HP, Dell developing Microsoft Smartphones

A report said that both companies have asked a number of Taiwanese manufacturers to give them quotes for phones, said Digitimes.

Those include HTC - which makes the Orange slow booter, Mitac, Compal, Asustek, Quanta and Inventec, the newspaper claimed.

But it's unclear whether these companies would accept quotations to make Smartphones, given the low price tag on these devices.

Smartphones typically use larger than normal LCD screens and have a variety of Windows functions such as Internet Explorer, email and the like.

But because they're tagged as phones, rather than PDAs and the like, firms such as Orange are forced to sell them cheaply, making money on the call end rather than the hardware itself.

We've got a Sendo Smartphone which the firm gave us in October, just weeks before it and Microsoft had the most almighty fall out over alleged unethical business practices. It plays the Intel tune very nicely indeed, and hasn't crashed at all, but it's very costly indeed to use to smurf the Interweb. µ

See Also
Smartphones to outsell PDAs next year
Smartphones will eat wireless PDAs lunch
Intel targets cheaper Smartphones with Manitoba chip
Sendo Stinger Stung
Sendo and Microsoft: it all ends in tears
Details of "dirty tricks" against Sendo leak