Dell and Quanta on the MID trail?

I really do hate using question marks at the end of titles. Its a sign of doubt and that’s not what a blogger should be presenting to the readers. However….this one really is a question mark and worth discussing.

As usual, its a two-liner in an article about more general ‘computing’ subjects. This time its from Forbes who have just run an article on Michael Dell’s return to Dell. Credit also to Gizmodo who have picked up on it in their blog.

Dell and Quanta are rumored to be cooking up a smart phone together, the first real production from Ron Garriques and company. It would likely include video, an MP3 player and Internet access and be unleashed on the world early next year. Officially, there’s no comment on this product.

Internet, video, audio. All sounds good. But then there’s the ‘smart phone’ part.

When you say ‘smart phone’, ‘video’, ‘mp3’ and ‘Internet’ you’re usually saying ‘3 inch screen with style and pocketability’ and not only is that a tough market to succeed in now but if you want to talk about real Internet and advanced video for 2008 customers, you have to do some seriously advanced hardware and software engineering. The only way to get the right screen and thumboard size is to drop the keyboard behind the screen via a slider (N810 – I love that design!) or clamshell (Psion 5 – I love that design!), or have it as a touchscreen element as Apple have done. Then, you have to tackle the problem of the processor requirement by putting in a fast processor and/or developing extremely efficient code. Add an HSDPA modem, some storage, wifi, BT and the now obligatory GPS (my Wife is seriously getting into her HTC Trinity’s GPS) you have a big battery life, size and heat issue that really, no-one has solved yet. The N810 and iPhone are very close but they lack the final 3G component, some more software and that little bit of extra speed that is needed to make them ready for a 2008 customer.

Either Dell are looking at a new platform (Snapdragon, Menlow, Mobile-ITX?) some very specialist code (Android?) or they’ve basically thrown a few buzzwords together to get suckers like me to spread the word. I fear the later!