Dell Leaks New Smartphone Range

April 21st, 2010

Dell storms smartphone, tablet scene with 7 new devices

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 11:53 pm

I thought this week was going quiet down after the HTC DROID Incredible announcement, but then I just read about the seven new Dell devices over on Engadget.

The folks at Engadget were given details for one Windows Phone 7 smartphone, four Google Android smartphones, and two Android tablets that should be released from this summer to 2nd quarter of 2011.

I never thought Dell would jump into the smartphone game after all of the rumors over the years never produced a smartphone here in the US so I was quite surprised by the news of some pretty compelling devices.

Let’s take a look at these possible new devices.

Dell Lightning: Windows Phone 7

Image courtesy of Engadget.com

I agree with the guys at Engadget and think this device looks like the best device of the bunch. This Windows Phone 7 device rocks a 4.1 inch WVGA OLED display, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, both AT&T and T-Mobile 3G (not sure if there are two devices or if Dell solved the US GSM carrier issue with a single device), 1GB of flash, 5 megapixel camera, 8GB of storage on an internal microSD card, GPS, FM radio, and more. I like the form factor where the display slides up to reveal a QWERTY keyboard, similar to the way the Palm Pre Plus works. There is also word it may be upgradeable to LTE in 2011. Check out the post on Engadget for all the slides and details.

Dell Thunder: Google Android

The Dell Thunder looks similar to the Lightning, without the keyboard. It also has a 4.1 inch WVGA OLED display, Android 2.1, an integrated Hulu app, 8 megapixel camera, AT&T 3G support, availability in Q4 2010. There are some great images of the Thunder on Engadget.

Dell Smoke: Google Android

The Dell Smoke has a rather unique form factor for a Google Android smartphone with a Palm Pixi look of the front facing QWERTY keyboard. This device may be running Froyo (later version of Android) with a 2.8 inch QVGA display, 800MHz processor, 5 megapixel camera, 14.4Mbps HSPA, microSD slot, WiFi, Bluetooth, and more. According to Engadget you may have to wait until Q2 of 2011 to get your hands on this slim device.

Dell Flash: Google Android

Another Froyo-based Google Android device may be coming from Dell. This model sports a 3.5 inch WVGA display, 5 megapixel camera, WiFi, TV-out, Bluetooth 3.0, and 800MHz Qualcomm processor. It may be coming to AT&T in Q1 of 2011. Visit Engadget for the slides and more details.

Dell Aero: Google Android

The Dell Aero is available now in China and we previously heard it would be coming to AT&T so it was no surprise really to see this one eventually coming out from Dell. This is a lower end device that may be running Android 1.x with an older 624MHz Marvell processor, 3.5 inch display, and 3 megapixel camera. Engadget has more details and images.

Dell Streak: Google Android tablet

The Dell Streak (aka Mini 5) is a tablet device with 5 inch WVGA (800×480) display, 5 megapixel camera on the back and VGA camera on the front, microSD card slot, WiFi, Bluetooth, and support for AT&T 3G. Check out the Engadget post for more details.

Dell Looking Glass: Google Android tablet

The Looking Glass is a bigger brother to the Dell Streak with a 7 inch WVGA (800×480) display, Tegra 2 processor, 1.3 megapixel camera, 4GB RAM, 4GB flash storage, and SDHC slot. According to Enngadget the Looking Glass should be out in November.

Matthew Miller is an avid mobile device enthusiast who works during the day as a professional naval architect in Seattle. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

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Google To Release Android Tablet

Recently presented to you the leaked photos and videos that were released on Google’s blog as concepts for a future tablet device. It was widely rumoured that these images were those of un upcoming Chrome OS tablet; rather it seems Google had other ideas up it’s sleeve.

In recent news the New York Times revealed:

chief executive of Google, told friends at a recent party in Los Angeles about the new device, which would exclusively run the Android operating system. People with direct knowledge of the project — who did not want to be named because they said they were unauthorized to speak publicly about the device — said the company had been experimenting in “stealth mode” with a few publishers to explore delivery of books, magazines and other content on a tablet.

This (yet to be confirmed) decision by Google could quite easily be understood as an attempt to push a tablet product onto the market, in time to compete with the Ipad. The Ipad thus far has proved to be a very successful product but other players (notably HP and Microsoft) seem to think they have a better offering. It then makes sense for Google to also make an early entry into the Tablet market with an Android OS powered device.

Another way to look at this is that Android OS is the most logical competitor to the Iphone 4.0 OS. It is yet to be seen whether a Windows 7 powered device (e.g. the HP Islate) can succeed as a competitor to the Ipad due to the very fact that the Islate is using a “full-on” operating system. This then may have been Google’s ploy to compete using Android OS (another light, phone operating system) rather than using their “full-on OS” (Chrome OS)….I hope this is making sense; it seems to have made sense to Google’s product development team.

Nevertheless it is a welcome note that Google will bring some much needed competition in the Tablet devices market; even so this decision has also left us wanting. There is still little news of the much anticipated Chrome OS and it seems like the limelight has completely turned away from it.

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Dissecting Apple's iPhone 4.0's sources of 'me-too' inspiration

Posted by Larry Dignan @ 11:28 am

Apple launched its iPhone 4.0 OS today and the big news is that it now multitasks. Why didn’t I jump out of my chair? Because other mobile operating systems can do that. In fact, many of the iPhone 4.0 buzz revolves around technologies I vaguely recall elsewhere.

Let’s recap the highlights:

Multitasking: Apple CEO Steve Jobs noted that the company wasn’t to the multitasking bandwagon first, but will be the best. In any case, Google Android, RIM’s BlackBerry, Nokia’s Symbian and Palm’s WebOS also do the multitasking shuffle.

Customized wallpaper. Sam Diaz can explain this one from his live blog.

A quick demo of how to customize wallpaper for the home screen, the lock screen or both. It’s pretty easy and also pretty widespread on other devices - but Jobs has a way of making it look like innovative breakthrough technology from Apple.

A unified inbox. The iPhone now allows for more than one Exchange account. You can also organize email by thread. And attachments can be opened with apps. Inspiration here: RIM’s Blackberry and Android.

Gallery: Apple adds multitasking to iPhone 4.0

iBooks and e-book reader for iPhone OS. Your iPad books will now come to the iPhone and iPod touch. There will be wireless syncing to hold your place. Sound familiar? See Kindle Apps.

Better data protection and enhanced encryption. VPN support. Inspiration: BlackBerry among others.

Social gaming experiences. You can invite friends to play games with you. Inspiration: Xbox Live. Nintendo DSi.

Add it up and Apple’s latest iPhone 4.0 push has a lot of me-too features involved. If you swapped Steves (Jobs for Ballmer) at this keynote, the guy from the Redmond would get crushed with these features. The Steve from Cupertino gets applause. The best item from Apple here is the iAds app advertising by far. That’s original thinking. As for the rest of the event, Jobs should have linked out to the mobile platforms that had these features first.

Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Smart Planet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

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