'Designed by men...for men'

I may have taken the phone comment to heart a bit Used to drive me mad though when all the 6 foot blokes would try out the new phones and be all "Cool, I think I might get this" and when I tried it was all unwieldy and I couldn't use it with the ease they could. Then the excitement when they brought out the mini versions and the disappointment when it turned out it wasn't "mini" for "I don't need an eleventy inch screen, you nobber" but "mini" meaning "cut-down budget edition". Grrrrrr.

Galaxy S4: 136.6 x 69.8 x 7.9 mm 85.6
Google Nexus 5: 137.9 x 69.2 x 8.6 mm 86.4
HTC One: 137.4 x 68.2 x 9.3 mm 86.8
Sony Xperia Z: 139 x 71 x 7.9 mm 86.9

iPhone 5: 123.8 x 58.6 x 7.6 mm

To massively simplify, the distance around the back and two thin edges is between 85.6mm and 86.9mm (The S4 and the Xperia Z respectively). The iPhone 5 however has a total distance around the back and two thin edges of 73.8cm. That's about 12-13 mm in size, and is a very simplified measurement because of course fingers have joints in certain places and aren't bendy all the way along, so the measurement across is probably more important but without all the phones with me and several women's hands to test, it's the best I can do If anybody feels like checking the measurements of their phone which they find comfortable to use as way of comparison, BTW, I used GSMArena.com for these measurements.

I would say that hand size - the author said that there is an average difference of 2cm between men's and women's average hand size - will really make the difference as to whether you can grip something securely or not. Funny, isn't it, the difference between the leading phone sizes? I wonder who tested their phones with a mixed sex audience. The iPhone 5 is as highly specified as some of those other phones, too, so the size of the components is not an issue in this case. And not everyone is a fan of the iPhone - I prefer android myself. I think it's a shame they haven't thought about this issue.

BTW on the comment about the Galaxy Note - in actual fact when I worked in the phone shop, thinking about it, this tended to be more popular with women than with men, perhaps because they have become resigned to the fact they cannot use their phone one-handed and just decided to go with the giant phone because why not. But I've deliberately excluded the Note and Note 2 from this exercise, because they aren't designed for anybody to use one-handed. But frequently, it was men who brought them back in to trade in saying "It's too big, I can't use it" "It makes me look like a bit of a tit" whereas women had bought large cases, made use of the pen attachment more regularly, and used it as more of a personal organiser than a phone.

I've not seen that ad but that does sound like male centric design. (the silver lining is that it does mean that one's small-handed, short-thumbed 14 yo DD actively prefers a non-top end phone)

True but this isn't the case for all of the specifications. Things like processing chips, RAM and internal memory are tiny these days. Most of the space is taken up by currently fashionable huge screens. Which is fine - I can see why people would prefer a big screen - but there should be a choice. It seems that the current top phones (Samsung Galaxy S4/S4 Active, HTC One, iPhone 5/5s, Sony Xperia Z/Z1) are all large phones. In fact the iPhone 5 is physically smaller and probably is usable one-handed by men and women, but it is taller and the advert centred on "Your thumb goes all the way up to here, so we made the phone go all the way up to here!" which is in fact probably true for most men but not most women, if you want to pick at it.

I agree battery life can be a problem if the battery is physically too small, but then if they didn't have 100 inch screens the battery life would be vastly extended anyway

Some really great points on this thread.

To counter slightly, I recently hung all our pictures up in our new house. My DH pointed out afterwards that he was looking down at most of them.

I don't know whether it applies in the case of these particular phones, but sometimes there are technological constraints in reducing physical size - for instance, longer battery life might require a larger battery. Designers have to operate within the laws of physics and current technology so there might be good reasons why higher spec phones are larger at the moment.

I find it pretty rude that I've already answered that point and yet you have totally ignored my point.

Try looking at any of the top phone brands' current range. Even discounting the Note and the other "phablet" phone, all of the top-range phones are now, for want of a better phrase, man sized. The smaller ones have lower spec and lack advanced features included in top range models. It may well be possible to choose a smaller sized handset but then you are limited to what spec of phone you can go for. Maybe not everyone wants or needs a top of the range phone but itwould be nice to have ythe option.

(excuse my typing, I have an inferior but perfectly proportioned phone :o although in fact to illustrate the point, my phone lacks features such as a front camera and back led light/flash. Because it's small and hence ax"budget/compact" model.

She went to great lengths in her post to explain why she wanted that particular one.

No, she went to great lengths to explain her needs and complain about the phone she bought. Her needs, as described, would have been better met by a smaller screen android and they never vanished from the market. The largest mobile available, a huge phablet size device by Samsung, I last saw one of those monsters being used not by a seven foot man with gorilla hands but by a petite woman no taller than 5-2.

Actually the phone thing is annoying. I used to work in a phone shop and it's true that the high spec phones are all larger these days. Even the smaller versions like the Galaxy S3 Mini, marketed as a smaller more compact version of the Galaxy S3 is inferior and has lower specs and lacks the features of the higher end phones. This is the case for any phone which is smaller. The iPhone 5vis too tall for me to use comfortably. My thumb is not "this long" as stated proudly in their ad!

DP has a Galaxy S2. Outdated now, but he can easily use it one handed whereas I cannot. I don't have particularly small hands, but evidently, his are bigger despite us being roughly the same size in general.

I really want an S4 active but I think that will be too big also. Obviously there is a market for oversized phones such as the Galaxy Note which can't be used one handed by anybody, hut it would be nice if the "normal sized" high end phones could be tested on women as well as men's average hand size.

If all the technology you use is just slightly wrong, it all adds up.

For instance, being left handed seems to carry significant risk of serious accident.

Yes radical feminism is about changing things totally, not just expecting women to fit into a male designed world.

They are adjustable now, but seatbelts used to be designed for the height of the average man. The seatbelt used to sit across my neck. I always wondered how I would actually fare in a serious accident.

There is a suit called an ageing suit. It lets you imagine what it is like to have limb difficulties, movement difficulties and eye issues.

It's used by car designers - apparently. Just putting yourself in someone elses shoes and seeing the world through their eyes.

agelab.mit.edu/agnes-age-gain-now-empathy-system

dadwashere you might think it's a silly rant in isolation, but a huge amount of technology is designed by (young white) men, for men.

If all the technology you use is just slightly wrong, it all adds up.

Buffy - android is Google's operating system which runs on a lot of phones made by a few different manufacturers. Apple have their own called iOS that runs on iPhones.

I saw this post recently, "it's a man's phone"

Oh Please- did she try out the phone before she bought it or did she, like me, order her Nexus 4 direct shipped from Google sight unseen only to be, unlike me, disappointed by it?

There is nothing special about her phone, its just another android. If she wanted a smaller android that was iPhone size she could have purchased a Sony Xperia M or whatever else was around at the time.

Bah and humbug.

The prams were designed by the Maclaren who invented the Spitfire undercarriage ...more important design than McLaren racing cars! (not particularly relevant to the OPs question maybe but interesting)

The kindergarten that we use is partly funded by the church, but there is a set rate for all state kindergartens which in our region is 91€ per month, which is fantastic, because you can access up to 5 hours a day for that price, 5 days a week, and the holidays are minimal - 2 weeks in Summer, 3 at Christmas and one at Easter. They are all the same. Some are Church-funded, some are partly run by volunteer work by the parents, and some (rare) are completely state run. There are also subsidies for childcare under 3 years but this is more expensive, but still not crippling like UK day nurseries.

It seems a much more family-friendly system, and as far as I can see, nobody is handwringing or moaning about the cost to taxpayers. Taxes work differently here I think as well. As I understand it, lower earners are taxed more but somehow you still end up with a living wage. There is no such thing as tax credits, but there are tax breaks when you have children, and also for married couples.

Oh, didn't know that. There is still a lot more design involved in prams it seems these days.

Yes that is Maclaren I believe :)

Um, Mclaren have been making pushchairs since the 1960s. Different company to the Formula 1 lot!