Keeping up with all of the Dell smartphone rumors that have been making the rounds is tough work; if you want the blow by blow, you can sift through the mountain of reports, but here’s a brief summation of where the rumors stand at this point:
The Wall Street Journal reports that Dell has been working on bringing a smartphone to successful completion for a year. They state Dell has at least two different devices in the works, one powered by Windows Mobile and one by Android. The company is also concerned with competing designs, working on touch-centric devices (à la Touch Diamond, iPhone) and those with physical slide-to-hide keyboards (i.e. Touch Pro, BlackBerry Bold, G1).
If true, this suggests Dell is grappling with a fundamental choice: do they go after mobile communicators like the BlackBerry and some Windows Mobile offerings (with keyboards) or do they compete in the touch-only market currently dominated by the iPhone? An interesting question to be sure (we strongly suggest door number one). It’s also entirely possible Dell could release more than one smartphone, appealing to multiple user preferences, but it seems unlikely they would release similar models with different operating systems.
Some rumors suggest Dell’s phone(s) could be called the MePhone (let’s hope that’s a working title) and focus on “customization.” Some of those same rumors put a release time later this year, namely September, though the announcement of a Dell smartphone is widely expected to come later this month at WMC.
We’ll continue to bring you wild speculation (err… news) as spills out. It’s impossible to say for sure, but it certainly looks like some sort of smartphone device with a Dell logo is on its way – for better or worse.
