Remember your old landline phone the length of the handset is eight inches, smartphones and cell phones are finally catching up to the old ringers. According to Strategy Analytics notes that the size of smartphone have outgrown the original 3.5" iPhone by quite a bit.
Last year in the second half of the year, existing smartphone owners were most likely to be interested in devices with a screen size between 4.2” and 4.7” with 4.5” was the most-wanted size. Buyers who intended to buy a smartphone preferred smaller smartphones. The preferred size is no larger than the iPhone 5 which is now 4."
A majority of consumers surveyed reported that they preferred models that have a larger screen than their current phone. Therefore those who have basic or feature phones which tend to be smaller may be happy with smaller screens, because they were previously using a smaller screen.
Paul Brown, a Director in the Strategy Analytics, said,"The intention of many manufacturers to drive screen size up has been very clear over recent months, and there is the potential for 'phablets' at the lower end of the size scale to become more mainstream - especially as manufacturers work to maximize the ratio of screen to overall size, therefore providing a larger screen on a smaller form factor."
The study noted that larger devices are hard to use one-handed, and it is especially important for software and design elements be easier to use.
A new smartphone that maintains the body size but improve the screen size is the Samsung Galaxy S 4 and Samsung Galaxy S III(4.8") which have the size case but the GS 4 has a bigger screen (5")