Report: HTC drops plan for five-inch WP8 phone over displays
updated 12:58 pm EST, Mon December 17, 2012
Lack of support for high-resolution screens cited as cause
HTC is reportedly scrapping its plans to build a five-inch Windows Phone 8 handset, with software restrictions said to be to blame. It is said that a Microsoft-enforced limitation on screen resolutions, was the primary cause for the change of plans, along with a limitation for what processors could be used on WP8 devices.
Windows Phone 8 supports a maximum resolution of 1280x768, a setting far below resolutions seen on other handsets HTC has released using Android. The HTC Droid DNA, which shipped last month running on Android, uses a five-inch LCD display with a 1920x1080 resolution, far above what Windows Phone 8 is able to support.
Insiders speaking to Bloomberg said the company believed a larger-screen Windows Phone 8 phone would not be as competitive against Android devices released at the same time. On hearing the news, stock in HTC declined 3.2 percent in trading in Taipei, increasing its decline to 45 percent for the entire year.
