Dell Mini 3 mobile phone coming to China Mobile and Claro
Dell Mini 3, the first smartphone from the house of Dell, will launch first in China, and then in Brazil. Dell has not revealed the price and detailed features of the Dell Mini 3.
Dell Mini 3 photo
Dell Mini 3 will run OPhone, the version of Google’s Android operating system developed by China Mobile. The latest version of Android is Android 2.0, which currently runs only on the Motorola Droid. (See the photo of Dell Mini 3 alongside)
Basic specifications
We still don’t have the complete tech specs of Dell Mini 3 but the first phone from Dell will come with a touchscreen that is 3.5 inches big.
The Dell Mini 3 will be WiFi-capable, but the model which will be sold in China will not have WiFi.
Dell Mini 3 on China Mobile and Brazil Claro
In China, Dell Mini 3 will be sold by China Mobile, while in Brazil, the Dell Mini 3 will be exclusively from Claro. The Mini 3 will make its debut in China towards the end of this month, while it will go to Brazil next month. China Mobile has the largest number of customers in the world – 500 million – and Dell hopes to piggyback the telecom giant to make a mark in China. Claro is the fourth-largest cellular operator in Brazil, with 170 million mobile phone subscribers.
Price will be key to the success of the Dell Mini 3 in China. Unlike in the West, Chinese mobile operators do not offer bundled plans. Without such bundling and subsidising, handsets like the Dell Mini 3 will be more expensive than they would cost in the West.
“Our entry into the smart phone category is a logical extension of Dell’s consumer product evolution over the past two years,” said Ron Garriques, President, Dell Global Consumer Group. “We are developing smaller and smarter mobile products that enable our customers to take their internet experience out of the home and do the things they want to do whenever and wherever they want.“
It is not clear whether Dell will lock the phones to the respective networks when they are launched in China and Brazil. Without operator-locking, anyone – not just China Mobile and Claro customers — will be able to buy and use the Dell Mini 3 on their networks.
China has WiFi rules different from most other countries, which requires that the smartphones sold there should comply with a WiFi platform which many handset manufacturers fear is a backdoor snooping device. For the same reason, hardly any smartphone sells in China with WiFi. That includes the iPhone, which launched in China last month at a hefty price of nearly $1000, without a contract. In contrast, the iPhone sold by AT&T in the US is available for $200 with a two year contract. Naturally, iPhone sales have not picked up substantially in China and India, where operators do not offer handset subsidies with data contracts.
Dell Mini 3 on AT&T?
A Reuters report said citing a source that Dell had initially planned to launch the Android-powered Dell Mini 3 in the US with AT&T. However, there is no comment on this from Dell yet.
Dell claims that earlier this year, it was the first mobile PC manufacturer to embed China Mobile’s 3G technology and services into its netbooks. Dell, which is a leading manufacturer of desktop and laptop computers in the US, has been weighing a foray into the handheld market, as the computing space has been systematically raided by smartphones, which often double up as handheld computers. Recently, mobile phone giant Nokia made its debut into the netbook market with the Nokia Booklet 3G. Dell’s flagship computer hardware business has been under assault from cheaper netbooks and e-book readers, which have weaned more digital citizens away from computers. Dell considers the Mini 3 as a logical extension of its technology range. The Dell Mini 3 is pegged as an answer, albeit weak, to the changing demands of technology-savvy customers.