Just in time for being one year behind the iPhone curve,
I bought one.
I’m a huge tech nerd, naturally. I’m somewhat known to pack up and leave for new continents, with a one way ticket and small laptop bag. Sell everything, and leave with one change of clothes, wallet, and hardly anything.
But there’s always an excess of phones in my bag.
Small phones, big phones, even though I try to give away the old ones. There are still three or four of them in my desk drawer right now.
And then when it comes to eyesight, people often ask:
Which phone is least bad for my eyes?
The pretend-saint-eyeguru answer is, all phones are terrible for eyes.
If you run into me in real life though, you’ll find me using large screen phones. I’ve been using the Samsung Galaxy Note series since the second version. That’s a go-to device for me. I went larger for a while with the Sony Xperia Z Ultra, even had the tailor lengthen all my pants pockets by just a little bit (that btw, works great).
Bigger screen, bigger fonts, less likely that you’ll “drift” closer to the screen.
I didn’t use any iPhones since their screens are FAR too small for anything but a short glance. Seriously, don’t go reading for hours on end on a 4″ screen.
The basic rule is, if you can’t comfortably read at a casual arm’s length for any period of time, it’s too small.
And it’s not about whether you *can* do it, but whether you *will* do it.
Sure I can read a wee little iPhone’s screen at reasonable distances. But in reality once I stop thinking about distance, that screen will come closer and closer to my face.
You don’t want that.
The iPhone 6 Plus is a contender for a decent size screen. Huge phone, though, feels quite a bit larger to me than even the Note 4.
And the price.
I didn’t buy one because I’m unreasonably averse to the massive depreciation of new tech. I always buy second hand, and whenever the price gets closer to the half-of-new mark. Especially when it comes to devices that run somewhere in the range of 800 USD or more, just feels wasteful (since I’m usually in areas of the world that don’t get U.S. levels of low gadget prices, these things are truly expensive).
But I did want to play around with iOS. Reading about Android OS updates and knowing you’ll never get them? Kind of sucks. And since I budget my close-up time, I’m not the biggest fan of figuring out root and kernels and basebands for the obscure Korean version that there are only Chinese language instructions for. Close-up time sinkholes.
So then finally yesterday the iPhone 6 hit that half-price point, in a local classified ad. I grabbed it.
And wow.
That screen feels small. About a half hour into browsing Flipboard, my eyes feel dry and tired. It’s how you can eventually tell strain without centimeter, that slight burning sensation you get from staring at something too close.
But that’s just me. All depends on the individual, usage patterns, and what you’re willing to subject your eyes to. For a few more thoughts, here’s a quick video Q&A (even more quick hacked together today than usual – apologies).
Still, thumbs it up if you find it worthwhile.
Cheers,
-Jake
