Dell has just announced that its first smartphone, the Dell Aero, is going to be released by AT&T at the beginning of the second week in August. The pricing for this inexpensive consumer-oriented model running Google’s Android OS has also been revealed.
Dell was once a important part of the PDA market offering devices running Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system. But the company stopped offering its Axim Line when consumer interest moved to smartphones. But it is returning to this market with the Dell Aero.
AT&T and Dell officially announced this model in the spring, but at that time only said it would be on the market in the summer. The company said in a blog post today that the Aero is going to be released on August 9.
This smartphone is going to sell for $100 with an AT&T contract, or $300 without.
Preview of the Dell Aero
The Aero is going to have a tablet shape with a 3.5-inch, 360 x 640 (nHD) pixel touchscreen. AT&T describes it as the lightest smartphone ever running the Android OS.
Although Dell’s first phone will run the Android OS, it will have an alternate user interface created by Dell and AT&T. Nevertheless, it will come with the standard suite of software, including Gmail, Google Maps, Google Search, YouTube, Google Talk and the Android Market.
As a consumer-oriented smartphone, it will also come with a range of social-networking software, like Facebook. Camera images can be uploaded directly to Facebook as well as Flickr, Picasa and TwitPic, while movies can be sent to YouTube.
The Aero will be able to connect to the carrier’s 3G mobile broadband network, and it will also have Wi-Fi. It will likely include Bluetooth as well, but the carrier hasn’t confirmed this yet.
In addition, the Aero is going to sport a 5 megapixel camera and a microSD memory card slot.
AT&T and Android
This spring, AT&T released its first smartphone running running Google’s Android OS, the Motorola Backflip. At about that same time, it announced plans to offer the Dell Aero. Before then, the carrier had been widely criticized for ignoring Google’s operating system.
So far this summer, AT&T has released the Android OS-based HTC Aria and its first high-end model with this operating system, the Samsung Captivate.
Later this week, the Dell Streak tablet phone is also going to be released by AT&T.