Dell's Upcoming Smartphones Leaked

After the purported 'lost' Apple iPhone4 development unit saw the light of Gizmodo, news of specifications and images of Dell's up an coming Smartphone line have been leaked. PCworld, FastCompany and Hothardware have all snapped up the news and come out with their own analysis of the Smartphone, pre release.Veritable Engadget has run a story on each of the new units starting with the Dell Lightning, then the Dell Thunder, the Dell Smoke and finally the Dell Flash.

According to the information had by Engadget the Dell Lightning is a Windows Phone 7 device. This will definitely occupy the high-end of the the line, as it has 3G, a 1GHz Snapdragon processor coupled with a 4.1-inch OLED touch screen. It also has a slide out QWERTY thumboard.

Next in the line-ups hierarchy is the Dell Thunder, an Android-based Smartphone with the same 3G capabilities, OLED screen and Snapdragon processor. It does away with the slide out keyboard though, but is as gorgeous (at least in the pics) as the Lightning. Aside from missing the keyboard, it also differentiates itself from the Lightning by bundling up apps for Facebook, Twitter, Hulu and Youtube in it's app arsenal.

The Dell Smoke is a bit of a departure, form-factor wise from the rest of the phones. It's candybar shape and QWERTY keypad reminds me of some earlier Sony-Ericsson Smartphone from years yonder. It has a 2.8 inch TFT screen, 3G and a 5MP camera. It also sets itself apart from the rest by having mutilple account support for Exchange and Active Sync, plus VPN support for secure connections. It has every indication, feature-wise, that is going to be positioned as a business phone.

The Dell Flash is supposed to be the  'mainstream' Smartphone of the line that will bring Smartphone goodness 'to the masses', meaning it will be cheaper than current Smartphones in the market offering the same function or feature set. Also Android-based, it will be powered by a 800MHz Qualcomm processor, come equipped with a 3.5-inch TFT screen, 3G connectivity, WiFi and a 5MP camera. The Flash is also being touted as having a better touchscreen keyboard better than what's currently available in Smartphones today.

With Smartphone news being leaked hear and there, the Smartphone manufacturers are obviously gearing up this year and getting as much press as they can to build excitement. As I have been holding out the last few months, wanting badly to replace my aging Treo 650, news like this makes me want to wait some more. I have been mulling over buying a Nokia E63 or an E72 (if my budget were a little more biggger). Now I realize waiting a few more months will give me more choices and the best bang-for-the-buck if all these exciting phones come to market soon.