Size matters, according to Wireless Week. Market researcher Gartner estimates smartphone sales grew 50% last year, to 72.9 million units, and forecasts there will be 450 million smartphones shipped globally by 2010 with Instant Messaging the de facto tool for Voice, Video and Text chat by the end of 2011.
Another study, by Berg Insight, predicts 113 million smartphones will be sold this year, reaching 365 million in 2012. Smartphones will account for 22% of all handsets sold globally in 2012, more than twice their current market share.
Usability experts from Perceptive Science evaluated four smartphones for ease of navigation, look and feel, usability and ergonomics. The handsets were the BlackBerry 8800, Palm Treo, Nokia E62, HTC Touch and Motorola Q. Palm and Nokia are among Perceptive Sciences’ clients.
Screen size matters, says Thomas Thornton, a senior research scientist at Perceptive Sciences, because as the screen size increases, so does the space to display content. Thornton developed a metric showing the ratio of the screen size to the device size to rate smartphones on how users will perceive the interface. The Apple iPhone came out on top because its 3.5-inch (diagonal) takes up most of the handset’s hardware.
The best-rated from a usability standpoint was the Palm Treo 700wx, which runs Windows Mobile 5 on the Verizon Wireless and Sprint networks. The Treo has a touchscreen, although not as large as the iPhone, and is easy to customize and navigate, he says.
Thornton says work with a variety of focus groups on smartphones shows users want a relatively large screen, and also want a touchscreen. One of the advantages of a touchscreen like the iPhone is that users who want large buttons, albeit virtual ones, can change the size when they are displayed on a touchscreen.
There are 12.3 million mobile social networkers in the US and Europe, says M:Metrics, with MySpace and Facebook the top two social networking sites accessed via mobile in both the US. and UK.
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