Second half of 2013 should be called the season of Phablets. Even Apple, of all entities in the game, is rumored of prototyping a 6-inch iDevice. While it's more like a bad dream for fervent iPhone fans, real 6"+ phones by other manufacturers pop up everywhere these days.
Latest entry in this market was Acer Liquid S2 demoed at IFA 2013 in Berlin:
So far it's a demo device for the IFA show, and there's no real hands-on review just yet. One peculiar feature of this Acer stands out: an ability to record 4K video. Lay people have started to laugh off the feature already, forgetting a simple and elegant potential use of it: 2x zoom in this 4K mode may result in a video of full HD quality. However, one Russian presenter didn't like what he has done in 4K with this Acer:
Quite poor 4K playback quality could be explained either by the device being a pre-production sample, or by general goofiness of that Russian, or by both. It may also take a 4K TV to show recorded clip properly. Price at launch is believed to be below $550 anyway.
Acer is well known for its cheap but sufficiently solid devices: I type this article on Acer C7 Chrubuntubook that took a lot of "reflashing" and upgrades. It won't be a surprise this Acer Liquid S2 could turn out a nice alternative for any of coming 6-inchers that will be understandably overpriced at launch.
Talking about video recording and photo shooting with this Acer Liquid S2, I also need to mention couple recent contraptions by Sony that IMHO are the best inventions of 2013 for smartphones: Sony QX10 and Sony QX100:
There's one caveat about these magic lenses: as of now, they are shipped with spring loaded grips that can grab only between 2.12" and 2.91" of a phone width, so phablets (including Sony flagship Xperia Z Ultra) are out of grip, so to speak. Sony may want to rethink an amount of grab for this wonderful device, so Z Ultra and other "serious" phablets will be included.
Of course, grip is not actually needed for this Sony "lens" to function, so it could be mounted on your, say, shoulder/breast/head GoPro style:
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