Philips qHD smartphone released

Philips has just released its first qHD smartphone, the I966 Aurora in China. While Philips smartphones aren’t popular outside of China, the new Philips I966 Aurora is definitely worth some attention. The new smartphone is the first from the company with a 1440*2560 resolution display. The Philips phone has a 5.5 inch display, which puts the handset into the phablet category. Phablets are more popular on the Asian market than in Europe or the U.S., so the new Philips phone should fare pretty well in the future.

The I966 Aurora runs on YunOS from Alibaba, an OS that might pop up in the recently leaked Meizu MX4 Pro handset. The OS has been exclusive to Chinese manufacturers so far, but it seems that the platform is picking up some steam. The new Philips phablet is actually a powerhouse, with great specs to boast with. The I966 Aurora is powered by a quad core Snapdragon 801 CPU, clocked at 2.5 GHz and backed by 3 GB RAM and 32 GB internal storage. Philips also included a fingerprint scanner and a 20.7 MP Sony rear camera with dual LED flash, 8 MP front shooter, LTE and a massive 3000 mAH battery.

Since the Asian market is the perfect place for both selfie-phones and phablets, Philips probably has a pretty successful device on its hand. While the Philips I966 Aurora has the front camera to be called a selfie-phone, it also has the measurements of a phablet and a battery that should effectively power the qHD display on the smartphone. The Philips I966 Aurora price shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, currently retailing for $600 on the Chinese market. We don’t know if Philips is planning to release the powerhouse on other markets, but we will surely be able to get our hands on it through e-commerce sites like e-Bay. We don’t know the LTE bands the Philips I966 Aurora supports, but if it will be able to work with at least two U.S. carriers, we expect to see some people importing the new device in the future.