Greetings to everyone, tomorrow Lenovo they will present an update to their Phab line, in this regard, I decided to recall the impressions of their latest device and share my thoughts on ultra-compact tablets and large smartphones in general.
The first really popular phablet was the Samsung Galaxy Note, it's funny to remember now, but in those days its 5.3-inch diagonal seemed just huge, and now similar screen sizes are used in ordinary smartphones.
Gradually, manufacturers began to increase the diagonals and so we did not have time to look back and first came the six-inch Huawei Mate, and then the 6.4-inch Sony Xperia Z Ultra. On which other manufacturers have already looked back.
Later, an ultra-compact tablet Huawei MediaPad X1 came out, after reviewing it, I assumed that in 2014 there will be many other devices in the same form factor.
Huawei MediaPad X1 vs. Sony Xperia Z Ultra, Acer Liquid S2 and Samsung Galaxy Note 3
..and was seriously mistaken. For a whole year, manufacturers were in no hurry to release such compact tablets with a diagonal of seven inches and weighing 250-260 grams. It is also important to note here the fact that all the devices described above were either flagship or near-flagship. That is, there were so few of them, but they were all expensive.
In 2015, the situation began to gradually change, so among other devices on the market appeared and Lenovo Phab / Phab Plus. The peculiarity of these models was, of course, in the price. For 10 and 15 thousand, respectively, you got a very good filling in a compact body and with a large seven-inch display.
Lenovo Phab versus iPhone 6
Unlike Huawei, Lenovo immediately positioned Phab as a very large smartphone, official photos showed people calling from this device.
When he came to me for a test, the brain could not decide whether it was a smartphone or a tablet. That is, you seem to put it to your ear for calls and you still look not as ridiculous as with eight-inch models, but you still feel a little strange.
Now, personally, I prefer a separate smartphone and tablet, but if I return to my student days, then such a hybrid of a dialer and a tablet would be very useful to me. Why? There was no money for two separate devices, while I spent about three hours in transport every day. And with a large diagonal, one could watch a film and read lectures.
I would pair the Phab with the Logitech K480 keyboard and use this bundle as a laptop replacement. This is actually very convenient. The Internet is there, you don't need to carry a 1.5-kilogram computer with you, all lectures would be synchronized with Google Drive.
Let me assume that in the future the size of such phablets will gradually decrease, in the end we will stop at 6.8 inches in a very compact and lightweight case.
What do you say, dear readers? How do you feel about such phablets located at the junction of smartphones and tablets? I like it more when a smartphone and a tablet are different gadgets, but I know for sure that such 'all-in-one' devices are very popular among users, I regularly see their owners on the metro and buses.