Let me take you by the hand and lead you into cell phone land. Dell – of all companies – has “leaked” its line-up of upcoming Android and Windows Phone 7 phones, and contrary to any common sense, they’re stunning. On top of that, Android has been ported to the iPhone (dual-boot capable, baby), and a clever tool has been released that completely automates overclocking your Palm Pre (Plus).
Dell phones
Let’s start with the Dell phones first. Engadget talks about leak this and leak that, but it’s obvious that Dell simply planted the relevant photos and specification sheets right in Engadget’s lap. There’s various Android phones in there, as well as a Windows Phone 7 device.
The Windows Phone 7 device is called the Dell Lightening, a beautifully designed portrait slider (a là de Palm Pre) with some impressive specifications: a 1GHz QSD8250 Snapdragon, WVGA 4.1″ OLED display, 5MP autofocus camera, 1GB of flash with 512MB RAM plus 8GB of storage on a MicroSD card, GPS, accelerometer, compass, FM radio, and full Flash support with video playback. If this is an indication of the phones Windows Phone 7 is going to run on, than the future of smartphones is looking pretty good. Expect this device to ship in Q4 of this year.
If Windows Phone 7 isn’t your thing, Dell also has a few Android smartphones lined up, which look equally impressive. The Dell Thunder is the figurehead model, with almost the same specifications as the Lightening (the camera is 8MP, though) but with probably an even more impressive design. This one will also get Flash, as well as an “integrated web video Hulu app”. Q4 of 2010, as well.
Then there’s the Dell Flash, which is supposed to be a cheaper but still capable Android phone. Specs are all a little less impressive compared to the Thunder, but still very respectable compared to today’s phones. Once again, it’s slated for a Q4 2010 release.
Android on the iPhone and Pre Plus overlocking made easy
This seems like a no-brainer: running Google’s Android on the iPhone. It has taken a little longer than expected, but PlanetBeing has managed to install, run and dual-boot Android on the iPhone; support for the 3G should be easy, the 3GS is trickier.
Overclocking the Palm Pre (Plus) has been possible for a long time now, but it has always been a touch job. Those days are over – a new tool has been released where you can overlock your Pre (Plus) to 550, 600, 720, and 800MHz with a single tap.
Pretty sweet, but of course, while Palm doesn’t prohibit you from doing this (like some other companies would), they do warn that this will break your warranty. At your own peril.
To me, the Thunder looks huge and bulky. It reminds me of american cars. The hardware looks hot, though.
The windows phone looks good tho’. I wonder how often the keyboard would get used? I assume that there would be a virtual keyboard and that you could also tilt the phone to maximize the size of it?
Maybe I’m missing something, but closed both phones look the same to me.
More or less the same shape, but it does seem thicker. But really what I still wonder is why the keyboard. Wouldn’t it be easier to type with a wide virtual than that little physical thing?
No.
Typing on a virtual keyboard (as I do on my iPhone) is HELL, even after having the device for months and months. I was not only faster, but also insanely more accurate on my E71’s real keyboard.
Even wide mode? I wouldn’t have thought that. O.K. Thanks for the insight then.
I will never again buy a phone without a physical keyboard for several reasons:
1) you cannot rest your hands on top of the (v)keyboard otherwise it registers presses.
2) You lose the tactile feedback (physical feedback) which is several magnitudes faster than the visual to physical feedback loop.
3) It is unpleasant to tap against a surface that does not shock absorb. It isn’t going hurt you but it is much more comfortable to type against a spring.
4) you loose a lot screen real estate. And text input is usually modal as a result (you enter a text input mode which is another delay).
I’ve had mine for about 4 months, i find my old mechanical keyboard to be _easier_ to use (i find it takes more concentration on the iphone), but I would say my speed/accuracy is comparable now on the iphone in landscape.
You also lose half the screen to the virtual keyboard, which can sometimes be a pain. A physical keyboard allows you to use the entire screen for output.
Ah. Another good point.
looks huge and bulky. It reminds me of american cars.
Talking of personal taste, I like devices and especially cars with charismatic looks. Modern stuff lacks looks, charism, and especially personality!
http://cutmesomeflack.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/hummer1.jpg *drool* <3_<3
If Dell want to test its capability in selling mobile devices, they ought to develop one or two different models at a time.
So many models (Aero, Lightning, Thunder, flash, smoke, streak, look glass) altogether, they must be out of their mind. And good luck with your strike back, DELL.
Edited 2010-04-22 17:33 UTC
You got two typos in there… It’s spelled ‘lightning’, not ‘lightening’.
Thunder looks good. Wondering if the two big ones also have handwriting recognition or if just their little brother can read. Hopefully Dell went all the way with a real recognition engine (something like the Newton had, but maybe something that works) and not something like Palm’s Graffiti. It’s one thing I’m sorely missing on modern smartphones.
Lightening means “to lighten” as in “make the colour lighter”.
I think you meant “Lightning” as is “electricity arcing from the clouds to the ground”.
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/04/21/huge-dell-leak-outs-smoke-th…
So let me get this right. They don’t prohibit you from doing it (like some other companies apparently would) but it will break your warranty, yet somehow that isn’t a way of prohibiting you from doing it? I see. Some of those dirty controlling mongrel car companies put speed and / or rev limiters on their cars to keep them within operational limits in an attempt to prevent injury to their customers too.
Virtual vs physical keyboards are very much personal preference. Personally as someone with big fingers I find physical keyboards on these devices abominable, as does my wife who is vision impaired. Both of us have no problems with speed or accuracy on the iPhone’s virtual keyboard. Who knows, maybe virtual keyboards just need a little more dexterity.
Physical keyboards also have more moving parts, so more to break, and are just another orifice on the device to get filled up with crap, and the last thing many people need is another orifice overflowing with crap.
As for the phones themselves, they look good. Good options, good specs, powerful OS choices so they should do well. Of course it’s only the beginning – every PC company on the planet will have stuff out before the end of the year and it would be foolish to think Apple won’t have a new iPhone too. But competition is good. It means that some companies have to keep innovating to stay ahead.
The difference between voiding warranty, and actively lobbying to keep it a criminal offence: you don’t get it.
No comments on Android on iPhone? I think it’s huge. Finally there is hope to use this iPhone for something useful and run whatever software we want. Can’t wait for the install process and any small issues to be ironed out. Seeya AppStore (ya so and so…)
Probably because most people that wanted android bought an android phone.
Seconded. The iphone Hardware isn’t the best right now: Slower processor, less pixels, non changeable battery. That might change with the new iphone, but not for long.
Apple’s history is to launch with competitive ( if not the best) hardware, but can’t keep ahead of the competition hardware wise for long.
Edited 2010-04-23 00:47 UTC
That may be, but work gave me one of these blasted iPhones so it would be great to get away from the Appleness. Choice is good. The more users of Android the better. More developers get on board etc. It’s a great thing. If this sort of thing never happened we would all be using Microsoft software on our computers instead of all the choices there are today (namely Linux).
The best reason to get an iPhone is the app store. The games selection on Android isn’t close to comparable. But if you don’t care about games then an Android phone is worth looking at.
A larger-than 4″ screen and physical QWERTY keyboard make the Thunder a behemoth, incredibly uncomfortable and unsightly to carry in all but the slackest slacks. And unusable with one hand only.
The Flash looks tremendously attractive, though. And it will be much cheaper! I know which one would I choose.
… but I was expecting a link in the article that I would click to view pictures of the phones. Of all the news that I can see (on pages 1 and 2) in the right side of OSNews, this one is the only one with 0 link.
You need to click on the Read More link at the bottom of the summary to get full article which has links