate 80% of the time though I didn't really think that's what he meant. Most times nobody's really reaching for the extreme corners/edges of the device. But yeah, I'm sure we do reach for them often enough to want better for one-handed operation, not that needing 2 hands is bad most times either. Personally, since I don't use swype/flow and still don't rely that heavily on SwiftKey's predictive features, I just can't see myself typing much of anything one-handed on a virtual keyboard, so Hanson's suggestion probably wouldn't matter to me for the keyboard aspect. Meanwhile, I really can't imagine using an iPhone nearly as much as I do my GS3 (or the GN2) just because the tiny screen plus the Apple/iOS way would render significant keyboard input essentially a non-starter for me. Certainly, I would never want to type more than a terse, likely typo-ridden comment on an iPhone instead of something like this post (on my GS3)... _Man_

 

[Hanson]

Okay, I see the ambiguity in my post. Let me restate my usage breakdown:I use my Note 2 easily and naturally with one hand 80% of the time. I use it with 2 hands 15% of the time because I want to (eg, I can type much faster using two hands). 5% of the time, I need to use two hands when I would prefer to use one.

 

[DaveF]

Ah, I see.