Dell opts for Android for consumer smartphone

Dell today announced a new smartphone, the Venue, adopting the Sony Ericsson approach of offering a vanilla version of the handset sans keyboard and a "Pro" version with a slide-out Qwerty deck. Sony Ericsson, however, is at the very least consistent in its choice of operating system. The Xperia X10 Mini and the Xperia X10 …

[JaitcH]

Dell should stick with computers ...

they have plenty enough shortcomings to keep them busy for years.

[Manu T]

re: Dell should stick with computers ..

They should. Only if they didn't fuck it up so badly like they did.

I guess to stay afloat they have no choice but to persue the handheld game.

I expected they'd back off after that stupid Axim v5x

[Benjamin Ford]

It's actually a masterstroke

Because Android doesn't support proxy servers on wifi connections. Hence making it quite useless in business environments.

[dogged]

Important difference for consumer pricing

Android is free. And can be fitted with cheaper specs than WinPho7 without upsetting Microsoft.

[Monty Burns]

Sadly... bad user reports

I'm desperate for a WinPho 7 with a keyboard and proper size screen (i.e. 4+) and this is the only one, sadly however, the units in use "in the wild" are reporting lots of crashes and lock-ups :(

Guess I'll have to stick to the Omnia 7 for now...

[Manu T]

consumer smartphone?

More oddly is their choice of Winphone 7 for the Pro version because Microsoft stated that WinPhone is (indeed) consumer oriented and Windows Mobile would co-excists for profesionals.

So Dell uses the least consumer oriented OS for the "consumer version" and the even worst professional version for the pro. They are are even more daft than most of the current "industry".

I predict another economical crisis in 2011. This time because corps are run by jackasses and greed is the driving force not "consumer intrest".

They use Android on the consumer version because it's cheaper to implement and will probably outsell the "pro" version by a big margin hence gain a lot more profit.

[D@v3]

winPho7

I thought one of the things with the new windows phones was a strict hardware set, part of which was no keyboard, and also no memory card expansion.

[Anonymous Coward]

India

Interesting that in India Dell have released the ZTE Blade as their own Android device.

[M man]

hackzaw anyone

with such close hw spec, i wonder how long it will before android versions of the pro will take to appear?