Late To The Party, HP To Finally Make Serious Effort In Tablets And Smartphones

Surprised? Don't be. While HP's foray into the smartphone world didn't work out so well after acquiring Palm, the company has often spoke of getting back into that universe when the time was right. Evidently, 2014 may be "the time." A new report suggests that HP may be on the warpath back into the mobile space, but in a slightly different capacity than before. And, considering the rampant competition going on in mobile, that's probably not such a bad thing.


The company will purportedly reveal new 6" and 7" phablets early next year, and while they'll primarily be aimed at emerging markets, there will no doubt be clamoring for these back in the U.S. The gist of it is pretty simple: emerging markets may be yearning for phones and tablets, so why not combine the two and add a voice radio for good measure? A 6" phone may have seemed outlandish a few years ago, but now, with items like the Samsung Galaxy Mega already making the rounds, it's not so far-fetched.


Wilder still, the phablets may hit the market at under $250 off-contract, which leads us to believe that they could be specced similarly to the Google Nexus 7. It's unclear whether or not this is just the start of a new push for HP to re-join the smartphone world or simply a push to be a player specifically in emerging markets, but hopefully we'll learn more at CES approaches.