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Rumor roundup: Dell to launch first smartphone in China?

anthony   on 11 August 2009 - 17:08 · 4 comments & 2121 views

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Late last week TechCrunch reported that Dell was working on and was extremely close to releasing a smartphone in China. Now word is leaking from a source in China, 163.com, that the device is expected to launch this week. This would mark Dell's first venture into the smartphone market and it appears as if it would remain only available in China.

The device will supposedly be launching on China Mobile, the nation's largest carrier, under a new "Ophone" brand. Ophone is the way China Mobile plans on branding all devices running Android, and is expected to brand devices from Lenovo and HTC in the same way. All Ophones will be built with China-only 3G support, TD-SCDMA.

The Dell smartphone is rumored to be called the mini3i and one could assume if it follows the naming structure of Dell netbooks, the screen size would be roughly three inches. Not much has leaked in terms of hardware specifics but the device would be a full touchscreen without a physical keyboard. Neither Dell China or China Mobile would confirm rumors of the mini3i, but Dell has said as recently as last month that they are working on a smartphone.

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(1 reply) #1 MistaT40 on 11 Aug 2009 - 18:10
Should be interesting but it's a much tougher market to get in now.
#1.1 zhouij on 12 Aug 2009 - 00:54
That's probably why they started in China first. There's over a billion people, and a lot of them didn't buy a cell phone yet, buy planning to.
#2 M_Lyons10 on 11 Aug 2009 - 18:46
Hm... It would have to be an amazing phone... It is a very tough market for sure. Making it only available in China also seems like an odd choice... Should be interesting to see...
#3 bubbl3 on 12 Aug 2009 - 01:34
Remember phones officially released on the chinese market don't have wifi.

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