Smartphones have trends, just like anything else. For a while, they were all chasing near-field communication. Now, apparently, the hot new thing is to change the shape of your phone. The iPhone is doing it, the Galaxy S8 did it, But unlike some other manufacturers — the iPhone, the Galaxy S8 — who are changing mostly to offer an edge-to-edge screen, the Google Pixel 2 is changing the size of its screen to make it easier to use.”
Forbes has a look at a recent leak of a mystery phone and, since the mystery phone is named ‘Pixel XL2’ in the leak, it’s rather clear just which phone it happens to be.” The specifications are fairly typical for a top of the line phone, with one exception: The screen has an 18:9 aspect ration, as opposed to the “movie screen” ratio of 16:9. In other words, the screen is longer and narrower than a typical phone.
Why the change? A longer and thinner phone makes it easier to use as a reading device, and that’s got a lot of appeal to Google, as it turns out the one thing millennials aren’t allegedly killing is reading the news. When you’re the biggest ad agency in the world, you tend to want to ensure your ads get in front of your audience the way they want to read them. But we’ll see soon enough; the Pixel 2 is expected arrive this fall.
(via Forbes)