Have you ever faced this dilemma? You’re leaving your office, heading a remote site where you’ll need to be on your feet for a couple of hours and then give a presentation to a few of your managers. So, do you bring the Android phone so you can slip it into your pocket while you walk around, or do you lug the iPad because you know the big screen will make it easier to pull up the data you need for your presentation?
If that sounds familiar, you understand what’s behind the rise of the new class of device known as the phablet. Samsung’s Galaxy Note has led the half-phone-half-tablet trend, selling 10 million of its original 5.3 inch versions, and another 5 million-plus of the second generation with a 5.5 inch display.
HTC, Lenovo and LG all sell phablets—defined as devices between 4.6 and 6 inches, and Sony, ZTE and Huawei have all recently announced their own entrants in the category. There’s also been a good deal of buzz around the possibility that heavy-hitter Apple will join in with new, larger iPhones.
The Era of Phablets
For businesses, this means a new way to optimize the flow of data. Anyone who’s not tied down to an office computer all day, from sales staff to delivery people to front-line supervisors, is likely to find a way to benefit from a device that can be held in one hand but doesn’t require surgical precision to type out a message. Some of the new devices also offer extra benefits like being waterproof or extra strong that make them even better choices for getting out into the field.
The bottom line for businesses is that getting mobile devices into employees’ hands means giving them access to the information they need to do their best, and getting actionable data back to the home office faster.
And it’s something that’s going to be easier to manage if they don’t have to worry about whether to bring the device they really need or the one that fits in their pocket.
