People want their next phone to have a big-a** screen, survey says

Turns out all those phone-tablet hybrids are actually a hit with consumers. A survey released Thursday from Strategy Analytics found that people want their next phone to have a large screen.

The research organization showed American and British research participants several prototype phones with small and large screen sizes and different thicknesses. A vast majority, 90 percent, preferred phones with bigger screen sizes than their current smartphones.

So what’s the magic screen size? Strategy Analytics says between four and four and half inches diagonal was the most popular choice in the survey. But screen size isn’t all that matters; people want large phones that are also thin. It seems Motorola already knew this when it released the Droid RAZR last fall, a smartphone measuring only 0.28 inches thick with a 4.3-inch screen.

Samsung and LG are also perhaps feeding this trend with the release of the Samsung Galaxy Note and the LG Optimus 4X HD and Optimus Vue. The Note and the Optimus Vue both have five-inch screens, and the Optimus 4X HD’s screen is just shy of five inches at 4.7 inches diagonal.

The survey found that cellphone owners want phones that they can use to easily browse the Internet and watch video, hence the desire for a large size. The survey does beg the question, do people want bigger screens because manufacturers have been making them, or are manufacturers responding to consumer desire for more screen space? What do you think?

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