A new report claims that HP will re-enter the smartphone market with a 6 or 7-inch Android phablet that will retail for under $250.
HP has been struggling for years to carve out a place for itself in the mobile world. When the company saw the success Apple and Samsung was having in the smartphone space, it decided it needed to make an appearance as well.
Before it acquired Palm, the company was initially rumored to be working on an Android-based smartphone. That acquisition was very appealing to HP since Palm had already done all of the leg work of creating a new mobile OS that could compete with iOS and Android, as well as an inventory of webOS smartphones such as the Pre 3, Veer 4G, and TouchPad. HP instantly became a significant player in the mobile space and it appeared that it would keep the OS, smartphones, and tablets alive for the foreseeable future.
The novelty of the $1.2 Billion it spent on buying Palm began to wear off, as HP watched iOS and Android grow at a rapid pace. The company would also be competing with its biggest partner by not using Windows Phone as its operating system of choice. Just a few weeks after HP launched its first webOS tablet, the TouchPad, the company announced it was shuttering its mobile device business, which included all webOS-running smartphones and TouchPad.
A new report is now claiming that HP wants another crack at the smartphone market and it plans on doing it in a big way. The source says that HP will release a half-dozen phablets with 6 to 7-inch displays. The source goes on to say that the smartphones would be priced relatively low, somewhere in the range of $200 to $250 without a contract. The phablets will run Android, but the report does not specifically state whether the devices will ship with the latest version of Android, Android 4.4 KitKat.
The phablets are rumored to launch in the coming weeks and we may see them officially debut at CES 2014. We'll be sure to keep you updated as soon as we hear more.
