Big screened quad-core Chinese beasts splash down at CES
'Phablet' and 6.9mm slimphone battle it out at electronics show
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CES 2013 Not content with squeezing out foreign rivals in their domestic market, China’s homegrown smartphone giants are set to make a splash overseas this month with some impressive handset designs including the world’s thinnest smartphone and a giant 6.1in phone/tablet hybrid.
Leading the charge at this week’s annual gadget-fest CES in Las Vegas are Shenzhen neighbours ZTE and Huawei.
The two had a pretty torrid 2012 at the hands of US politicians, who branded their telecoms kit businesses a national security risk, so they’ll be looking to the world’s biggest consumer electronics show to boost brand awareness and highlight their innovation efforts in the mobile space.
ZTE's Grand S
ZTE confirmed to The Reg that it will be taking the wraps off the Grand S, an FHD 5in smartphone which, at just 6.9mm, is being touted as the world’s thinnest.
The 1920x1080 resolution device will pack a quadcore CPU, 2GB of RAM and a 13 megapixel camera, with support for 3G and LTE.
Local rival Huawei is also set to make a splash at CES with a giant 6.1in ‘phablet’ dubbed the Ascend Mate.
The firm couldn’t immediately be reached to confirm the specs but Huawei Device chairman, Richard Yu, has already been caught on camera last week showing it off to fans in Guangzhou.
The 6-in monster will trump the well-received Galaxy Note 2 in terms of screen size, but time will tell whether the pocket-splitter is also a hit with users.
Not to be outdone, Chinese smartphone maker Oppo announced last week that its 5-inch offering, the Find 5, will soon be made available in 18 countries outside the People’s Republic including the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand.
The quad-core, 1080p device also features a 13-megapixel camera and is set to come in 16GB and 32GB flavours, retailing in the US at $499 and $569 respectively.
China’s handset makers have built this push into overseas markets on strong performance at home, where they’ve traditionally dominated in the low-to-mid range smartphone space and the 2G feature phone market.
The coming year is likely to see global brands increasingly pressured in the world’s biggest smartphone market, with Lenovo set to leapfrog Samsung to take number one spot in China by shipments, according to Gartner.
Chinese brands also captured more than 70 per cent of domestic sales of 2G feature phones and 3G smartphones at the end of November, with local firms Lenovo, Coolpad, Huawei and ZTE all breathing down market leader Samsung’s neck, according to market watcher Sino-Mr (via MIC Gadget). ®
COMMENTS
Resolution
6.1" screen, 1080 x 1920
Now... why is it I can't get a reasonable resolution 15" laptop again?
Yuga Party
As a relatively happy Galaxy Note (CM10.1) user I wish I had a pound for every time I've heard the Dom Joly remark!
Personally I'd quite like something just a tad larger. I tend to use the device for video, reading ebooks, gaming, nav etc so an even larger screen really appeals. When I do use the Note as a phone I've never get any major problems from that side of things.
As a custom firmware flasher though I have to say that Samsung's exynos is a bit of a mess really. They've really not given the opensource code that the devs need to make it a great custom fw platform. Sony on the other hand have been extremely helpful and supportive. That's why, unless something even better appears in the meantime , my next device will be the Yuga. The only thing I'll miss will be the S-Pen since that makes texting/mailing/form filling a brilliantly fast process.
I guess the point is though that Samsung have pretty much comprehensively shown that there's a market for large form factor smartphones. The battleground is your pocket! Just how big will manufacturers dare to go? 6" is about right for a pocketable HD media device.
Re: Resolution
Being a cheapskate is nothing to with it... anything other than 16:9 is hard to find at any price. If El Reg wants to collect a list of high res / 16:10 / 4:3 laptops, that'd be nice.
It's not just the low pixel density on modern laptops that annoying, it's the aspect ratio. On Windows machines, vertical pixels are eaten up by the task bar, status and title bars, and sometimes a Ribbon like menu bar... not to mention websites with large banners and adverts that require some scrolling before even beginning to read the article. One of the many little irritations of Windows is that the taskbar will unhide at the slightest provocation and obscure the status or tool bar of whatever application you are using. (Another irritation was introducing a ribbon interface at about the same time letter-box displays became the norm... FFS!)
In addition, the centre of a 16:9 screen is is a lower position than that of a 16:10 screen, hardly conducive to a good working position. 16:10 is better but not perfect; ideally, you would have separate the screen from keyboard so that both may be placed in their optimum position... hopefully, time will come that a mobile workstation solution will consist of a tablet, mouse and keyboard- acting as a thin client for CPUs/GPUs sitting in a bag at your feet.
(hoping my old 1920x1200 fantastic plastic Dell keeps on trooping on til that day)
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