Dell Shows Promise in Its Smartphone Forecast

The company hasn’t shown the same zeal and gusto that other smartphone developers have displayed, but Dell is finally in the game with some new, impressive devices. Details about a Windows Phone 7 smartphone and four Google Android smartphones are spreading like wildfire in the media. Many people thought Dell would never compete in the smartphone industry after receiving scrutiny over the years for not developing a smartphone in the U.S. Now the company has the devices to claim some significant market share.

Probably the most impressive of all the new devices is the Dell Lightning. This Windows Phone 7 device is expected to rock a 4.1 inch WVGA OLED display, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, both AT&T and T-Mobile 3G compatibility, 1GB of flash, 5 megapixel camera, 8GB of storage on an internal microSD card, GPS and FM radio. The massive display screen slides up to reveal a sleek QWERTY keyboard, much like the Palm Pre Plus. This device is also rumored to be upgradeable to LTE in 2011.

Much like nature intended, Dell‘s Lightning is followed by its Thunder. The Dell Thunder resembles the Lightning, only without the QWERTY keyboard. This Google Android phone also boasts a 4.1 inch WVGA OLED display, Android 2.1, an integrated Hulu app, 8 megapixel camera and AT&T 3G support. Dell should make it available in late 2010. Also of note, there’s a good chance we’ll see Flash capabilities in the browser!

The Dell Smoke, another Google Android phone, may remind you of the Palm Pixi in the way it features a front facing QWERTY keyboard. Not to be confused with any of Palm’s devices, the Dell Smoke is expected to run on a later version of Android, Froyo. It has a 2.8 inch QVGA display, 800MHz processor, 5 megapixel camera, 14.4Mbps HSPA, microSD slot, WiFi and Bluetooth capability. Unfortunately, anyone anxious for this phone’s debut will have to wait until 2011.

Dell will also introduce Dell Flash, another Froyo-based Google Android device in 2011. This model has a smaller 3.5 inch WVGA display, 5 megapixel camera, WiFi, TV-out, Bluetooth 3.0 and 800MHz Qualcomm processor. It too will have AT&T 3G compatibility. The last of Dell’s Google Android phones is the Dell Aero, which should also be coming to AT&T. This is definitely the lower end of Dell’s new smartphone line. It’ll be running Android 1.X with a 624MHz Marvell processor, 3.5 inch display and a 3 megapixel camera.

It will be interesting to see what kind of impact these new devices from Dell make on the market. One thing is for certain, Dell has stepped up to the plate big time with its new smartphone line and we can’t wait to see Privus Mobile up and running on them.