Is the phablet the next tech trend or just an in-betweener?

Tech companies hope the 'phablet,' such as Samsung's Galaxy Note pictured above, will become the next tech trend for 2012. Hopefully they will get better reviews than the word 'phablet,' at least. (Samsung/bell.ca)

If you can remember the days when cellular phones looked like enormous slabs of grey plastic, the increasingly larger new smartphones of today might seem like déjà vu.

But "phablets", the bigger-than-a-phone, smaller-than-a-tablet hybrids, are zeroing in on how people actually tend to use their mobile devices.

ABI research predicts that 208 million phablets will ship around the world in 2015, increasing by a factor of 10 from 2011 to 2012 alone. The site defines the phablet as a device with a touch screen between 4.6 and 5.5 inches.

Phablets are designed to let users take advantage of features that most people have on their smart phones now, but that might be hampered by a smaller screen size, such as watching videos, taking photographs and checking online maps.

Samsung leads the charge with its Galaxy Note, which has a 5.3-inch screen, and the Galaxy S3 with a 4.8-inch screen. Samsung said in a statement last March that since its launch in October, five million Galaxy Notes have shipped.

ABI reports that HTC, LG and Huawei are all planning to release their own similarly sized devices this year.

Tech companies appear to see the potential in larger smartphones because the people who are using them actually speak on the phone less and less.

"With rich media consumption on the rise on mobile devices - particularly as we get faster 4G networks and more Wi-Fi networks to supplement them - a larger display is desirable," writes GigaOm's Kevin C. Tofel.

Tofel takes issue with the current term, however. " I'm sure we'll never get ABI to call them something other than "phablets," but surely we can do better than that," he writes.

"The phablet is on the rise," writes Android Authority's Ankit Banerjee. "I have just one simple request to make: Can someone please coin a new term to replace 'phablet?'"

If the phablet grows in popularity to the extent that some experts predict without a notable rebrand, it might become the latest hated tech term. Huffington Post recently published a list of "Tech Terms We're Sick Of," which includes going viral, social media guru and blogosphere.

Are you lining up for a phablet? Do you already have one? And if you had your way, would you keep the term phablet or make a new term?


(This survey is not scientific. Results are based on readers' responses.)