The Dell Aero: AT&T’s Second Android Phone March 29, 2010
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : Cell Phones, CTIA , add a comment
The Dell Aero– coming soon to AT&T
AT&T was pretty busy during CTIA last week, definitely making some big waves. We already saw AT&T and Palm announce that the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus would be coming AT&T’s way, but that wasn’t all, not by a long shot– they also revealed their second official Android phone (this not including the Nexus One that just came out with support for AT&T 3G), together with Dell called the Dell Aero (yes, Dell the computer company).
So what is the Dell Aero? According to AT&T– not only is it an Android phone, but the lightest Android phone out there. Design and specs wise, it looks to be pretty solid as well:
- A thin, sleek all touchscreen design with a 3.5 inch touchscreen with nHD resolution (or what looks to be a solid screen that should be fine for doing all your tasks from viewing texts to watching videos)
- 5 megapixel camera with flash and built-in integration with Facebook, TwitPic, Flickr, Picassa and YouTube– For direct uploading of your pix and videos to your social network site of choice, straight from your phone.
- WiFi, GPS and 3G
Unfortunately, that appears to be all AT&T is saying on the Aero right now, and we don’t yet know other details such as price, release date or even what version of Android it is running (though whatever version it is, we know AT&T and Dell customized it pretty strongly as you can see in the pic above which looks nothing like the stock Android homescreen we’ve seen on phones like the Droid and Nexus One), but we’ll make sure to let you know as soon as we find out.
One more pic of the Aero’s customized menu after the break.
Pix and info from AT&T
The Future is Now: Sprint Announces the HTC Evo 4G March 23, 2010
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : Cell Phones, CTIA , 3comments
We figured this was on it’s way, and today Sprint and HTC made it official. The first 4G phone is coming to the US this summer in the HTC Evo 4G (aka the rumored HTC Supersonic) and wow is this insane–like blow your mind insane.
I mean look at these specs:
- 4.3 inch multitouch screen with a 480×800 resolution– in other words, a crazy awesome screen (similar to that on the Nexus One).
- Thin, sleek design– think like HTC’s recently released T-Mobile HD2
- 8 megapixel camera with flash and support to shoot 720p HD video– yes, your phone can now record videos in HD! (Oh, and this is even better than what was rumored to be only a 5 megapixel camera– showing rumors aren’t always right).
- 1.3 megapixel front facing camera– for you guessed it, mobile video chatting! All I can say to this, it’s about time we in the US get this feature that’s been around overseas for awhile (though don’t get me wrong– I’m still pretty pumped about it).
Taking a video with Qik on the HTC Evo 4G
- Android 2.1 (with an updated, higher quality YouTube app to take advantage of the faster 4G speeds) with the latest and greatest version of HTC Sense (as we saw back at MWC)– there also is a 1 GHZ Snapdragon processor in here that should keep everything on the phone itself nice and fast.
- GPS, compass and WiFi with the ability to turn this into a mobile hotspot (like the MiFi and Overdrive), with support for up to 8 (!) users at once! The MiFi and Overdrive by comparison only allow 5.
- 1 GB of built in storage with microSD card slot (with room for up to 32 GB).
- 3.5 mm headphone jack, HDMI port (seriously, when do you ever see this on a phone!), and a kickstand for media playback (so you can prop it up on a table and video chat, watch movies, view pix etc. like you would on a laptop).
And of course– built-in 3G and 4G! This phone has both, which means not only solid 3G coverage when you’re outside of the growing 4G coverage, but also for when you do have 4G– you can now make a call over 3G while at the same time browse the web over 4G (something you’ve probably seen of in AT&T’s latest ads. This is pretty big news in its own right).
For the first 4G US phone, I gotta say, HTC and Sprint look to have set the bar really high. This is the future of our cell phones– truly a computer in our pockets, and now finally with the 4G speed to let you do all you could want, wherever you want.
Unfortunately, we’re going to have to wait till sometime this summer for this bad boy to arrive (and Sprint hasn’t yet said the price for the phone or the plan, if there is a different plan required for the new 4G devices), but again– wow!
We will of course be all over this as more info comes out, but what you think– are you impressed with this new 4G phone? Will this be your new phone (and would you switch to Sprint for it)? Sound off in the comments.
For more info on the HTC Evo 4G, see Sprint’s site here.
Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus Coming Soon to AT&T March 22, 2010
Posted by Eli Blumenthal in : Cell Phones, CTIA , add a comment
CTIA is still a day away but that doesn’t stop some big news from coming out early. It’s been a long time coming, but sometime over the “coming months” AT&T will finally release their own versions of the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus. The news was made official this morning, with the Pre Plus said to be coming in at $149.99 (same as Verizon) and the Pixi Plus at the very good price of $49.99 ($30 cheaper than Verizon’s Pixi Plus, and the price we thought the Pixi Plus should’ve been at all along).
Specs-wise, both of these are pretty much the same as the Verizon versions announced in January– WiFi, GPS, 3G, webOS, 16 GB of storage and a 3 megapixel camera with flash and video recording on the Pre Plus, and 8 GB with a 2 megapixel camera with flash and video recording on the Pixi Plus etc. The big add on for the AT&T Pixi Plus is that AT&T will also offer a blue backplate for the phone (a major change we’re sure interests you lots), in addition to the standard black and other swappable covers available for the Pixi.
These are definitely solid additions to AT&T’s lineup– giving you a full array of smartphones to choose from no matter what OS and design you prefer. Though seeing the recent problems Palm has been going through (their stock has dropped to below $4 today, with lots of speculation of perhaps someone buying the company), let’s hope Palm and AT&T make that “coming months” into a “really soon” real quick.
For all the details, check out AT&T’s Coming Soon page here, and Palm’s official blog post here.
Pic from Palm