Dell, Apple look to compete in Chinese smartphone market
Dell unveiled Monday a prototype of its upcoming cell phone in China, as both it and Apple hope to launch competing smartphones in the nation very soon.
The Dell Mini 3i is a capacitive touchscreen device with a 3.5-inch screen. It has a 360x640 pixel display and runs a version of Android known as the Open Mobile System. While the GSM device lacks Wi-Fi, has no physical keyboard, and has only 2G data speeds, it also sports a 3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, and an expandable microSD slot. The first images of Dell's new hardware were captured by the Chinese Web site mobile.163.com. While the new device shown is only a prototype, Dell has confirmed that it is developing mobile devices for China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in the country.
When the device is launched, it is expected to include downloadable content, including music and games. The Dell Mini 3i was shown as part of a new applications store for China Mobile.
The news comes as Apple has been pushing hard to begin selling the iPhone in the country of over one billion. Though it has been falsely reported numerous times that a deal has been reached, Apple and China Unicom, the second-largest carrier, are currently in negotiations to bring the handset into the country. A WCDMA model of the iPhone, without Wi-Fi, has already been granted regulatory approval by the Chinese Government. The new hardware reportedly opertes on the 900MHz, 1700MHz and 1900MHz bands, includes Bluetooth, and has been certified for use in China for the next five years.
Early this year, Dell was strongly rumored to be entering the cell phone market in the near future. Then, in March, U.S. carriers reportedly saw a prototype of the device, only to reject it.
While Dell is the world's second-largest PC maker, it is interested in entering the smartphone market, which carries much higher margins than computers. Dell previously sold PDAs under the Axim brand, but this would be the hardware-maker's first foray into the cell phone world.
The Dell Mini 3i is a capacitive touchscreen device with a 3.5-inch screen. It has a 360x640 pixel display and runs a version of Android known as the Open Mobile System. While the GSM device lacks Wi-Fi, has no physical keyboard, and has only 2G data speeds, it also sports a 3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, and an expandable microSD slot. The first images of Dell's new hardware were captured by the Chinese Web site mobile.163.com. While the new device shown is only a prototype, Dell has confirmed that it is developing mobile devices for China Mobile, the largest wireless carrier in the country.
When the device is launched, it is expected to include downloadable content, including music and games. The Dell Mini 3i was shown as part of a new applications store for China Mobile.
The news comes as Apple has been pushing hard to begin selling the iPhone in the country of over one billion. Though it has been falsely reported numerous times that a deal has been reached, Apple and China Unicom, the second-largest carrier, are currently in negotiations to bring the handset into the country. A WCDMA model of the iPhone, without Wi-Fi, has already been granted regulatory approval by the Chinese Government. The new hardware reportedly opertes on the 900MHz, 1700MHz and 1900MHz bands, includes Bluetooth, and has been certified for use in China for the next five years.
Early this year, Dell was strongly rumored to be entering the cell phone market in the near future. Then, in March, U.S. carriers reportedly saw a prototype of the device, only to reject it.
While Dell is the world's second-largest PC maker, it is interested in entering the smartphone market, which carries much higher margins than computers. Dell previously sold PDAs under the Axim brand, but this would be the hardware-maker's first foray into the cell phone world.
Comments
LOL
reason?...
"U.S. carriers reportedly saw a prototype of the device, only to reject it."
reason?...
There was a link: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles..._too_dull.html
and one reason why i like the iphone is it's easy to find apps for it. with winmo and other phones you first have to figure out your model and then see what games run on it. sucks if you buy the wrong model since no one thinks about that when they first buy it
can Dell really make a device as good as the iphone at a cheaper price?
and one reason why i like the iphone is it's easy to find apps for it. with winmo and other phones you first have to figure out your model and then see what games run on it. sucks if you buy the wrong model since no one thinks about that when they first buy it
Of course they can make it cheaper since apple does not worry about every penny in their products since they know how to create value and people are willing to pay that value. As we know Apple is not interesting in getting 100% of any markets at any cost.
People will buy, just like people buy other products which are not the best or has real value to them. Dell sold some Jukeboxes, but it did not return enough to keep the people employed who supported the product.
can Dell really make a device as good as the iphone at a cheaper price?
LOL, no.
Palm couldn't do it, using Apple talent.
the Pre owners are checking the app list everyday hoping a new one comes out
lol
and above that it seems like sms or some notifications, nevertheless why are the icons like apple's poor texans could not come up with a different size?
webOS needs some work, but the CPU and graphics in the Pre are the same as the iphone. The Pre is like the original iPhone, but people were expecting something to compete with the 3G S
the Pre owners are checking the app list everyday hoping a new one comes out
There is talk that the Pre’s CPU has been clocked down to save on power, that the iPhone’s GPU may actually be slightly better, not worse, than the Pre’s, and that the Flash in the iPhone is faster which accounts for why the iPhone still bests it on many tests. I don’t think any of those have proven or disproven at this point.
WebOS does do some things really well. I hope Apple adopts the WebOS and Android for notifications. The iPhone is just too limited, especially now that I have several apps using the PNS.
PS: if the link is up to date, there are 55 apps for the Pre, and they look really bad.
http://palm.preapplications.net/
Did anyone notice how close their icons were to the same style and shape of the iPhone's icons?? Can this get to be any more of a blatant rip-off... Or should Dell just call it a dPhone for the final insult??
the pic shows some app selection window, and the icons seem very like the apple icons
and above that it seems like sms or some notifications, nevertheless why are the icons like apple's poor texans could not come up with a different size?
Ripping off some things is actually good for Apple?s business because most people are not tech savvy and many will see the same look of the home screen as meaning they are the same thing, but if they have used the iPhone and then will quickly find out that fast hardware and nice initial UI does not make for a fast experience, nice transitions or a nice interface once you get past the initial screen. Dell can copy some icons easily but recreating OS X will not happen.
PS: Any word on what web browser they will be using in the device? WebKit, Fennec (Firefox Mobile), Opera?
PS: Any word on what web browser they will be using in the device? WebKit, Fennec (Firefox Mobile), Opera?
My bet is on Lynx.
Screenshot: http://images.apple.com/downloads/ma...0309123248.jpg
No smartphone looked like an iPhone until there was an iPhone. Now they all do. Looks like Dell took an iPhone to a belt sander and further ground off the corners, gave it a tacky pink metalic shell, and cloned iPhone OS the desktop icons. Apple's competitors have no shame.
That isn?t completely accurate. The LG Prada was announced before the original iPhone and it had a similar physical design and similar UI elements. The icons sized for fingers were bound to come as touchscreens became more common. That is not to say that others haven?t taken many cues from the iPhone, but the foundation of many of these similar traits do seem to me to be natural.
That isn’t completely accurate. The LG Prada was announced before the original iPhone and it had a similar physical design and similar UI elements. The icons sized for fingers were bound to come as touchscreens became more common. That is not to say that others haven’t taken many cues from the iPhone, but the foundation of many of these similar traits do seem to me to be natural.
Fair enough. But how much before the iPhone was it announced, and how much in advance did it ship? I would not expect that Apple reverse engineered it from LG. I presume the Apple design was already set before they got a look at the Prada. As for form following function on touchscreen icons I don't buy that entirely. Apple's rounded squares are no more finger-centric than an oval or a circle, or even a freeform image of finger tip size. That looks like a rip off to me.
There is talk that the Pre?s CPU has been clocked down to save on power, that the iPhone?s GPU may actually be slightly better, not worse, than the Pre?s, and that the Flash in the iPhone is faster which accounts for why the iPhone still bests it on many tests. I don?t think any of those have proven or disproven at this point.
WebOS does do some things really well. I hope Apple adopts the WebOS and Android for notifications. The iPhone is just too limited, especially now that I have several apps using the PNS.
PS: if the link is up to date, there are 55 apps for the Pre, and they look really bad.
http://palm.preapplications.net/
I hear the nice thing about the pre is that you can do things like listen to pandora and surf the web or check email at the same time.
They both use the same arm CPI core but from different manufacturers
Fair enough. But how much before the iPhone was it announced, and how much in advance did it ship? I would not expect that Apple reverse engineered it from LG. I presume the Apple design was already set before they got a look at the Prada. As for form following function on touchscreen icons I don't buy that entirely. Apple's rounded squares are no more finger-centric than an oval or a circle, or even a freeform image of finger tip size. That looks like a rip off to me.
The LG Prada was announced very close to the iPhone?s announcement. The iPhone was annoucned on January 9th, 2007, whilst the LG Prada wasunoffically announced (I think) on December 15th, 2006. I think the official announcement came a week or two after the iPhone was announced. I don?t know if there were any screenshots of the Prada?s homescreen?s back in December. Unless one company has spies in the other?s camp there is no way that either copied the HW or UI of the other.
Form following function is only one aspect. There is also certain aesthetics that tend to evolve in a natural way. Rounding corners is not uncommon with finished products of all types. If we have the exact same size icon and the same arching for the corners one could form a argument saying that they did steal it as it would be improbable that Dell just happened to make an identical icon on their own. Again, that is not to say that Dell didn?t take Apple?s actual icon design as a template, but to say that the icon has beveled edges and is square is proof that they did steal it is a fallacy.