NEC hasn’t had the best time in the smartphone market, a market which moves quickly and often eats up those who aren’t strong and determined enough. Up till now, NEC has only been dealing in smartphones in Japan which why most of us wouldn’t even know they were in the smartphone market, let alone leaving it. Unfortunately though, NEC reports that it will be ceasing “development, manufacturing and sale of smartphones” today due to downward trends in their smartphone shipments, but continues its development of conventional mobile handsets (yes, they still are a thing!) and its tablet business.
I for one am actually quite sad NEC are leaving the smartphone market because they tried some things the bigger companies were afraid to try. Earlier this year at CES and MWC, they showed off a dual-screen phone which was able to fold; unfolding the phone revealed two functional screens that could be used as one display. It was very rough, but the idea piqued my interest and I really hoped that more development would be invested to narrow down the bezels to bring the screens closer together. Sadly, this didn’t, and will never happen, and I think that’s a sad thing for us all.
So with that, we bid farewell to NEC smartphones and what might have been. Let’s hope they try something innovative with their tablets next.
Source: NEC via Android Police
