back to article Nokia quiz: Do you know what a phablet is?

Gadget blogs and tech specialists may know what "phablet" means, but Nokia isn’t whether civilians do. The phone-maker took the unusual step on Friday of gaining feedback on the word. Nokia was measuring familiarity with the word and how favourably it is received. The company has yet to launch its first "phablet" but is about …

COMMENTS

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  1. Flawless101

    These words need to stop being created.

    1. Martin H Watson

      Hear hear! Some of these made-up words are so crass. Tablerone is much better.

  2. Graham Marsden
    Facepalm

    I couldn't...

    ... give a phuck!

  3. Piro Silver badge

    Well, the first person to kick off this craze, was..

    Dom Joly. No doubt, Trigger Happy TV's Big Phone sketch predicted the future.

    He should of course get recognition in some way, in naming these devices.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Nokia?

    Shirely Noksoft/Microkia El Reg?

    Do keep up!

    1. TheOtherHobbes

      Re: Nokia?

      Monkisoft.

      You're welcome.

  5. Richard 22
    FAIL

    Sony Xperia Z?

    I think they mean the Sony Xperia Z Ultra, which is the 6"+ device, rather than the 5" Xperia Z. Their survey seems to be adding to the confusion...

    I don't like the term phablet, but then I don't understand the success of the market segment either, so who am I to judge.

    1. Dr_N

      Re: Sony Xperia Z?

      "I don't like the term phablet, but then I don't understand the success of the market segment either, so who am I to judge."

      It's a meme. Like wearing a baseball cap on backwards or walking around with your jeans down around your knees. There is no understanding involved....

  6. David Hicks

    The word sucks

    The devices are great - huge screen and decent battery life (because you can actually fit one in!)

    1. Johnnydub

      Re: The word sucks

      Spot on D.

      As a very happy Galaxy Note 2 user, I can browse the internet and get text large enough to read, on a multifunction device with enough juice to last a full day...

      Roll on the Note 3 launch...

  7. glenf

    Phinnish phablets

    Here in Finland, phablet has already been translated as "puhletti" (puhelin + tabletti), which seems a suitable equivalent in terms of annoyingness, at least.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They should try re-wording the page with s/Phablet/Windows Phone/g to get a real appreciation of how little the public now cares.

  9. Mark .

    "Samsung's Galaxy Note is credited with taking the device beyond the gadget nerd niche – they’re surprisingly popular with women"

    Astonishing, it's almost as if there's a segment of the population that carries a bag with them most the time, so therefore isn't restricted to "what fits in my pocket".

    Though the flipside is that women's trousers seem to be crippled with ridiculously small pockets, and I know women who don't like relying on handbags complaining about the size of smartphones these days - though maybe it's the pocket sizes that need to increase.

    As for "phablet", we only got into this mess with the recent media redefinition of "tablet" to only mean something big - historically, a tablet is any handheld device that isn't a phone (including say, Nokia's earlier N-series tablets, before they became smartphones with the N900). Tablets and phones are really the same thing, available in a range of sizes, with the minor difference of the phone functionality. A 4" non-phone computing device is a tablet. A 7" Asus Fonepad is a smartphone.

    But instead we have this nonsense of labelling small things as "smartphone", big things as "tablets", and then throwing a wobbly because there isn't a word for things that are in between, leading some to make the fallacy of claiming "it's too small for a tablet" or "it's too big for a phone", when it's the terminology that's at fault (it's like complaining that a medium-height person is too small for a tall person, and too big for a short person, and maybe we should start calling them "shall" or "tort").

  10. PaulR79

    Phablet is wrong

    Forget Phablet anyway. If you're going to say it's a mix of both then surely it should be Phonblet.

  11. Dick Pountain

    Not only should the word be banned, but everyone who has ever used it should be summarily executed. And then executed again. And then twerked.

    1. Darryl
      Thumb Down

      OK come on now. Execution? possibly, but twerking is just cruel and unusual punishment

  12. ToggleMaudlin

    They should go for something more proprietary

    Nokia + Tablet = Noblet?

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I don't understand why Nokia give a flying phuck about anything smartphone related anymore...they've flogged the division on to MS so kind of a moot point for them really

    1. Captain DaFt

      "I don't understand why Nokia give a flying phuck about anything smartphone related anymore...they've flogged the division on to MS so kind of a moot point for them really"

      Well, they flogged off the current phone division to MS, and promised not to start another one for a few years... But then what?

      They still own the IP, and with all the deadwood sold off, now's the time to start planning for that day, and maybe the third coming of the Nokia phone will be as good as the first?

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Here's my name for those things:

    POS

  15. jake Silver badge

    One word:

    Phadlet.

  16. Rukario

    Seriously...

    And no one has commented on the bottom line:

    "Your personal data will be processed in the survey according to our Privacy Policy and Official Rules."

    Seriously? What personal data do they make you give them to answer something as inane as this? (Apart from the usual browser header data slurp.)

  17. simon gardener

    reg@20thCenturyFish.co.uk

    Phoneslab is fine , better than some of the dreadful names out there. However, I'm still plumping for Trannyphone - a phone so large it makes a transvestive's hands look small.

    My 10 cents on the microsoft nokia thing - Winokia - sounds like a great place to be from

  18. Great Bu

    "Would your friend (sic) know what you were talking about...."

    Complete with the built in (probably accurate) assumption that if you are taking the time to fill in this survey you have, at best, just the one friend......

  19. Atonnis

    Stupid phucking words...

    Phondleslab...phablet....stupid terms that should die a messy and painful death, along with anyone who uses them.

    Look, if you're SO desperate to find a term for that not-quite-sure-what-it-is niche in between phone and tablet, then just find/create another word.....stop trying to mash shit together to create more shit. It's shitty.

    I'd look towards an acronym, personally.

  20. Robert Forsyth

    How about?

    Phoney - bit bigger than a phone

    Phtwo - ph one, ph two

    or

    Phonez

    Phune

    OK, I'm off

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