Since the announcement of Samsung's Galaxy Note "phablet," the trend of combining phones with tablets has taken off. Tablets are large devices that can also work as phones. Their screen resolution is great, which makes them ideal for playing games and watching videos. By combining the large screen of a tablet with the voice and call capability of a phone, Samsung gave rise to another big industry alongside mobile phones: the phablet industry.
Many cell phone makers have followed Samsung, and there are rumours that most of them will release devices in the US by the end of the year. Telecom equipment giants such as LG, ZTE, HTC and Sharp have already announced prototypes.
Word has it that HTC will release the Droid DNA in Japan. The 5-inch phablet will offer a rear 8MP camera, a 2MP front camera, a quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM. Storage is likely to be 16GB. Although its features will provide stiff competition for Samsung, it is now just a matter of waiting.
LG's and Sharp's prototypes are rumoured to have almost the same features, except that Sharp has launched in Russia and its processor is weaker than the others. While LG has plenty of scope to gain a large market share, ZTE has focused on a Windows 8-based phablet. Naturally, someone has to keep that platform alive too.