Now we've got "phablets," which are bad at being phones (awkward and clumsy to carry around, and almost impossible to operate with one hand) and bad at being tablets (small screen for a tablet, inherently greater limitations on battery life)... ><

Yay?

I have a non-geek friend who has a Note. She loves it.

She's already used to having to charge her phone every night, because while her old phone might've lasted 2-3 days it was easier just charging it every night.

She holds it two-handed, portrait, to text and interact with facebook, and did with a smaller phone too because she can type much faster that way.

She's comfortable reading on it.

It fits in her pockets fine.

I prefer my Nexus 4 + Nexus 7 as an approach, but for a bunch of people, yes, yay.

Really? You sound like most tech journalists two or three years ago, when the original Galaxy Note came out. They were sure embarrassed a couple months later when they turned out to be completely wrong about how popular it would be.

Try getting out of the iPhone bubble for a while - you'll find that in the real world, phablets are not just something that you make fun of.

I don't have an iphone. I have an Android phone which is larger (65mm width) than an iphone 5, but decidedly smaller than a phablet.

My phone is just on the edge of one-hand usability (I can mostly manage it but sometimes things get pretty awkward) and I often wish I had something iphone-sized instead, but choice is pretty limited among smaller Android phones (they exist, but tend to be old/slow/etc).

People I know with phablets use them like tablets (almost always with two hands etc). That's fine if you want a small tablet, but it isn't really an adequate replacement for a traditional smartphone. They're just different things.

Have you considered that one-handed usability isn't a defining property of smartphones?

It's a pretty important one, though. I have a Nexus 4 and if not for the big price difference and the fact that I wanted a phone without a contract, I would've gotten an iPhone instead. And one of the primary reasons is one-handed usability, because that is the primary use case for me. If I can comfortably use two hands, and if I want to, I'll use my tablet...

Based on observing people use their phones (as well as personal experience using mine), I think it's reasonable to say that one-handed operation is important for many people in various common usage situations.

E.g., I see huge numbers of people standing on the train using their phone with one hand (while hanging onto a strap with the other) or walking down the street, using their phone with one hand (while carrying a bag with the other), etc.

Have you considered being less patronising?

Sure, and there will likely be a big market for 6" phones for a good while to come - at least until EEG/eye-tracking controlled smart glasses replace them.

That said, I don't want a 6" phone. My Nexus 5 is too big. Just a bit smaller, and I'd be able to use it comfortably one-handed. I'd go 4" over 5" if there was an option with the price and performance I want, though 4.3" or 4.5" is probably perfect for me.

I have medium-small hands, and the Nexus 5 is hard to use one-handed. I made a case for it out of carbon fiber, and that improved things slightly by adding a bezel that sticks out from the screen by 1 mm or so. Its height is also at the upper end of what I want in my pockets. Unfortunately, the iPhone 5S is the only current/recent high-spec smartphone I know of that's the size I want, and I don't like iOS. When is Sony going to offer the Z1f outside Japan?