Rumor: Microsoft Working To Scale Up WP8 To 7?

[George P Global Moderator]

Few days back, WMPoweruser reported about a mysterious ZTE Windows Phone device with 5.9inch screen. Many doubted whether Windows Phone 8 can scale to such high resolutions with app compatibility. Now, we have another rumor from @MS_Nerd about this matter. It seems Microsoft is working on two fronts in bringing Windows based device with screen sizes ranging from 5-inch to less than 10-inch.

These 7-inch device is expected to have stylus support and include IE and Reader as well.

@MS_Nerd:

ZTE Blade 8: WP8 counts 3 pixels as 2. MSFT adding stylus support in OneNote, IE & Reader. Figuring out how to reach 7? size with WP or RT.

Another project with select members of Surface & Nook teams, using RT on a 8.4? screen exploring it from the other side, no stylus yet.

http://microsoft-news.com/rumor-microsoft-working-to-scale-up-wp8-to-7-and-scale-down-windows-rt-to-8-4/

[rfirth]

I really hope Windows Phone 9 gets merged with Windows RT somehow... you should be able to dock your phone, connect an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and use Office 2013. That would be awesome, and I don't think it would really be that hard for them to implement. That's when we'll really start to see the benefits of the common kernel and the true power of the platform.

I'm also hoping for support for desktop programs on Windows RT 9, and desktop computers based with ARM processors. And hopefully the release of Windows Phone 8.5, Windows 8.5, and Windows RT 8.5 next fall.

[George P Global Moderator]

I really hope Windows Phone 9 gets merged with Windows RT somehow... you should be able to dock your phone, connect an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse, and use Office 2013. That would be awesome, and I don't think it would really be that hard for them to implement. That's when we'll really start to see the benefits of the common kernel and the true power of the platform.

I'm also hoping for support for desktop programs on Windows RT 9, and desktop computers based with ARM processors. And hopefully the release of Windows Phone 8.5, Windows 8.5, and Windows RT 8.5 next fall.

I think with WP8 and Windows RT being so close that at some point in the future, heck maybe in a year with v9, they could come together. If this rumor is true and they do scale the phone up to 7" it could be what brings Nokia to the tablet market I bet.

I do expect RT apps to run on the desktop but I don't know about desktop apps on Windows RT, we'd have to wait for the ARM SoCs to become powerful enough so that MS can run Win32 apps in emulation, or how they run 32bit on 64bit with WoW64 etc. It could happen but we're talking at least a year from now until we see any changes in that direction.

[Duffydemon]

Galaxy Note running WP8 would be awesome!