Reports have surfaced indicating Nokia might be working on a five-inch Windows Phone phablet.
The first reports of a Nokia Windows phablet were made in the Financial Times last week, with an unnamed source claiming the Finnish manufacturer is developing its own phone-sized tablet or phablet.
The source did not go into too much detail, but did indicate the Nokia phablet will be much like Samsung's Galaxy Note, and is described as the most "innovative" device in its purposed product line-up.
Earlier this month, reports and images also surfaced that a Lumia 928 might be in the works. Suggested specifications by ubergizmo.com include a 4.5-inch OLED display, 1.5GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM, and 32GB of internal memory. It is also thought to be marginally thinner than the 920, by 10.2mm. The device will reportedly have 4G LTE.
Yesterday, a report by Bloomberg suggested Nokia signed a deal with US network provider Verizon that will see the Lumia 928 made available from next month.
Neither Nokia nor Verizon have commented on the report.
Fight for survival
Nokia CEO Stephen Elop's decision to switch to Windows Phone software in 2011 has been widely questioned and has not yielded positive results.
At the release of its quarterly results, Nokia said it had sold 5.6 million Lumia handsets in the first quarter of 2013, a 1.2 million increase from the previous quarter. But global shipments of mobile phones slumped 21%, to 55.8 million units, a far steeper decline than the 8% dip that markets expected, with unit sales down in every region. As a result, overall net sales fell 20%, to EUR5.9 billion, compared to the previous year.
Phablet fad
Entering the phablet market could be a risky move for the mobile manufacturer, as early market response and expert insight revealed a lack of interest in the large smartphone.
According to a recent report, by mobile analytics company Flurry, the mid-sized smartphone is dominating the market, while the phone-sized tablet or phablet is just a "fad". The survey revealed that 7% of mobile users opt for devices that have screen sizes that are 3.5 inches or smaller (like BlackBerry), while the largest proportion of users, at 72%, prefer devices that are between 3.5 inches and 4.9 inches - this includes the iPhone.
While phablets have started to attract attention, they currently have only 3% of active users. Small tablets like the Kindle Fire and iPad Mini have 5% of active users, while full-sized tablets have the second-largest proportion of users, at 13%.
The only phablet on the market that has had significant success is Samsung's Note, believed to be the first phone with a screen larger than five inches. The Korean manufacturer has, meanwhile, expanded its phablet offering by introducing the Galaxy Mega range, consisting of 5.8-inch and 6.3-inch smartphones.
Although the Note has been successful, Fuseware CEO Mike Wronski says that locally, the market may not be large enough to accommodate the entire trifecta of smartphones, tablets and phablets.
"Forty-thousand-five-hundred South Africans search Google monthly for the term 'Galaxy Note', which is currently the world's top-selling phablet. Compare this with the 832 000 monthly searches for 'BlackBerry' and 368 000 for 'iPhone', and one can see that local demand is relatively small, but can't be ignored," he adds.
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