In my opinion a 5″ screen is smack dead in the middle of the dead zone that exists between tablets and phones. While the Dell Streak used this same screen size, it was far from the being a top seller, mostly because people thought it was just too big. If you’re going to get a tablet, 10.1″ seems to be the magic number, but at 7″, both the Nook Color and Samsung Galaxy Tab are great tablets. A 5″ device though, leaves you wanting more screen as long as you’re going that big to begin with. It appears that Pantech and I don’t see eye to eye.

Korean blog Bodnara has gotten us a first look at Pantech’s Gingerbread powered Vega No. 5. The umm… “device” will be jumping into the space, which had been home exclusively to the Dell Streak (with Samsung’s Galaxy S Wi-Fi 5 soon on the way as well). The tablet/phone is pretty decked out with a spec sheet as strong as we’ve seen. 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon, 1 GB of DDR2 RAM, dual cameras (8MP in back), 16 GB built in storage and NFC will make this a beast of a whatever it is when it lands in China and Korea later this month.

Where the weirdness starts is the screen. With specs this top-of-the-line and a screen that big, its weird to see the Vega No. 5 be announced with a WVGA resolution of 800×480, especially given the increasing prominence of qHD, and the increased screen size to stretch those pixels across. What really gives this phone its identity crisis though is that it is said to have “phone capabilities.” With tablets already struggling in some cases to find their roll (aside from being awesome) this seems like an interesting trek down that road of ambiguity Dell’s already gone down.

Obviously people out their are disagreeing with me, as phones like the Infuse 4G and the rumored Samsung Hercules test the waters between the 4.3 and 5″ ranges. Unfortunately there’s no news about this, seriously I still don’t know what to call it… about the Vega No. 5 coming to America so we’ll have to wait and see if it can show me I was wrong about the 5″ size range.

[via NetbookNews]

5 COMMENTS

  1. As a Dell Streak owner I must say that I am very fond of the 5″ size.  Its the perfect size for any use (especially on-the-go web browsing) and is only tough to use when trying to type one handed.  I really hope this comes to the US or at least is not too terribly expensive to import because I would love to upgrade to this over the streak!

  2. I personally love my Streak and think the 5″ screen is a winner. While a tablet is cool it doesn’t provide any better portability than a netbook or any more functionality than a phone and at a hight price than both combined. The 5″ form factor is perfect for ultimate mobility. Things like web browsing, videos, and emails are such a better experience then with the 4.3″ realestate. I’ve not used a 4.5″ and am interested to see how that compares. The Dell Streak did not flop because of its multiple personality disorder, the device was hardly marketed at all, and wasn’t backed up by Dell when it came time for updates. the only place to get one was at bestbuy and even they didn’t know what it was. The Streak would be awesome if they did away with some of that bezel and made it thiner and lighter, similar to the SII.

  3. Sweet phone by my opion on the pantech ill upgrade from my dell streak to that device if it came to canada at a good price but do have to agree one would think if going all out on hardware why cheap out on the screen qhd would have been sweet, a hybrid mobile device in this day and age is radical cost worthy and sweet to catch ppl off guard from the norm.

  4. I’m all for a 5″ screen if they keep the bezel size small–seems every OEM and carrier needs extra bezel for their logos.

    Now a low res on 5″. . . no thanks.

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