The new trend in smartphone design is: Screw it! We’ve run out of ideas so, let’s just make it big. Everyone will see that our phone is clearly different because it is so damn big! It will have to hang off people’s backs so other people will see our phone, our brand, and it will be really big. Right there, in their faces.
We will not be ignored. End of missive from smartphone marketing department head, Dickie Little.
Let’s be honest, Nokia is obviously suffering from some sort of penile shame because first, they went and made their Nokia Lumia phone into the most humongous camera phone out there, and now, they’re taking Lumia up to 6-inch screen sizes, or so it seems according to these images from ICT and picked up by The Verge (the original Chinese image of the has disappeared from the Interwebs):
Nokia is planning a big-screen Windows Phone for release later this year. Sources familiar with Nokia’s plans have revealed to The Verge that the company is currently testing a 6-inch device with the latest version of Windows Phone. Codenamed “Bandit,” the handset includes a 1080p display and a Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core processor. We understand that Bandit will be the first of many planned 1080p Windows Phone devices.
We’re told that the Bandit will ship with a rear camera that is at least 20-megapixels, and a slight hump at the rear of the device (similar to the Lumia 925) to accommodate the camera. We understand the Bandit is thin and lightweight, and includes a polycarbonate body. Microsoft is currently improving Windows Phone to support devices like the Bandit, with extra changes for 1080p displays, and an additional column of Live Tiles on the Start screen. The latest Windows Phone update, GDR3, also includes rotation lock, a Driving Mode option, and some minor UI changes.
No word on whether the Nokia Bandit will come in champagne or gold, or whether you can customize it online before you buy, or whether it will actually make a Windows phone more palatable to anyone other than your grandma.
