HTC has shelved all plans to make a large screen smartphone device running Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 mobile operating system-the reason being that a Windows Phone 8 based smartphone with a larger display will have low resolution. Bloomberg reported that both HTC and Microsoft declined to comment on this.
Recently, HTC announced the Butterfly smartphone that has a 5 inch Super LCD 3 display with 1920 x 1080 pixel native resolution. On Android devices, handset makers can go for resolution beyond HD. HTC’s Butterfly Android smartphone is the latest example of a full HD phone going mainstream.
Apparently, Windows Phone 8 supports two additional pixel resolutions – 1280 x 768 pixel and 1280 x 720 pixel, along with 800 x 480 pixel resolution supported on Windows Phone 7. Due to lack of native support for full HD resolution in Windows Phone 8, HTC has decided to call off its plans.
That means we may get to see more 4.8 inch and smaller displays running Windows Phone 8, but the 5 inch device with full HD resolution will not be a possibility in the near future, unless Microsoft plans to change that with the purported Apollo+ update for Windows Phone 8 devices.
The Windows Phone 8 Apollo Plus update is due sometime next year and we can expect several new features with it. Hopefully, the company will add full resolution support in order to let handset markers make the best of it for creating hybrid devices and large screen tablets.