I would never buy a seven-inch iPhone. Here’s why.
Phablets might make a return, and I'm not excited.
This article may contain personal views and opinion from the author.
It's a 7-foot iPhone! | Image by DIY Perks and Mrwhosetheboss
Is your iPhone 17 Pro Max feeling a bit... cramped? Do you look at your Galaxy S25 Ultra and wish it doubled as a dinner plate? It’s a question literally no one is asking, and yet, the "Mega-Phone" era is apparently just getting started.
Chinese companies already have 7-inch phones, such as last year's Huawei Mate 70 Air and the TCL NxtPaper 60 Ultra, so we might make the assumption that the leak is about more popular brands such as Samsung, Motorola or maybe even Apple.
7-inch phones are downright impractical
The Huawei Mate 20 X and PhoneArena's famous crotch shot | Image by PhoneArena
That's the obvious drawback, but as obvious as it might be, people just don't realize what it's like to handle a seven-inch phone. Back in the day I had my fair share of phablet (remember this term) reviews, including some seven-inchers, such as the Huawei Mate 20 X.
This 7.2-inch monster was impossible to handle with one hand, and carrying it around was a major pain as well. No hand gymnastics in the world allowed me to reach the top part of the Mate 20 X display, and no jeans' pocket was able to house this monster.
Why not get a foldable?
That's probably as thin as it gets on a foldable | Image by PhoneArena
I'm not the biggest foldable advocate out there, but having tried and tested the Honor Magic V3, a couple of Galaxy Z Fold models and the Huawei Mate X series, I can see how these would make more sense than a traditional 7-inch phone.
One might argue that foldables are much more expensive, and they're also more fragile. The first argument is still valid, to an extent. However, I would assume that a 7-inch iPhone XL won't be much more expensive than some more affordable foldables such as the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. As foldables saturate the market, they will most likely get cheaper too.
7-inch phones will be more fragile
The bigger the screen, the more easily damaged it becomes | Image by Fixit
As for the durability argument, conventional candy bar phones with huge displays are just as susceptible to damage as foldables. You can also make the case for foldables protecting the display while it's in a folded state.
I remember my wife cracking the screen of her Galaxy A9 (2018) by dropping her plastic hairbrush on it back in the day. This model had a 6.3-inch display, protected by Gorilla Glass 5, and yet it cracked.
The same goes for dropping a seven-inch monster phone. There's an increased chance to crack the display. You have to get a case and a screen protector, and even the slimmest ones would make these hypothetical 7-inch smartphones even bigger.
Do you need bigger non-folding phones, or is 6.9 inches big enough?
Are phablets going to return?
This doesn't look too comfortable... | Image by Pinterest
Big-screen phones kind of killed the small 7- and 8-inch tablets. Are we going to see another resurgence of the so-called phablet in the years to come? That's an interesting question. Tablets are now more or less under house arrest most of the time, serving their Netflix sentence or roleplaying a recipe book in the kitchen.
And you have the current upper threshold at 6.9 inches in the face of your iPhone 17 Pro Max models and Galaxy S25 Ultra phones. There's just no place for bigger candy bar phones, in my opinion.
But those two companies allegedly tinkering with the idea of a seven-plus-inch phone might know something I don't. What do you think about it? Do you need bigger non-folding phones, or is 6.9 inches big enough?
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