If you're looking to give Windows Phone 8 a try but neither the HTC Windows Phone 8X nor the Nokia Lumia 920 appeal to you, help may be on the way: according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Taiwanese PC OEM Asus is working with Microsoft to get a license for Windows Phone 8. If true, this would make Asus the latest to follow Nokia, HTC, and Samsung in developing handsets based on Microsoft's mobile operating system—LG is also rumored to be working on a Windows phone for its Optimus line.
Asus is better known today for its PCs and tablets, including the Zenbook Prime Ultrabook series and the Nexus 7 tablet, and of late we've generally been impressed by their build quality. However, these hypothetical Windows phones wouldn't be Asus' first handsets: they're also responsible for the Padfone, an Android smartphone that slides into a tablet dock (which itself slides into a keyboard dock, to complete the transformation). The WSJ report implies that Asus may be interested in bringing the Padfone concept to Windows Phone, but that should be taken with a grain of salt given Windows Phone 8's more stringent hardware guidelines and the fact that the tablet-based Windows RT is an entirely separate operating system.
Asus doesn't have a very high profile in the United States (the Padfones haven't even been sold here), but it's on the rise worldwide. Along with Lenovo, it's one of the few PC manufacturers whose shipments are increasing year-over-year, making it the rare PC maker that is doing well despite the market's stagnation in the face of saturation and the tablet phenomenon. Still, the company wants to diversify.
"Inevitably, computing will not only be limited to the PC," said Asus Chairman Jonney Shih. "We have to be prepared for that."
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