HTC shelves its Windows Phone 8 phablet plans
HTC has announced it will be holding off on its plans of developing a Windows Phone 8-based phablet, for now.
If you’re part of the crowd that’s been holding off on buying a Windows Phone 8 device till it ships with a larger screen, you might want to bite the bullet as HTC has ditched plans of building one. Surprisingly, the reasons provided have little to do with the sales figures for the company’s flagship Windows Phone 8 devices.
The reason provided for scrapping the phablet-like WP8 devices seems to be the inability of Windows Phone 8 OS to support resolutions higher than around 720p HD. While resolutions up to 1,280×768 pixels can be offered on WP8, as evinced by earlier announcements by Microsoft, and the Nokia Lumia 920, phones that lie in the “phablet” segment need a resolution of at least 1080p to maintain the crisp and vibrant visual quality that can compete with the many upcoming announced and leaked phablet devices from other manufacturers.
Many have said that with the lack of a phablet-like device in the Windows Phone 8 portfolio will put Microsoft at a disadvantage in terms of gaining market share. Currently, only Android phones support screen sizes larger than 5-inches, and they have been wildly popular. If Microsoft has any hopes of competing with the majority shareholder in the smartphone market, a 5-inch (or slightly larger) device is an absolute necessity.
Given that the limitation on this large-screen device is purely on the software end, who’s to say that Microsoft won’t update the OS to support a larger screen resolution? Hopefully, Microsoft can implement a software patch to bump up the resolution supported without making the current devices obsolete.