Latest Mobile Phone News

Windows Phone 7 could have improved on the WinMo of old simply by being usable by humans and not designed by a Joker-like sadist. It actually goes far further than that, being a lot of fun to use whilst retaining WinMo’s power. The tiled, fully-sustomisable home screen looks fantastic on the Venue Pro’s 41-inch AMOLED touchscreen. Pull it upwards and you reveal a full, if cramped. QWERTY keyboard. Live hubs, including People, Games. Pictures, Music and Video, Office and Market Place provide plenty of content, though without folders it can become cluttered. Enter Windows Live details and the Venue Pro automatically syncs with your Xbox Live account, allowing your avatar to roam about the homescreen. There’s a good selection of games available, many of them on a free trial basis.

Rumours of the Microsoft June’s demise abound, but it’s still alive and well in WP7 phones. PC users will need Zimc software to transfer media, whereas Mac users have the significantly less confusing Windows Phone 7 Connector. On a related note, the speaker is very bud and sound quality very good. The 1CHz processor is swift and the AMOLED screen crisper than ihe E7S. But the five-meg stills are disappointing, while the 720p video has a poor refresh rate, appearing blurred and marred by noise. There’s no doubt that Windows Phone 7 has the potential to pose a ihreat to Apple and Android. Office lets you view, modify and even create Excel, Powerpoint and Word docs and yes, you can cut and paste now. Dell‘s chunky hardware is perhaps not the best showcase for it, and third-party apps remain in comparatively short supply, but it’s still a very smart system.

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Online seller Clove has revealed that the UK discharge date of the Dell Venue Pro has been pressed back to mid-February. The Dell Venue Pro has been long-promised; after being proclaimed in October 2010 the phone was supposed to launch in November, then the date waspushed back to Christmas. A blog post penned by Clove spaces the blame on Micosoft: “At the moment it looks like the delay is being caused by a Microsoft issue with the MMS settings.” Anyone excitedly awaiting a Windows Phone 7 with a corporeal QWERTY will be disenchanted with this news, especially as the gadget has been available in the US for some time. We’ve contacted both Dell and Microsoft to see what they have to say about the whole debacle but are yet to receive an official statement from either. Meanwhile Expansys, which was the first vendor to get its pre-order page live in the UK, states that anyone pre-ordering a Dell Venue Pro from the site can expect delivery in 31 days’ time.

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We have a contrast battle video between two Windows Phone 7 smartphones for your screening delight below today between the Dell Venue Pro and the HTC HD7 phones on the T-Mobile network. The Dell Venue Pro versus the HTC HD7 comparison video comes our way civility of the guys over at Daily Mobile and by way of  Pocket Now and delivers a finicky eight minute Windows Phone 7 comparison battle between both mobile devices.

The Dell Venue Pro is a weightier handset than the HTC HD7 weighing in at 190 grams as opposed to the HD7’s 162 grams but that is possibly due to the Dell venue Pro sporting a slide out QWERTY keyboard which the HTC HD7 doesn’t feature. The HTC HD7 has the superior screen of the two coming in at 4.3 inches while the Dell Venue Pro measures 4.1 inches, but you don’t want to hear about all that from me, you’d rather skip over all this and head on down to the video and check out this comparison for yourself, o get to it and enjoy.

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T-Mobile has declarated a full range of new Android phones this fall, and it gazes like the carrier plans to discharge more of the kind in January 2011. T-Mobile plans to release the Motorola Cliq 2 and Dell Streak 7, possibly on January 19.

The Cliq 2 will receive a honeycomb-shaped slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The novel Motorola smartphone is codenamed Begonia, and will be motorized by Motoblur atop Android 2.2. The Cliq 2 is also said to feature a 5-megapixel camera with LED flash, Bluetooth 2.1, Wi-Fi Wireless-N with Wi-Fi calling and possibly HSPA+ connectivity.

The specs for the forthcoming Dell Streak 7 are mostly unknown, though its name reveals that a 7-inch capacitive touchscreen should be expected, along with HSPA+ connectivity. The press images also reveal front- and rear-facing cameras.

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There’s no denying it – Dell Venue Pro is one glossy Windows Phone 7 device. Wretchedly, its release has been surpassed by reports of Wi-Fi connectivity issues that Dell publicly acknowledged. You don’t need to worry that your latest Dell Venue Pro will be exaggerated, as the company has stated that this connectivity issue ( it was a software related one, not hardware ) was present only in the initial phone shipments. Possibly so as to attract some of the alienated potential buyers, Dell is presently offering the Black 8GB Dell Venue for as low as $99 (with a two year contract with T-Mobile and a qualifying data plan). You can also get the Black, 16GB Dell Venue Pro for $149.99.

Consumers who don’t want to be tied to an arrangement with the carrier can get the 8GB Dell Venue Pro for $450 and the 16GB version for $500.

Powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, Dell Venue Pro runs on the latest Windows Phone 7 OS and features a 4.10 inch ( 480 x 800 ) capacitive AMOLED touchscreen, a 5MP camera with auto-focus and digital zoom capable of recording HD videos at 720p, 512MB RAM and 1024MB ROM.

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The eagerly-awaited Dell location Pro Windows 7 smartphone has appeared for pre-order on the Expansys website – outlining the final specs for the QWERTY-toting handset and a £500 price tag.

With five phones already on the market, Dell’s offering was always slated to appear quicker rather than later, even though we’ll be surprised if it does indeed hit the UK release date of 8 November that Expansys suggests.

The Dell Venue Pro brings all the glitz of Microsoft’s newest Windows Phone 7 OS with the addition of a keyboard.

Specs appeal

The specs are moderately proverbial, with a Qualcomm 8250 SnapDragon 1Ghz processor, 800×400 4.1 inch capacitive screen (we’re sure even if Expansys appears less sure) and a 5MP camera with digital zoom, geo-tagging and touch-focus.

For that £500 price tag you will also get 1GB of internal memory expandable through the microSDHC slot.

There is also AGPS, accelerometer, digital compass, propinquity sensor and actually you can use it as a handset too.

We’ll keep you informed if we hear a more authoritative UK release date, but we’re expecting the Venue Pro from Dell to land a bit closer to Christmas at the moment – but who knows, perchance it could come early for some Dell-lovers?

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Previous this month, we brought you details on ten new phones that run the Windows 7 mobile operating system, which comprise brands such as HTC, Samsung, LG and Dell.

We can now bring you an update on the Dell Venue Pro, which according to Ionut Arghire from softpedia.com, the UK can get their hands on the gadget as quick as 8th November. In the meantime it seems consumers in the US have to wait a little longer, hopefully before the festive season.

Expansys have the Dell Venue Pro up for a agreement free pre-order price of £499.99, which is the same price for a SIM-free iPhone 4. So if you had to choose between the two handsets, which on would you choose?

Because it’s a Windows handset you can stay up-to-date with your Xbox LIVE account, email, Zune music and social networking services. Just as a reminder, it comes with an 8250 Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz processor, a RAM of 512MB and has an internal memory of 1GB.

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It appears that shadowing Apple and the iPhone, Dell has for some unbelievable reason manacled the new Dell Streak firmly to AT&T as if you were under the impression you could purchase the Dell Streak off contract for $549 and unlock it to use on another carrier, you are mistaken.

Apparently Dell blogger Lionel Menchaca posted a tweet to clear up any confusion over the off contract $549 device by tweeting…” Lots of folks are asking about the $549 version of #dellstreak. To be clear, it will not be unlocked. It is SIM-locked to AT&T.”

So there you have it, another smartphone shackled to AT&T’s network much like the iPhone 4, but who knows maybe in the not too distant future the Android community may come up with an Android jailbreak for the Dell Streak to set it free from the AT&T stranglehold.

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Let’s get one thing straight. The Dell Streak, due to be obtainable from O2 in the U.K. tomorrow and likely from AT&T in the U.S. sometime next month, is not an Android tablet PC, despite the company’s self-declaration of same, and is not a competitor to the iPad or an iPad killer. I got my hands on a pre-production Streak prototype, and Dell’s more predictable Aero Android phone, for around a half-hour yesterday. And now that I’ve held it and played with it, I can tell you the Streak is not a tablet, it’s just a really large handset. A nice device, but still a cellphone. Why isn’t the Streak a tablet? As Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once described his legal definition of pornography, I know it when I see it. Streak has a 5-inch 800 x 480 pixel screen, and that’s not large enough to be defined as a “PC,” tablet or otherwise. It walks like an Android mobile phone and it talks, literally, like an Android cellphone. Ergo, it’s a handset.

Streak Features & Design:The Dell Streak is intended to be held in portrait mode – when you hold the Streak in its OS default landscape view, like a tablet, the now-familiar Android Home, Menu and Back buttons are stacked vertically on the side, unlike a tablet. When held in landscape, the Streak’s volume and on/off switch are on the top left perimeter, requiring an untablet-like reach-around to get to these oft-used controls.

Phone Functionality:Don’t get me wrong: I actually liked the Streak – as a handset. Its 5-inch screen makes a great viewfinder for the 5 MP camera and camcorder, if it has one, and is the perfect compromise size for mobile Web surfing. Its touch scroll is nearly iPhone smooth and offers multi-touch for pinch-and-zooming.

Battery Life:Streak’s got a hefty 1530 mAh battery, which likely accounts for most of its weight, but we’ll have to wait for a more formal review to determine real life battery life.

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Previously known as Dell Mini 5, Dell’s first Android smartphone, now called Dell Streak, has just been officially announced in the UK – where O2 will exclusively offer it via its own channels, as well as via Carphone Warehouse. The new tablet will be available starting early June – not long after Apple will launch the iPad in the UK. According to Carphone Warehouse, the Dell Streak runs Android 1.6 – but don’t worry, Dell is officially promising an Android 2.2 update for latter this year. The tablet’s other official features include: 5 inch WVGA multi-touch display, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, Google Maps, Twitter and Facebook integration, 5MP autofocus camera, 2GB of internal memory, and MicroSD card support.

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Apparently, Dell has had some things cooking in the proverbial oven, because they’ve all spilled out tonight. While the majority of them feature a different mobile Operating System, the Lightning features the upcoming Windows Phone 7. And, from the looks of it, even if Windows Phone 7 isn’t officially available, Dell isn’t messing around.

We’re sure that you’re staring at these renders in shock and awe, just as we are, because yes, these are remarkably good looking devices. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a portrait slider actually look worth it, and Dell has indeed made it worth it. Because, under these gorgeous aesthetic sharp angles, we’ve got some impressive specs: 1GHz Snapdragon processor, AT&T and T-Mobile USA 3G bands, a 5MP autofocus camera on the back, and a 4.1-inch WVGA OLED display.

Dell Lightning Specifications