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Handhelds Communications Hardware

Dell to Get Into Cell Phones in 2006 157

Posted by CmdrTaco from the game-is-changing dept.
prostoalex writes "BrightHand looks into the future of Dell Axim PDA line. X30 will be discontinued, X50 will get another update of Windows Mobile, and pretty soon Dell might be entering the cell phone business with PDA+phone Axim combo. The phone line will replaces the X50 model in mid-2006."
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Dell to Get Into Cell Phones in 2006 More

Dell to Get Into Cell Phones in 2006

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  • Fantastic... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jargoone ( 166102 ) * on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @08:45AM (#12347425)
    Dell level 1 tech support is what we need for cell phones.

    Are you currently a live human being? Do you have ears? Is the phone placed next to your ear? Is the phone powered on? Yes, sir, I know that you are talking to me this very minute on the phone in question, but I have to ask these questions in order to escalate your call. Once again, is the phone powered on?

    • Re:Fantastic... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @08:54AM (#12347495)
      Good example, but your tech rep's English is too good.
    • Oh man that's funny. Your example is so close to the truth it goes way beyond funny. No joke, but my last tech call went down exactly as you described it!
    • Dell have NO idea about business efficiency: My gf's relatively new Dell laptop recently shed it's little rubber feet. We asked Dell to send some new ones and Dell refused to put the parts, which probably cost them £0.02p, in a normal envelope so that one of us didn't have to stay inside all day waiting for a parcel and also to save Dell costs but noooo.... it had to be couriered in case the parts got damaged - they're flippin' rubber feet!!! They also came in a huge box with protective foam - what a
      • Dell refused to put the parts, which probably cost them £0.02p, in a normal envelope so that one of us didn't have to stay inside all day waiting for a parcel and also to save Dell costs but noooo.... it had to be couriered in case the parts got damaged - they're flippin' rubber feet

        when you are big enough to contract for courier service at the price Dell pays, then we can talk about costs.

    • Re:Fantastic... (Score:5, Informative)

      by nosse_elendili ( 147250 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @10:34AM (#12348493)

      Having worked as a Dell Level 1 tech back in the glory days (i.e. before overseas outsourcing), I have to say that I understand why they require these guys to go through the dumb questions. The VAST MAJORITY of the calls that come into tech support are really really stupid and I would say 75% or more of them are fixed by the time they make it through the standard checklist.


      Surely the typical /. reader isn't going to call in unless they have already tried all that stuff, and I understand how frustrating it is to those who actually know something about computers, but believe me the tech's on the other end are not justified in assuming that incoming callers are competent users.


      Insider Hint: the best way for the tech-savvy to get support is to use the online request service option. Avoid the phones like the plague. When you make an online request, take a few sentences to let the tech on the other end know that you have done all the obvious stuff. Since I know what they are looking for, I almost always get a "your part/tech is on the way" response within an hour.

  • My phone can already do pda stuff (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Organized Konfusion ( 700770 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @08:45AM (#12347431) Journal
    The biggest use of a pda is to keep track of appointments, take notes, and hold contact information - all of which my nokia 6230 can do NOW! PDAs are dying.

    • Re:My phone can already do pda stuff (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mr_z_beeblebrox ( 591077 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:09AM (#12347622) Journal
      The biggest use of a pda is to keep track of appointments, take notes, and hold contact information - all of which my nokia 6230 can do NOW! PDAs are dying.

      If you noticed they said it would be geared towards business clients. In the world of POS (that's point of sale, not Chevy) the PDA has the ability to replace cash registers. I would bet the new Axim/cell phone thing will have a built in digital camera and optional bar code readers. A cashier with a camera can speed up the RMA process and document abused merchandise. A warehouse employee could use all those things. Imagine a receiving clerk in Chicago receiving faulty merchandise and using his Symbol PDA/scanner to take a picture and e-mail it to his manager in Az to get a decision on receive or refuse. Huge benefit. The PDA is not dying, it is adapting.
      • Modulo the cellphone and camera bit (they used packet radio, though) Psion [psion.com]'s PDAs were doing that sort of stuff 10 years ago. I believe (have to admit to not keeping in the loop) that since they sold off their interest in Symbian [symbian.com] that's pretty much all that remains of Psion these days.
      • Check out this, which has a utility which extracts URLs from Semacode 2D barcodes.

        I used to be into PDAs, but the stupid bricks that are being pushed onto the market are obtuse, non-useful, and geared towards being sold, not towards usefulness.

        I get far more usefulness from my old Nokia 3650 [zhrodague.net] than I ever did from my fleet of Palms, PocketPCs, and others -- contact lists, calendar/alarm, games, news, and communication with other people.

        I might like a Dell, though I'd use it more for wearable wardriving,
    • um, no. not for everyone.
      can it synch the details field of your calendar, for example, rather than just telling you that you've a meeting? can it do wifi? can it run a vnc or RDP client? can it store a gig of mp3s on a cheap SD card? can you run netstumbler on it? i could go on, but i think you get the point.

    • Re:My phone can already do pda stuff (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dsginter ( 104154 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:17AM (#12347676)
      PDAs are dying.

      PDAs would have been dead a long time ago if the industry wasn't so greedy. For example, as you have illustrated, even the most basic of cell phones have had adequate PDA capabilities for years now. My Nokia 3588i certainly does. But I don't use it because Nokia wants to rape me to the tune of $50 for a data cable [nokiausa.com]. Then I have to get proprietary software. So I don't use this functionality and never will.

      If some bright spark in the industry realized that they could win most of the market over by simply offering a "non evil" policy on parts, accessories and service. For example, if someone adopted the USB standard for charging and data transfer, I wouldn't ever have to buy this shit over every time I bought a cell phone. I realize that the ultra high-end has already adopted this but there should be a friggin' law that requires all phones to adopt this policy.

      But our government is run by big business so this will likely never happen.
      • what the fuck @ $50 data cable, I can walk into any dodgy phone shop and get a unbranded datacable for £5. Also does it have infra-red or bluetooth? both of which my laptop has so I don't even need a data cable.
      • Beware wishing for a law--what would actually happen is that the gov't would require that you use ADA to program your phone, based on a blue-ribbon commission of tech-ignorant Senators.
      • even the most basic of cell phones have had adequate PDA capabilities for years now. My Nokia 3588i certainly does. But I don't use it because Nokia wants to rape me to the tune of $50 for a data cable [nokiausa.com]. Then I have to get proprietary software. So I don't use this functionality and never will.

        I think you are right about the greed part but "adequate PDA capabilities"? I use a Palm Tungsten for a PDA (connected via bluetooth to my phone) and wouldn't dream that my Nokia would be able to repla
    • I used to have a normal GSM phone (Ericsson T610). I quickly got used to and then addicted to the organizer functions. The problem was that I was spending to much time trying to work the organizer functions and typing increasingly long texts with that little keypad. I suppose some people can live with spending more than 10 seconds making an entry but I am simply to impatient. Also I quickly decided that I wanted to keep track of my personal expenses with the phone as well and to keep this and other personal
      • What I'd really like to see is a combination PDA+iPod+GSM phone with Bluetoot/Wifi, the type of snap on accessories of the iPod and that runs some form of embedded OS.X or Linux.

        I'm in for some of this too. Actually I don't think it would be too hard to make a sleeve (like the old ipaqs had) that had a battery and a 1.8" hard drive in it. The only problem is that the new hpaqs don't have the 100 pin expansion bus. Maybe the SDIO socket could be hijacked?
    • It's important to distinguish between the three classes of "smartphones".

      Type one is the PDA with a phone in it; e.g. i-mate Jam, Treo 650, Sony P910i, Nokia 9500. How I distinguish these devices is that they have a big touch screen in them. They usually have had the form factor adjusted to make them look just like big phones. You need these if you expect to enter much info into the device - because you need handwriting recognition/graffitti/a QWERTY keyboard. This new Dell sounds like it will be one of th

    • You had me until you said PDAs are dying. (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The correct line is "BSD is dying".
    • I am actually using my X50v more as a remote control. Made my own application to select music and movies from a library, adding them to a playlist, select what to play, position in the track, volume, get lyrics on the PDA for a song, get the album cover. Retrieve a sound or video stream, weather, and a lot of other things from my HTPC server.

      www.toothcontrol.com
    • I just installed BSD on my PDA!
    • "The biggest use of a pda is to keep track of appointments, take notes, and hold contact information - all of which my nokia 6230 can do NOW! PDAs are dying."

      Heh. PDAs aren't going anywhere.

      1.) First generation pdas basically kept track of appts. Modern pdas are now becoming music/movie players as well as web browsers, thanks to 802.11.

      2.) Phones are too small. The larger screens of PDAs are more appealing for more productive stuff.

      3.) Though I agree that it's difficult to buy a PDA if you've got

  • Great for Competition (Score:4, Interesting)

    by pholower ( 739868 ) * <longwoodtrailNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @08:46AM (#12347432) Homepage Journal
    Although this seems like a mistake, Dell may actually be able to encourage the market on cheaper smart phones. The article, if you read, went into absolutely no detail about the phone but one can assume it is a smartphone. With competitive forces like Dell (which seems to be all dell is good at as of late) Treo and Blackberry are going to have a run for their money. I am all for more choices and better competition in this market, but to whom will they offer their services will be the next question. Will it be a brand specific deal, or will they provide to the masses and make it available to all major carriers?

    • Re:Great for Competition (Score:4, Insightful)

      by stecoop ( 759508 ) * on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:02AM (#12347563) Journal
      Your tickling one of my biggest gripes with cell phones today - carrier specific phones. Maybe one day the hardware will be powerful enough so that software will talk to whatever technology is used. A new technology arrives, great, get a software upgrade instead of new hardware. But this isn't specific to cell phones either - how many 802.11 technologies have you gone through?

      • That's not the problem. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by numbski ( 515011 ) <numbski@hk[ ]ver.net ['sil' in gap]> on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:18AM (#12347678) Homepage Journal
        The problem is that most cell phones aren't sold at what they're worth. They are sold at a loss, the price being subsidised by the major carriers. This is why the iPod phone between Apple and Motorola is being delayed. No one wants to subsidize it, becase the carriers are being greedy.

        As I see it right now, Apple could sell a GPRS phone outright with no problems. Plug in a sim card and you're good to go. The problem is, most people aren't willing to shell out $600 for a phone. $300, maybe, but not $600.

        Sprint ("The first to build our own, all digital network from the ground up.") and CDMA technology is stagnating, and to make matters worse, you can't use just any CDMA phone, you have to use one they've approved.

        The main reason I'm looking to move to a GPRS carrier when my contract is up. I want a bluetooth phone that will nicely sync with iSync, and for extra credit I want either a native imap client (not a java one, that's what I use now) or native ssh. My Sony-Ericson, Sprint forsaken phone is buggy as all get out. I can't even answer a phone call while in hands-free mode. The call gets garbled. :(
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • The problem is that most cell phones aren't sold at what they're worth.

          I have to disagree. The market dictates the value of the product. In fact, I think the subsidy from the carriers is causing the price of cell phone prices to be inflated. Think about it; that would buy a cell phone for 600+ dollars? No one, I can get a fully functional handheld computer and kick in the transceiver for that price.

          CDMA technology is stagnating

          CDMA is very popular in Asian markets and they have streaming videophon
        • I want a bluetooth phone that will nicely sync with iSync, and for extra credit I want either a native imap client (not a java one, that's what I use now) or native ssh.

          Let me save you some time: what you're looking for does not exist if you're a T-Mobile customer. I've done gobs of research into this, and I've come up empty. What I wanted was:

          • A phone with BT that I could sync with iSync, and use as a GPRS modem with my Powerbook or with a Palm (see below)
          • A Palm handheld with BT that I could use as a t
    • Time will Tell if Yet Another MicroSoft Handheld will make a difference.
      For me, the Treo does all that, and, more, does not kowtow to Redmond.
      Fight the power.
  • now we can enjoy that famous dell quality and rebranding of other people's products in phones, tool...with my old university's experience with the poor quality of their laptops I just gotta wonder why so many institutions buy them
    • I have a ton of clients who use Dell and Dell only. They bring us a ton of business, because of the shoddy quality of the equipment.

      I have one major client that only used Dell that we've switched to the labelled brand my shop sells (assembled by our local wholesaler, but we handpick the parts, even on the notebooks.) No problems yet with hardware failures, but we also use all real Intel motherboards for them. Yes, I'm sure we could assemble them ourselves, but this saves so much time, and doesn't cost

      • I'll agree with the shotty equiptment complaint, however you get what you pay for. I too use to build custom machines out of quality hardware. Granted, I didn't build that many, but one thing was true: The lifespan of a custom machine wasn't that much longer than a cheap premade.

        In general, a custom machine ran around $1500 and a typical lifespan was around 4-5 years. My last (and most quality machine) only lasted 2 years. It was a large disappointment and a learning lesson too. Bang for the buck just

        • I agree that we're living in a throw away society, and I always try to squeeze that extra live out of old machines (I have an old HP a customer just left at the shop after purchasing a new machine I'm using as a Linux box to teach myself about Apache, for example.) And true, most machines are obsolete in just a few years.

          In the case of this client, the machines will be used well past their prime. Most of the work done on them consists of MS Office, web browsing, e-mail, etc. The hardest thing on them i
    • I just gotta wonder why so many institutions buy them

      'Cause their cheap and institutions (like many people) are greedy SOB's who only care about money, and are willing to sacrifice any amount of quality for even the smallest decrease in price?

      Just a guess.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) * on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @08:46AM (#12347440)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Commodity phones, the end of innovation? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by amichalo ( 132545 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @08:58AM (#12347535)
      While that might seem a good thing, remember that the commoditization of the PC industry essentially sucked the innovation from it.

      Cheers to that statement! I believe it is because the obvious competetive advantage in any market is price. You can always try to sell the same thing as your neighbor for $1 less and try to gain market share. Thinking differently and actually innovating is risky because if people don't like your innovation, you wasted R&D and manufacturing on a product you have to discount to sell. So the safe thing is to cut into your margins or try to gain operational efficiencies and economies of scale to offer lower prices a la Dell and Walmart.

      PCs have gotten faster, but for the most part, there hasn't been a surprise, a new way of doing things, in PCs and in personal computing, since the early nineties.

      I am not so certain this is try. Check out what the last ten years have brought us:
      - common usage of PDAs/Treos/Blackberries
      - alternative 'entertainment' usage for PCs as the home music/video server

      I do believe that the market is stagnating because it is presided over by large vendors (Dell/HP/IBM/Toshiba) who don't innovate, they duplicate while improving efficiencies to lower cost. In both of the markets above (just like HP has the iPaq) I think we will see more of the big vendors getting into things. Don't believe me, just Google for how many people are loving the Mac mini in their entertainment center at home and Apple doesn't even have a movie store yet!
      • I am not so certain this is try. Check out what the last ten years have brought us:
        - common usage of PDAs/Treos/Blackberries

        The rise of this market was independent of anthing happening in the PC (i.e., Wintel) world.
        • The rise of this market was independent of anthing happening in the PC (i.e., Wintel) world.

          I disagree. THe PC world brought us the digital communication era. It was the need to have email, calendaring, and contacts available from a remote (palm top) device that made PDAs/Treos/Blackberries even possible.

          If this were not the case, then why was the Apple Newton an ultimate failure, though the Palm devices ignited the market? (hint: Newton was introduced before the availability of the information noted abo
          • I disagree. The Newton failed for a number of well-known reasons. It was too expensive, too large, the hand-writing recognition software was not good enough, and it only interacted well with an economically marginally platform. Palm -- started by ex-Newton employees -- solved all of these problems. The generations of the Palm that gained market share worked as well or better with Macs as PCs.

            The PC was the industry-standard platform, but it doesn't get credit for all independent technological inventions o

    • Not to worry. (Score:5, Funny)

      by Johnny Mozzarella ( 655181 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:24AM (#12347714)
      Apple is also getting into the phone market.
      With in 4 months Apple will release a phone using custom hardware and software that will be years ahead of anything else currently on the market. It will have more features yet be simple to use because of its revolutionary one-button interface.

      Within 12 months Dell will release a phone with twice as many features(only a quarter of which actually work), 104-key keypad with 24 programmable hot-keys and an AM/FM radio... for half the price.
    • Have you shopped for cell phones lately? I'd say we're already there. Heck, most phones won't work with all carriers, and manufatruers will make carrier specific models. It's not like you can go buy a phone, then chose your provider. A bunch of buy-'em-cheap clones might be the only force great enough to change that model here in the US. Otherwise, it's vendor lock-in and data-crippled phones forever. (What do you mean my new 810 has a USB port, but the only way to get multimedia is via a wireless pay ser

      • Re:Commodity phones, the end of innovation? (Score:4, Informative)

        by Cyn ( 50070 ) <(gro.nyc) (ta) (nyc)> on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @10:06AM (#12348207) Homepage
        Any phone will work with any carrier, so long as they are using the same base technology. You can't use a GSM phone on a CDMA network - nor can you use a dual band european GSM phone on an american GSM network. This is less and less an issue as more and more phones are becoming tri or quad band (There are four GSM bands, 850/900/1800/1900).

        You *can* buy a cellphone and use it with any carrier - what you can't do is buy a cellphone for pennies after rebate ... without a big 1 or 2 year contract. That's just the way it is in the US, the carriers set it up so that cellphones have no value, and their value is subsidized by a big early cancellation fee on a 1 or 2 year contract.

        Elsewhere, you buy your phone and get your service - and there's actual proper competition. If you don't like your service, you leave.

        Incidentally, carriers locking these phones to only work on their network is complete bullshit. You're buying the phone alongside the contract, and then getting a rebate. If they want to lock the phone to them, then you shouldn't be "paying full price and then getting a rebate". I've had mixed experiences with this - my t68i with Tmobile doesn't work with my current Cingular plan, but my v600 with Cingular (currently) was able to swap SIMs with my coworkers v600 with Tmobile [his similarly worked, but he needed to enter an access code to connect to Cingulars network - which is undoubtedly stored in my phone somewhere]. From what I've read, it's still quite common practice to lock them.
    • While that might seem a good thing, remember that the commoditization of the PC industry essentially sucked the innovation from it.

      You must have missed the article just below this one...you know...the quantum computing one about the teeny holes? The innovation is certainly there, and people are spending money to research these things. But companies ought to be allowed to try and make money on the technologies that already exist.

      To say nothing about the fact that commoditizing (that can't possibly be a
    • From very earlier on a compiler has been distinguished from an assembler. The compiler converts high-level language code into low-level, machine-specific assembly, and then the assembler assembles that into object code (I have a book on AI programming from the 1960s that attests to this usage).

      And nobody ever uses the term "linker" to refer to either a compiler or an assembler. They use it to refer to a program that links the object code produced by the assembler to to static blocks of code that get stuck

    • While you make interesting points, I don't think that the heavy manufactures (Dell, HP, ect) have much to do with this.

      The fact is, and as you pointed out, these companies just assemble the computers. They don't do their own R&D. They rely on technology component companies R&D and they just create the sum of the parts, the computer.

      While this is commodization, it's not as bad as you make it out to be. See the forrest for the trees. Each component that goes into the computer has gone through

    • on an off-topic note: why do we now call compilers "linkers" and use the word "compiler" to refer to code converters? That's just dumb. I used to think it was only tech-illiterates that used it that way around, but it's slipped into normal usage.

      As long as I have been paying attention to computers, which is about twenty years now, "compiler" has referred to a program that converts source code from a higher- to a lower-level language, and "linker" has referred to a program which stitches bits of object cod
      • While that might seem a good thing, remember that the commoditization of the PC industry essentially sucked the innovation from it. PCs have gotten faster, but for the most part, there hasn't been a surprise, a new way of doing things, in PCs and in personal computing, since the early nineties.

      Nothing strange in that. Commoditization is normal in anything that ceases to be high tech, bleeding edge. IT & computers aren't bleeding edge anymore. Period.

      And this is not totally bad and doesn't mean the

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @08:46AM (#12347442)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • The markets may be somewhat saturated, but for Dell to keep the Axim competitive, they have to move it into the mobile market as handheld gadgets converge. The only other choice would be drop the product.

    • Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)

      by swb ( 14022 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:15AM (#12347660)
      You don't think that Dell has any experience dominating a saturated market through business efficiency, do you?
    • and that move is doing very well. Dell rarely makes mistakes. They do make them but they also make decisions that work very well regardless of industry outlook. Moving into branded printers was decried by many as a waste of time but that hasn't proven so.

      Consider their corporate connection and this makes a lot of sense. Where I work is almost now all Dell. It saves time and money to single source many different items. Throwing phones into the mix wouldn't be too much of a stretch. They have establis
      • Consider their corporate connection and this makes a lot of sense. Where I work is almost now all Dell. It saves time and money to single source many different items.

        Actually, I'd prefer to specialize, buy all my computer equipment from Dell, all my printers are Hp's. Over the past few months, Dell's been leveraging the former relationship to take over the latter. I buy 3 servers, they throw in a printer. I will soon have as many Dell printers as Hp, and the Dell's are often higher tech simply because the

  • Good finaly compete with HP phones (Score:3, Insightful)

    by johnjones ( 14274 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @08:52AM (#12347481) Homepage Journal
    HP phones are good but they are VERY expensive

    its a no brainer for dell as intel provides the hardware and MS the OS

    its what all the support + blackberry people want as you can actually get decent applications written for them

    dont cripple them dell allow any sim card to be put in and they will sell by the bucket load

    bluetooth (for headphones) and wifi(for corp data) a must

    I hope they come to the UK market

    regards

    John Jones

  • Dell support (Score:4, Funny)

    by digitaldc ( 879047 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @08:53AM (#12347487)
    The new phone comes with an outsourced # key that connects you directly with their outsourced technical support. Only $4.99 per minute, press 1 for partial-English, all others please hold for the next available representative.
  • heres how its going to go down dell "thank you for calling dell my name is todd how can i help you" customer "yeah i think my battery is dead" dell "have you tried a system restore" customer "what!? no?" dell "well you need to do that if not it sounds like you need a new hard drive" customer "how is that even remotely possible!?........fine send me the hard drive"
  • Well, assuming Dell keeps up with its current trend, they will be including an Intel chip inside this future one. Not that Intel chips are bad, but it seems everything they build has an Intel chip in it!

  • Great... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @08:59AM (#12347542)
    Great...Now I'm going to have to listen to geeks talking about how they upgraded from a cellphone to a dellphone.

  • Unlocked (Score:3, Insightful)

    by petecarlson ( 457202 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:00AM (#12347545) Homepage Journal
    All they need to do is sell them unlocked with 802.11b data and VoIP support. At first they will cost a boatload, but it will help push other manufacturers away from carrier lock in. If anyone can supply data services, I see an entire new market for WiFi to the phone.
    If I could cover most of your city with WiFi, would you pay $10 a month for unlimited data at 1MB/s to your phone?
  • for the iPhone.
  • we don't need to have dell in cell phones too my grandma is already having a hard enough time trying to understand the foreigners on the other end already now when she buys the cell phone she has to listen to them again. Well at least we know that dell just wants out money and not wanting to put jobs in the America

    • Re:Me no Under stand (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yep, blame the guy who is outside of America. It definitely is his fault. What I don't understand is why can't an American company produce a cell phone worth a fuck?

  • Finally (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Jeremy.DeGroot ( 878927 )
    This could be what finally gets me to buy a cell phone. I've held out on phones because they don't do enough else to make me buy one (or they can do things like calendar and note-taking, but I prefer in interface of my day planner), and I've held out on PDAs because they're expensive and also aren't superior to my day planner. But if Dell markets a well-designed phone with serious computing power and a good interface, that may be the killer app that finally drags me kicking and screaming into the market.
    • Eh? You don't want a PDA, because you prefer paper. OK, that's fine. Paper is a very useful and underrated PDA technology; backups are tricky and it has capacity issues, but it is very versatile and you can't beat that cost/price ratio.

      But you don't want a cellphone because it isn't a good enough PDA? That's daft. You don't want a PDA, remember?

      Unless what you want is a GPRS internet access device... is that it?
      • I won't buy a phone, because it's just a phone. I won't buy a PDA because it doesn't do anything that I want to do better than a day planner. I do want a PDA, I just have historically tended to favor paper ones (I guess you'd call those PPAs). I'm not closed to the idea of changing platforms, though.

        • Re:Finally (Score:3, Interesting)

          by biglig2 ( 89374 )
          Who could ask for anything fairer? Here's some notes to help you on your way:

          PDA is better than paper because::

          You can back it up to your PC or memory card

          It can play music, video, video games (though you can put paper games into a Paper device. I like sudoku myself)

          Easier to read when it is dark.

          It can store a lot of info in a small space - you can load a memory card with a hundred e-books if you want.

          You can get connectivity for it and use it to surf the web (poorly), check your e-mail, ssh to your

    • PalmOne Treo 600 or 650 (600 is a reasonable price, but maybe more than everyone wants to pay, 650 I would call expensive) will serve your needs nicely, today. You don't have to wait for Dell to figure out exactly how much they can charge and get you to pay (hint: it'll be comperable to a Treo today).
  • They must bring back that pothead to do the commercials. Dell is nothing without him.

  • Good (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:04AM (#12347579)
    Having just had my life cruelly shattered in the realisation that the Sony Ericsson P910 is neither a good phone or a good PDA, I'm actually glad that Microsoft is expanding into the smartphone market through Dell.

    So far, my current P910 thinks that closing the flip means I'm done, doesn't syncronise with Outlook properly (all my mobile numbers are labelled as work), runs dog slow, can't call up numbers quickly to dial them, the keyboard doesn't suggest words, no quick way to enter a capital letter (no swipe-up movement like with Microsoft), inconsistent GUI including a complete failure to sort my applications by anything resembling alphabetically.

    Sure, the PocketPC phone editions have their issues too (random bugs requiring a restart, pitiful Outlook support, poor ActiveSync which often has problems syncing an appointment for an "unspecified error") but with Microsoft snapping a the heels, hopefully the quality bar will increase.

    • Not to be a Palm OS fanboy or anything but why have you limited your choices to Symbian and PocketPC OS? Believe it or not when equipped with the right apps, the Palm OS syncs with desktop MS software better than Microsoft's own PocketPC products.
      • Not to be a Palm OS fanboy or anything but why have you limited your choices to Symbian and PocketPC OS?

        Sadly, the main reason is that the Treo is only available in the UK on Orange and I'm not on them :(

        Believe it or not when equipped with the right apps, the Palm OS syncs with desktop MS software better than Microsoft's own PocketPC products.

        Very true, although in order to achieve better syncing (I'm assuming KeyContacts and the ilk) you have to use an application which maintains seperate databases

    • Aren't capitals done in Symbian by writing at the to of the screen rather than the bottom?

      And closing the flip seems to me to be a sensible signal that "I am finished with the PDA, switching back to phone mode now". I'm rather taken with the idea of a device that focuses on being a phone when I tell it to.

  • Bored! Bored! Bored! Boooooored! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Quiet_Desperation ( 858215 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:05AM (#12347588)
    I couldn't think of a less exciting headline.

    I switched on a business show on Fox News just deal with it, OK? They have decent business shows.) over the weekend, and the announcer, in his "what's coming up next" blurb, excitedly said, "you'll be able to watch television on your cell phone soon!" And all I can think about is how intercell handoffs still vastly suck even here in 2005 A.D, half my cell calls sound like they are from a deep sea submersible and how there's still dead zones even in metropolitan Los Angeles.

    Why am I supposed to be excited about this? Where's the truly NEW stuff? Say what you will about Tivo, but that was a device that fundamentally changed the way I do things in terms of entertainment. I actually watch less TV more efficiently because of it. I want things that make my life easier, not flashy gadgets that are created simply for the gee-whiz factor.

    Maybe I've seen too much. Maybe it's because I design stuff so far beyond things like this that I'm difficult to impress. I dunno... just getting old and pragmatic, perhaps.

  • Dell recommends Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional (it says so on their handhelds page) and offers only Intel® XScale(TM) processors in their handhelds.
    • and offers only Intel® XScale(TM) processors in their handhelds

      Much as I like bashing Dell, since Intel bought the StrongARM technology from DEC the Pocket PC processor naturally followed. It's not like Dell or even Microsoft is deliberately picking Intel here, they actually picked DEC and DEC sold the business to Intel.

  • That should be a hit! (Score:3, Funny)

    by ceeam ( 39911 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:21AM (#12347700)
    You guys are always complaining that they don't make a phone "that should only make calls" and without any auxiliaries? This is the answer - a smartphone from _Dell_!
  • Steve (the Dell Dude) was busted buying weed with his new Dell phone...

    "Dude, you're getting a Dell... phone"

    I miss Steve.

  • great! (Score:3, Informative)

    by utexaspunk ( 527541 ) on Tuesday April 26, 2005 @09:27AM (#12347739)
    as an owner of an HP iPaq 6315, I think this will be good for the market. The more competition there is in the market for PocketPC phones, the cheaper they'll get and the more they'll try to innovate.

    I've had my iPaq since January, and it has definitely impacted my life. I surf the web, play games, and listen to MP3's on the bus, can view the PDF bus schedules if I need to, I can sync with MS money, which is really handy because I'm terrible about keeping a check register. I think if these were cheaper (I got mine used & unlocked off of the company bb for $400) and there were a little more innovation, everyone would want one.

  • DellPhones?

    Kinda like the DellPod [dell.com] as I like to call it.

  • Finally, maybe some of the other companies, (Fido, Rogers, Telus, Bell), can join me in my little boat.

    Dell has sucked my consulting business pretty much dry.
    Now they get to see first hand what it feels like when your market is assimilated right from under you.

    Time to short some stocks and just become another Dell zombie?

    Seems our business climate these days are all about driving out competition and innovation through patents and outsourcing into foreign markets.

    First one to the finish line wins a shopp

  • DUDE... (Score:2, Funny)

    by kjeldor ( 146944 )
    You're getting a cell!
  • ...the weirdest part about this is, DELLRumors [dellrumors.com] hasn't said a peep about this yet!

    m-
  • PDA phones are awesome, I own the Siemens SX66. However, I don't think Dell should be venturing into the PDA phone market in terms of producing just another GSM or CDMA phone for specific carriers in the US or abroad. They could always sell unlocked phones, but for some reason I doubt they will. Look at the HPaq 6315 PDA phone as an example. HP could have sold it unlocked outright with all the vendors they have, but they don't.

    If Dell wants to beat out HP and their iPaq and all the new PDA phone vendors co

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