According to the prolific leaker Digital Chat Station<\/a>, there are at least two companies that are evaluating 7-inch phones (or even bigger).\u00a0
Chinese companies already have 7-inch phones, such as last year’s Huawei Mate 70<\/a> Air and the TCL NxtPaper 60 Ultra, so we might make the assumption that the leak is about more popular brands such as Samsung, Motorola or maybe even Apple.
Even though we haven’t heard anything about an iPhone XL or a Galaxy S26 Ultra<\/a> Max, they are still not out of the question. Could these new 7-inch models push other brands to follow suit? I hope not. Here’s why!<\/p>\n
7-inch phones are downright impractical<\/p>\n
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The Huawei Mate 20 X and PhoneArena’s famous crotch shot | Image by PhoneArena<\/p>\n
That’s the obvious drawback, but as obvious as it might be, people just don’t realize what it’s like to handle a seven-inch phone. Back in the day I had my fair share of phablet (remember this term) reviews, including some seven-inchers, such as the Huawei Mate 20 X<\/a>. Why not get a foldable?<\/p>\n That’s probably as thin as it gets on a foldable | Image by PhoneArena<\/p>\n I’m not the biggest foldable advocate out there, but having tried and tested the Honor Magic V3<\/a>, a couple of Galaxy Z Fold models and the Huawei Mate X series, I can see how these would make more sense than a traditional 7-inch phone. The bigger the screen, the more easily damaged it becomes | Image by Fixit<\/p>\n As for the durability argument, conventional candy bar phones with huge displays are just as susceptible to damage as foldables. You can also make the case for foldables protecting the display while it’s in a folded state.<\/p>\n I remember my wife cracking the screen of her Galaxy A9 (2018) by dropping her plastic hairbrush on it back in the day. This model had a 6.3-inch display, protected by Gorilla Glass 5, and yet it cracked.<\/p>\n The bigger the surface, the easier it is to damage it, especially when we talk about displays. When you focus the force at a small, point-like part of the display, even a plastic hairbrush can crack it.<\/p>\n The same goes for dropping a seven-inch monster phone. There’s an increased chance to crack the display. You have to get a case and a screen protector, and even the slimmest ones would make these hypothetical 7-inch smartphones even bigger.<\/p>\n Are phablets going to return?<\/p>\n This doesn’t look too comfortable… | Image by Pinterest<\/p>\n Big-screen phones kind of killed the small 7- and 8-inch tablets. Are we going to see another resurgence of the so-called phablet in the years to come? That’s an interesting question. Tablets are now more or less under house arrest most of the time, serving their Netflix sentence or roleplaying a recipe book in the kitchen.<\/p>\n Super-big screen phones are stepping on too many toes, so to speak. You have all the foldables that are still more practical. You have the home tablets with their even bigger screens, which you don’t need to carry around with you all the time.<\/p>\n And you have the current upper threshold at 6.9 inches in the face of your iPhone 17 Pro Max models and Galaxy S25 Ultra phones. There’s just no place for bigger candy bar phones, in my opinion.<\/p>\n But those two companies allegedly tinkering with the idea of a seven-plus-inch phone might know something I don’t. What do you think about it? Do you need bigger non-folding phones, or is 6.9 inches big enough?<\/p>\n Try Noble Mobile for only $10<\/p>\n Get unlimited talk, text, & data on the T-Mobile 5G Network plus earn cash back for data you don\u2019t use.<\/p>\n
\nThis 7.2-inch monster was impossible to handle with one hand, and carrying it around was a major pain as well. No hand gymnastics in the world allowed me to reach the top part of the Mate 20 X display, and no jeans’ pocket was able to house this monster.
In fact, the reason behind the inception of foldable phones<\/a>, at least one major reason, was to make big-screen phones more practical. Flexible displays made this possible and put an end to the screen growth of conventional phones. Or at least I thought so. This takes us to the next part of the equation.<\/p>\n![\"That's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Honor-Magic-V3-Review-Thin-as-a-pancake.webp.webp\")
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One might argue that foldables are much more expensive, and they’re also more fragile. The first argument is still valid, to an extent. However, I would assume that a 7-inch iPhone XL won’t be much more expensive than some more affordable foldables such as the Pixel 10 Pro Fold<\/a>. As foldables saturate the market, they will most likely get cheaper too.
\n7-inch phones will be more fragile<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/cBhNlcDuJ6GmPC7FpULWr4x08.webp.webp\")
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