Dell is one of the largest computer vendors in the world and everyone was speculating that they should release their own Smartphone. The hardware giant has kept silent all these time dismissing reports of an upcoming smartphone.

Just recently, Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computers has officially announced that they are releasing a smartphone sometime in 2010. Details have not yet been released whether it would be based on the Android operating system of Windows mobile. But given their relationship with Microsoft, I would expect a windows mobile based Dell smartphone.

CEO Michael Dell pointed out the importance of the smart phone in their company’s future as he says that “mobility” is the theme. He notes that mobility would have a big impact on their PC business and says consumers buy desktop for power and price but laptops are what people really want. He also took a stab at netbooks saying that the market share would level out at around 12 – 15 percent as users find it difficult to work on small keyboards and screens.

I think if users would still have problems with netbooks, they would rather have a mobile smartphone instead which they can carry everywhere. Anyways, Michael did not confirm if AT&T would be carrying their device but said that China Mobile will carry the launch device and would be the market’s entry point.

Dell is known for low priced high quality computers, and I hope they carry that philosophy over on their smartphones.

Image from Dell.

Post from: EveryJoe

Everyone Needs a Smartphone, Including Dell

1. Inspiron 15 – The starting price for this machine is $ 578 dollars and Dell is giving out an instant $ 129 dollars in savings. The final price is down to $ 449 dollars. This computer is highlighter with it’s 3 GB memory and long life battery capability.

The main specs of Inspiron 15 are as follows:

Processor: Intel® Pentium® Dual Core T4200 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/1MB cache)

Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic Edition SP1

LCD Panel: Glossy, widescreen 15.6 inch display (1366×768)

Combo or DVD+RW Drive: 8X CD / DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)

Memory: 3GB² Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 800MHz

Hard Drive: 250GB⁴ SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)

Video Card: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD

Battery Options: 6-cell battery

2. Inpiron 15 (Upgraded) – The starting price for this machine is $ 709 dollars and Dell is giving out an instant $ 160 dollars in savings. The final price is down to $ 549 dollars. This computer is highlighted with it’s Windows Vista Home Premium, more memory, and more hard drive.

Processor: Intel® Pentium® Dual Core T4200 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/1MB cache)

Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Service Pack 1 64 Bit

LCD Panel: Glossy, widescreen 15.6 inch display (1366×768)

Combo or DVD+RW Drive: 8X CD / DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)

Memory: 4GB³ Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 800MHz

Hard Drive: 500GB⁴ SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)

Video Card: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD

Battery Options: 6-cell battery

3. Inpiron 14 – The starting price for this machine is $ 818 dollars and Dell is giving out an instant $ 219 dollars in savings. The final price is down to $ 599 dollars. This computer is highlighted with it’s Ultimate Storage Capacity of 500 GB hard drive.

Processors: Intel® Pentium™ Dual Core T4200 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/1MB cache)

Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Service Pack 1 64 Bit

LCD Panel: 14.0” High Definition (720p) LED Display with TrueLife™

CD ROM/DVD ROM: 8X CD / DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)

Memory: 4GB³ Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 800MHz

Hard Drive: 500GB⁴ SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)

Video Card: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD

Battery: 48 Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)

4. Studio 15 – The starting price for this machine is $ 993 dollars and Dell is giving out an instant $ 294 dollars in savings. The final price is down to $ 699 dollars. This computer is highlighted with its Tremendous value and good looks.

Processors: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T6500 (2.1GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB cache)

Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1, 64-Bit

LCD Panel: 15.6” High Definition (720p) LED Display with TrueLife™ and Camera

Combo or DVD+RW Drive: 8X Slot Load Super Multi (DL DVD+/-R Drive + RAM support)

Memory: 4GB³ Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 800MHz

Hard Drive: Speed: 500GB⁴ SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) with Free Fall Sensor

Video Card: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD

Battery: 56 Whr Lithium Ion Battery (6 cell)

Go ahead and avail of these offer from Dell which is good until 9/3. The offer page is found here – Dell laptop deals.

Image from Dell.

Post from: EveryJoe

Dell Laptop Offers Until 9/3

It seems that the industry is seeing some positive signs and are predicting a strong finish in 2009. The demand for microprocessors have increased and Intel has changed it’s third quarter forecasft from $ 8.1 billion dollars to $ 9.2 billion dollars. Other heavyweights like HP and Dell has also increased they forecast saying that third quarter would have a spurt in computer sales. I am not sure if Windows 7 has anything to do with this but it is definitely nice to know that these companies would not cut jobs going into the holiday season.

Dell has reported last week they experienced 23 percent drop in profits for the second quarter but this is still better than the analysts estimates. Michael Dell, CEO of Dell is confident that the second half of this year would be stronger than the first half. HP on the other hand has the same fate as that of Dell where their profits have dropped 19 percent for the first half but they feel they can get back to the game in the second half.

The economic stimulus package in China is expected to boost the PC industry and could be the spark to the economic recovery in the U.S.

I think this should be an exciting finish for the tech industry and these hardware vendors are making up for the lost profit in the first half, Microsoft is redeeming themselves via Windows 7, and both the software and hardware companies are relying in each other to boost their respective sales.

Image from Dell.

Post from: EveryJoe

Tech Recovery for 2009

After a few months, it was reported that return rates for Linux based netbooks was four or five times higher than normal Windows XP. At that time Microsoft was making a killing continuously announcing that Windows XP based netbooks was the right choice and Linux would end up in the return mail.

The cheap prices of Linux based netbooks when it first came out enticed a lot of consumers into buying the computer but later found out that the learning curve on using Linux was tiring and they sent the netbooks back to the vendor.

Dell right now doesn’t recognize this and instead belittled Microsoft’s bashing of Linux saying they were making something out of nothing. Dell notes that the reported return rates of Linux based netbooks were high compared to Windows based netbooks but it was a non-issue for the company. During the OpenSource World (LinuxWorld) in San Francisco, Dell senior product marketing manager Todd Finch, says that the return rate of their Linux based Inspiron mini netbooks was a non-issue. He said that they don’t see a significant difference between the return rate for Windows vs Linux. He said they are happy with the stability and technical soundness of Linux machines.

I don’t believe this is a non-issue for Dell but I’m pretty sure they want to continue serving this market and wouldn’t want to alienate the small Linux consumer market. Finch is downplaying this because they are offering  Linux OS upgrades to Ubuntu 9.04. Dell is into manufacturing ARM-based netbooks and smartbooks probably powered by Linux. In some areas, Finch confirmed that 1/3 of netbooks shipped are Linux based.

Earlier, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner said during the software giant’s annual financial analysts’ meeting that retailers selling Linux netbooks are experiencing return rates of four or five times higher than Windows returns.

I think consumers shouldn’t get caught up on the dollar savings of Linux netbooks unless they are seasoned Linux users. If they are using Windows then go stick with Windows based Linux netbooks. That should be simpler and ensure you don’t sent the PC back to the vendor.

Image from Windows 7.

Post from: EveryJoe

Dell Trumps Return Rates for Netbooks

In 14th place, HP is lagging far behind other PC brands, having postponed its 2007 commitment to phase out PVC and BFRs from its computer products from 2009 to 2011. Dell and Lenovo are still low on the list, though they do have PVC and BFR-reduced products on the market, though Lenovo lost ranking due to continued use of toxic chemicals. Nokia, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson are in first through third places, with the greenest practices.

Greenpeace wants PC-makers to eliminate BFRs and PVC from their product range because of the harm they cause to the environment throughout the entire lifecycle of a product.

Image: Greenpeace.

Post from: EveryJoe

HP, Dell, Lenovo still not green enough

Plus, it’s pretty doggone nifty to look at, showing a soothing, tactile feel that’s unlike anything else currently available. And there’s no keyboard or mouse, so I’m wondering if it’s meant to be a touch-screen tablet, or what?

All of this is still in the conceptual stage at this point, but Dell wouldn’t have commissioned the design if they weren’t serious about creating an all-in-one eco-rental computer. Right?

Sidenote: Does LOOP remind anyone else of that program Gateway tried years ago where you rented a desktop and they’d automatically upgrade it for you every year or two?

Image credit: Jocko Chan.

Post from: EveryJoe

Jocko Chan designs eco-friendly Dell LOOP

BSquare is the company the leaked out this information boasting that they have ported Adobe’s Flash Lite 3.17 technology to Dell’s Android netbooks.

The press release previously found here, has been removed. Those who had a chance to read the release notes, has posted the information here — Dell Android Netbook Outed By BSQUARE?

Image source from phAndroid.

Post from: EveryJoe

Dell Android Netbooks

I had been opinionated about using push buttons and organizing program files, worried about the rising types of blog fraud and spam mail, conscious about the precautions to be taken in a cyber cafe and disposing e-waste responsibly, sad about the layoffs and the Mumbai attacks, and excited about the Ancient Rome 3D and the LIFE photo archive projects. I also began an ongoing series on Cygwin: pre-introduction, introduction, installation. For all the things in between, refer the November archives.

I thank the readers for stopping by here, the fellow bloggers for link love, the spammers for spam that couldn’t be caught by Akismet, and the fraud bloggers for blog clones. Or not.

Looking forward to a better blogging experience this December.

Post from: EveryJoe

November Month in Retrospect

The best thing about Dell is the customizations available during purchase, and the upgradability and extensibility options later. The following are the initial features I went for: Ubuntu OS, 1GB DDR2, 16GB solid state drive, 1.1M pixel webcam, Obsidian black. Of course, the most important default feature is the Intel Atom Processor which is 100% lead free and is the lowest power-consuming CPU of Intel’s. The processor is also only slightly faster than the old Intel Pentium III processor.

If any of you are going for it, here is a tip. Don’t start building yours through the left-most column. You’ll miss the $40 instant saving that may otherwise be possible. e.g. If I built an Inspiron Mini 9 from “Build Yours” at the left-most column to suit my requirements it would’ve costed me $474, instead of the $434 that it did when I went through the “Build Yours With Ubuntu for $409″.

The product is rated 4.3/5 as of now on the Dell website. I shall post my review once I get to lay my hands on the baby. In the mean time, I should think of a good name. Any suggestions?

Image Source: Dell

Post from: EveryJoe

I Bought a Dell Inspiron Mini 9