Dell Aero Review

Background Information & Look n’ Feel

AT&T has recently unveiled the Dell Aero, which in reality is the Dell Mini 3 introduced to China and Brazil last year. The promotion of the Aero has been far from perfect. The company was forced to revise  the end product well after the initial launch. This was partly due to the negative market reaction to the phone, particularly on the software side.

In terms of looks the device is nice and sleek and surprisingly light. However, when you look under the hood the phone seems to be lacking.

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Software

We are going to look at the software of this device first because this is where it fails the most. The first concern is that the Dell Aero will either use the Android 1.5 or 1.6 operating system. This seems a bit bizarre because they could have easily used the latest 2.0 version of Android.

Initially AT&T announced that they would prevent the users from accessing any Google apps such as Google Maps, Gmail and the Android Market. Thankfully they recently announced that the final version of the Aero will definitely have the Android Market which means you can get your hands on Maps etc, even if the firmware does not include it.

Unfortunately this phone has had the best parts of android stripped out and replaced by boring AT&T bloatwear. Maybe one day AT&T may relinquish control and create a truly imaginative phone.

Hardware – Display, Keyboard, Battery, Communications, Memory, Connectors

The Dell Aero comes with a 3.5 inch TFT capacitive touchscreen. It has an accelerometer for UI auto-rotate, multi-touch input and a proximity sensor for auto turn-off. Unfortunately the touchscreen keyboard is difficult to type on, and possibly one of the worst implementations of a virtual keyboard on the market.

Inside, the Dell Aero is an HSDPA device with maximum download speeds of up to 3.6 Mbps, it supports WiFi, comes with a multimedia player, microSD expandable memory, WAP, USB, Bluetooth and GPS.

The phone also comes with a  5 MP camera that allows you to quickly upload your snaps to  Flickr®, Facebook®, Picasa™, YouTube and TwitPic. The phone also integrates your calendar with social network apps such as Facebook.

Other features include:  Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Google Talk, document viewer, Photo viewer/editor and an organizer

Availability & Pricing

This phone is quite a disappointment as there is nothing of great interest to drive the masses to buy this device. The phone is full of AT&T “crap wear” and it has a really awful keyboard. No information is currently available on pricing or distribution.

General

Status	Coming soon
Announced	March 2010
Network (2G)	GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900 / GSM 850
Network (3G)	HSDPA 850 / HSDPA 1900
Form factor	Block
Antenna type	Internal

Display

Type	Graphical
Coloured	Yes, TFT capacitive touchscreen, 262K colors
Size	3.50 inch
Resolution	360 x 640 pixels
	- Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate - Multi-touch input method - Proximity sensor for auto turn-off

Memory

- Photocall - microSD (TransFlash) up to 32GB

Ringtones

Polyphonic ringtones	Yes
Ringtone profiles	Yes
	- MP3 ringtones

Networking

HSDPA speed	3.6 Mbps
GPRS	Yes, Class 12 (4+1/3+2/2+3/1+4 slots), 32 – 48 kbps
EDGE	Yes, Class 12
WLAN	Yes, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g
USB	Yes, miniUSB v2.0
Bluetooth	Yes, 2.1 with A2DP
WAP	Yes
Browser	Yes, HTML
Email client	Yes
	- Android OS - Instant Messaging - GPS with A-GPS support

Features

Vibration	Yes
SMS	Send / Receive
MMS	Send / Receive
Camera	Builtin, 3.2 MP, 2048×1536 pixels, autofocus, geo-tagging
Java	Yes, via third party application
Games	Yes
Clock	Yes
Alarm	Yes
Calculator	Yes
Calendar	Yes
Voice memo	Yes
T9	Yes
	- MP3/e-AAC+/WMA player - Google Search, Maps, Gmail, - YouTube, Google Talk - Document viewer - Photo viewer/editor - Organizer

Standard Battery

Type	Li-Ion
Amperage	1000 mAh