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iPhone to get 4.6-inch Retina Display, report says

Waiting for an iPhone with a larger display? Hold on, Apple might already be placing orders with suppliers, according to Reuters.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers
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The 940x640-pixel Retina Display on the iPhone 4S integrates 326 pixels per square inch.
The 940x640 Retina Display on the iPhone 4S integrates 326 pixels per square inch. Apple

Apple is said to have yet another product in the pipeline with a Retina Display, and this time it's an iPhone with a really big screen, according to a report from Reuters.

Apple is purportedly already placing orders with suppliers for a 4.6-inch iPhone Retina Display, Reuters said today, citing a report in South Korea's Maeil Business Newspaper. The phone is due in the second quarter, according to the report.

If accurate, that would be Apple's third device with a Retina Display. The others include the just-released 9.7-inch iPad and the 3.5-inch iPhone 4S.

The 960x640-pixel Retina Display on the iPhone packs in 326 pixels per inch while the new iPad's 2,048x1,536-pixel screen squeezes in 264 pixels per inch.

A relatively massive--for a smartphone, that is--4.6-inch glass screen would be a big step for Apple from the 3.5-inch iPhone. A larger phone may also allow Apple to include updated chips such as the A5X. That chip's marquee feature is quad-core graphics.

By comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket HD has a 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED screen.

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Apple enthusiast site MacRumors says the likelihood of the rumor being true is low.

"There have been persistent rumors that the next generation iPhone would carry a larger 4-inch screen. And we are convinced that Apple had exactly such designs in late prototype stages in China," said MacRumors.

Indeed, there were reports before the launch of the iPhone 4S that Apple was working on an iPhone with a bigger screen. But those reports predicted a phone measuring 4.2 to 4.3 inches, not a full 4.6 inches.