When phones are too big for pockets - CNN.com

Tech pundit Veronica Belmont tries to fit a new Dell phone in her pocket. Bucking previous trends, phones are getting bigger now.

... in the U.S. later this summer, is the biggest of the big-daddy phones so far, with a 5-inch screen. The screen of the iPhone 4, by comparison, measures only 3.5 inches diagonally.

The Streak's mondo screen has become the focus of much debate on the internet, with tech bloggers arguing about what kinds of pants you'd have to wear to carry it around in your pocket; how big your hands have to be to hold it; whether or not people will stare at you when you're using it; and, perhaps most significantly, what exactly constitutes a phone these days.

Is a phone just any device that can make calls? Or does it have to be portable enough to carry with you, regardless of how baggy your pants are?

As mobile phone technology improved, "there definitely was a trend for smaller and there definitely was a trend for thinner," said ...

... , a senior research analyst who covers mobile technology for IDC. "But I think we're seeing the pendulum swinging back in favor of larger phones." ...