Phablet is dead?

I've never quite gotten the raison d'être of phablets. It strikes me as somewhat of a fad, or simply a niche market that was expected to be bigger than it was. Heck, my Iphone 7+ is teetering on being far to big for me as far as phones go. I suspect that the folding revolution will be the solution for those who want a bigger device that also works as their phone. Possibly as a replacement for a majority of Android tablets really. It's got a 2-in-1 advantage the phablets "jack of all trades, master of none" approach never really held in my view.

 

Its simple

People have limited budgets. A lot of the carriers in the states offer financing for 2 years on a phone where your monthly payment is rolled into the plan and you make a simple monthly plan. Some companies allow you to rent a phone where you pay more per month but you upgrade every year. Most tablets don't have an option for that. Sure you can get a free older one on some carriers when you get a data plan but then the plan is most likely tied to that device and its an older tablet well past its prime.

So for a person do you buy one larger phone that you use every day all day and upgrade every 1-2 years or do you get a smaller phone and use the left over budget to get a dedicated tablet. Then the tablet needs to either use wifi , tethering or have its own data plan. Now when you want a larger screen do you bring your tablet with you every where just in case ? Do you get a smaller tablet or a bigger tablet? A smaller tablet isn't much further from in size from some of the larger phones and then a big 10 inch or bigger tablet is well big.

A lot of people I know simply buy a larger phone and either have skipped out on a traditional tablet and either have ipad pros or a surface device that comes with them when they know they might need it like a vacation or to the office or they buy a typical android or ios tablet and just hold on to it longer. The majority of people I know with a regular ipad or android tablet or even fire tablet are parents who got them for their kids as a bridge between having them use and destroy their phone and buying the kid their own phone. Most kids get a phone between 10 and 12 in the states now judging on my 6 nieces and nephews and some of my older cousins who have kids in their young teens. So it looks like from 4-9 they get cheap tablets and then transition to a phone and in highschool they get a pro device like an ipad or surface or a traditional laptop of some kind.

For me I love larger phones , its easier for me to type with my large fingers and fits better in my larger hands. However the folding devices be it a folding display or dual screen are interesting to me. Because I can regain pocket space but still keep the larger screen size. The duo sadly is out since it looks like it wont have nfc and I need that for my cgm. But my friend had the newer galaxy that folds in half height wise and I really liked it

 

Oh certainly there is an economic aspect, and I totally understand the dynamics of ownership you're talking about. But I feel I need to clarify a little bit. I was writing with what I believe OP had in mind when talking about "phablets". Most phones today are basically classified as one of those. When I say phablet I'm thinking primarily of phones with squarer ≥16:10 aspect ratios. I can certainly see why people like bigger phones, but the squarer aspect ratio phones have rather died. It's anecdotal, but I only ever saw some original Notes and the occasional Huawei Note equivalent briefly when they were launched. These days I normally see large size 16:9 or taller aspect ratio phones like the Galaxy S10 or iPhone XS Max however, and I think that's here to stay.

No, the wider aspect ratio and the tablet like utility it brings I think we'll only see more of with folding phones. And I can totally see that from a practicality and cost standpoint.