We showed you the other week that Engadget got their hands on a pre-production version of the Dell Mini 5 — they initially hooked us up with a nice gallery, but I’ve personally be waiting eagerly for a full list of thoughts, and according to the Mini 5’s popularity chart over in the product database, many of you have been too! Luckily, today is the day that Engadget has decided to grace us with additional Mini 5 info. They’ve done a pretty thorough write-up for a device which isn’t even ready for retail, but we can’t blame them — the Mini 5 is looking better every day. Be sure to watch the video walkthrough in their article, it’s the first thorough hands-on that we’ve seen (out of Dell’s hands) since back when the Mini 5 was known as the Dell Streak! Note the incredible vertical viewing angle at 1:10 in the video.

Or perhaps we should say base? Anyway, a Greek site has turned up the first look at the Dell Mini 5’s dock. The dock has HDMI out as well as USB port (likely to power the unit and transfer files from a computer) The Mini 5 [Product page] will be able to do 720p video as stated and demonstrated at MWC earlier in the week and the HDMI will help you get that to an HDTV. There is a rather peculiar video, on said Greek site, in which we get a look at the sleek dock. Unfortunately the camera doesn’t get up close and personal.

Hopefully the dock is either very inexpensive (bundled with the unit perhaps?) or offers some sort of functionality that hasn’t yet been revealed. It seems silly not have built HDMI directly into the device, but perhaps Dell is trying to squeeze some extra money out of those that want to use the device as a portable HD player.

via Engadget

We knew that Dell would have the Mini 5 [Product page] at MWC and it looks like Netbooknews.com has one of the first looks. Not really any new info, but the device being showed off looks extremely slick, and it is likely very near its production form (if not already there). The person giving the demo mentions that the device will be able to play back 720p video and even output at that resolution through a dock which will have an HDMI connector.

The speaker says that we’ll see the Dell Mini 5 this year, and “sooner rather than later. inch He also goes on to say that the general model for smartphones these days is a subsidy to make them affordable and that Dell would stick with said model.

You might come to Carrypad for news on the latest and greatest devices in the MID segment, but if you haven’t taken a moment to familiarize yourself with our Product Database (hosted on our sister-site, UMPCPortal.com), now would be a great time to check it out. In short, we have dedicated pages for hundreds of devices (with the latest devices being added as they become known), and use these pages to collect all known info on each device as it becomes available. The Product Database can also be used to search for and compare devices to find one that is just right for you.

We frequently link to these pages when referencing devices to present you with a concise sheet of info that will enable you to quickly become familiar with a device that you may not have heard of or would like to know more about you’ll find these links in brackets following the device’s name in our articles. For instance, using the Product Database to follow a hotly anticipated and upcoming device such as the Dell Mini 5 [Product Page] will make it easy for you to stay up to date on the most important facets of the device as they develop. You’ll find everything from specifications to a handy popularity chart. There is even a hand-picked list of important articles from around the web which has its own RSS feed for easy tracking.

Also, don’t miss the top 10 chart at the top of the Product Database which shows the relative popularity of the top devices in the database. Go give it a try!

Image for this post thanks to Engadget

Engadget has managed to get their hands on a pre-production Dell Mini 5 [Portal page] (aka Dell streak or M101), and they’ve got a nice gallery of the device up on their site as well as a brief video. Hopefully they’ll drop some hands-on impressions later, but for now it’s pretty much just visual media. I’m most interested to see what they think of the off-centered QWERTY keyboard which is offset due to a seemingly always present numeric OSK — the keyboard could make or break this device. Check out a few shots below and jump over to Engadget for the full gallery and video.

The device which was known as the Dell Streak for quite some time was officially unveiled during CES 2010 as the Dell Mini 5. Personally, I think that the name “Dell Streak inch was actually pretty sweet, but if they insist…

We’ve heard rumblings of a Dell smartphone for a while. They used to have a line of PDA’s called Axim, but they have been discontinued since 2007 and never picked up the phone component. Now we’ve catching glimpses here and there of the Dell Mini 5 which has be popping its head up once and a while since sometime back in October of 2009. At CES, Dell said that the device is a MID first and a phone second. The first major hands-on with the device came in the form of a video from Vietnamese site tinhte.com.

Dell was happy to show the device off at CES 2010, but were pretty reluctant to give much specific information about it. I don’t think Dell is trying to keep this thing under wraps, it’s likely that they have simply yet to nail down the details themselves. Retail pricing, availability, and carrier affiliation are all unconfirmed at this point.

Here is what we do know:

• 5 inch 800×480 capacitive screen
• Phone functionality with GSM SIM (despite being rather large for a phone)
• Accelerometer
• MicroSD slot x 2
• GPS
• Android 1.6 apparently heavily customized by Dell
• 1GHz Snapdragon CPU
• WiFi/BT
• 5.0MP camera with dual-LED flash, as well as a front facing cam
• 1530mAh battery
• Dock
  • HDMI out, speaker output
• Will be available in several colors, it’s been seen in black, white, pink, and red

Recently Michael Dell gave a very brief demo of the Dell Mini 5 to TechCrunch and stated that it would be out “in a couple of months inch. We’ve also heard release dates ranging from mid-year or as far out as the holiday season which is quite a while from now.

It seems like we’ll have a bit longer to wait until we’ll find out when we can get our hands on this sleek MIDphone.

I’m wondering if I’m the only one looking forward to this device? We’ve already got similar (albeit smaller) devices on the market, like the Nexus One, which has the same screen resolution, same camera resolution, and even the same 1GHz Snapdragon CPU (and it is running the latest version of Android). I couldn’t quite tell you why the Dell Mini 5 seems so compelling when compared to some of the devices that are already out there, but it just seems like Dell could do really well with this device if they can nail the right price-point. What do our readers think? Given what we know, would you buy one for, say, $400 with a contract, or $600 unsubsidized?