“Dell today formally entered the smartphone race by launching the Mini 3,” Electronista reports.
“The full-touchscreen phone depends on a customized version of Android and will have different features based on the region. While most details aren’t available, the China Mobile version will be limited to EDGE data but use the government-supported OPhone interface and app store. Other countries should get localized 3G and should also have Wi-Fi as well,” Electronista reports. “Most other specifications haven’t been published, but a 3-megapixel camera and a 640×360 display resolution are already well-known.”
Electronista reports, “The Mini 3’s first shipments are to China Mobile later this month and to Brazil’s Claro by the end of the year, but Dell has already confirmed US deals for AT&T and Verizon for early next year as well as Vodafone agreements for Australia, Europe and New Zealand, Maxis in Malaysia and both M1 as well as StarHub in Singapore.”
More details and images in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yet another Android device with yet another screen size and yet another feature set for developers to deal with. From Dell. Yawn.
Why doesn’t the headline say “iPhone Killer”?
Dell: Because nothing says market leader like starting sales in China.
Dell is single-handedly ruining Austin. Wait!?! Texas already took care of that!
Yup Mr. Reeee.
Deja vu alll over again. This is starting to feel like the long parade of “iPod Killers”
This turning into another race-to-the-bottom (like NetBooks) where cheap components, plastics, apps, etc will focus on lower price rather than higher quality? Talk about another nail in the Pre and WinCE coffins, and harder for RIM to differentiate.
In 2-3 years we’ll see this replicated in the Slate market with dozens of wannabe’s chasing whatever Apple has released at the high-end and the Kindle/Nook/Alex trying desperately to differentiate themselves from the masses of Google Android tablets.
Redmond copies OS and now retail stores
Dull copies mac mini (see http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/11/dells-zino-hd-is-a-candy-colored-mac-mini-killer/ ) and now iPhone
American innovation at it’s best
@tzx4 “Yup Mr. Reeee. Deja vu alll over again. This is starting to feel like the long parade of “iPod Killers”
You all are sooo right! Soon we’ll see stories about “Blood on the iPhone Screen” as these things are Discontinued…Can you say DELL DJ?
Has Apple somehow managed to sneak stupid pills into all their competitor’s water? First the iPod, and now the iPhone, have shown that the other electronics companies have no idea how to compete with Apple’s brand of innovation. There’s never even the slightest attempt to leapfrog Apple to the next big thing, the only strategy that could actually work. Instead, we get this scattershot of half-assed ripoffs, while the iPhone slowly marches on to it’s inevitable spot at the top of the market share ranking.
——RM
This is so great! It greatly helps with the balkanisation of the leftover smartphone market (whatever market share remains after iPhone). The more different touch-screen smartphones are there out there, the less likely any of them will be standing out of the crowd. It was easy for G1 to be a viable challenger to the iPhone — it was alone in that place. Today, with Storm, G1, MyTouch, Pre, Pixi, Hero, Droid, now this, neither of them will mean anything to consumers. It all becomes just white noise, while iPhone remains king of the hill.
Nice job, Dell! Good luck with your little device. Hopefully, will live longer than Ditty…
It’s the intense fight for the leftover scraps, after Apple defines the device.
Go to marketing meetings, what do you see? iPhones. Arts board meetings: iPhones. Political leaders: iPhones. Doctors: iPhones. Video and music producers: iPhones. College interns: iPhones. Etc.
More products for Dell to lose money on. I applaud Mr. Dell.
There is good news here. Redmond is not getting a penny for OS licenses with Android.
@ Meh,
I suppose you’re thinking Lib Dem Michigan pulled a winner out of their hats with Detroit?
How incredibly embarrassing to walk around with a phone that had a Dell logo on it…
Lets see how long this POS last on the market.
Dell phone = fail.
i.e.: “it won’t make any money in the market and will be discontinued within a year.”
iCal it.
Gee, MDN…
I hope that comment’s not too ‘inflammatory’…
Pathetic…really pathetic.
@LordRobin
Well said! And completely true.
@ KillBill –
You’re being facetious, but this is actually another example of the free market at work.
People (especially around here and other Apple communities) grouse about derivative work that copies and trades on the good ideas of others. But patent, copyright, and trademark law doesn’t protect an idea, and it doesn’t protect an idea for good reason — to prevent companies like Apple from having a great idea for a product and then demanding a premium price for it.
IF the idea is a good one, but can be executed at better value, the copiers come along and try — and if they’re capable of delivering an equivalent product experience, they’ll win. Either the original innovator has to improve value or the innovator will be forgotten.
Apple’s been on both sides of this — they WERE pushed to provide better value (via subsidies & lowering prices) for the iPhone because the premium didn’t support the experience in the face of also-rans that were “close enough” and a LOT cheaper.
The Mac and OSX on the other hand, can continue to be provided at a premium because the experience provided so far by the knock-offs doesn’t come close to Apple’s.
If Dell’s phone experience turns out to be just as great as the iPhone at half the price, then the iPhone deserves to be dethroned and cast down, with little regard for the fact that Dell is copying it. Survival of the fittest, so to speak.
The question is WHY? Why would Dell feel obliged to branch out into phones when it’s already having trouble in it’s main area of business? It reminds me of Microsoft’s seemingly insane obsession with being in every market no matter how divergent or frivolous. Dell is probably the last brand I’d consider toting around on a handset.
I doubt you’ll see that Dell logo on the face after Verizon gets thru with re-stickering it.
As for Android, why are they still using those Microsoftian blob-people in their graphics? They are so 90s.
Beyond hideous.
” to prevent companies like Apple from having a great idea for a product and then demanding a premium price for it”
I read that and laughed. If someone comes up with a great idea for a product they SHOULD be able to charge a premium price for it. No one is forcing you to buy it.
And FWIW your rationale about copyright and trademark law is wrong. An idea is not patentable but a process and product and the appearance of that product ARE protected.
By your standards the IDEA of having a really well functioning product should not be protected therefore Apple should have to share all their IP with their competitors.
Those aren’t even actual pictures? In one, the Dell logo is at the top, and in another, it’s at the bottom. Likewise for the two lights at the top part of the phone — in one image, they’re on the right and in another they’re on the left.
‘sup with that?
No attention to detail = bad omen for the workmanship of the unit.