When it comes to making money, Apple has it covered. Not only does their hardware cost more than anyone else’s, their application also cost extra. The Apple App Store is a hotbed of innovation and transaction. A place where developers can show off their skills and make a bit of money on the side. Well now there’s an app store for Dell phones too.

Not wanting to miss out on the cash cow that are apps, and to support the release of their new phones, Dell has opened the doors to their very own app store. Not only will it sell apps for Windows 7, but also for Android, BlackBerry, webOS and Symbian too.

The store offers support for a number of phones on a number of carriers and the headline says “Over 50,000 ways to make your phone better.” That’s a lot of time wasting going on as we find the app we want, then load it, then waste hours of our lives playing it. Of course it isn’t all about games, or frivolous pastimes, there are useful applications there too.

The front page contains apps as diverse as OfficeSuite Viewer, Dictaphone, Voice on the Go and MemoryUp. Of course there is also the obligatory Bejeweled and Tetris, but they are for once at the bottom of the page instead of enjoying pride of place.

The prices seem comparable to other app stores, with apps from $1.99 for Recordoid Dictaphone for android to up to $39.99 for IMPush for BlackBerry. The transaction is handled by PocketNow who accepts the usual cards and PayPal. The download seems to need to be done via computer, rather than a direct download, which is a pain, but not a deal breaker.

The range of carriers supported is good, with the big boys such as AT&T and Verizon covered, as well as smaller carriers such as Claro and Alltel. Most manufacturers are covered too, with just about everyone being in on the range of iOS supported I guess it isn’t surprising.

One thing that did surprise was when I tested out access to the dell streak on AT&T through the store. This is a Dell phone that pretends to be a tablet, but is a solid device. Unfortunately, you can’t access Streak apps on AT&T from the Dell store, you have to go to the Android Market. Make sense? Not to me.

Apart from that, Dell phones and a huge range of others are well served from the Dell App Store. Is it better than others? Well no not really as it’s just the same. If you use the fruit flavored phone you won’t find anything here, but if you use something else, there’s bound to be something you like.

The transaction process is smooth, has only a few steps and is relatively quick. Having to download the purchased app onto a computer, then transfer onto the phone might put some people off, but it’s only a few seconds of your life.

The dell streak was launched in June across the world, and has been relatively quiet since. As is our habit, we review new gadgets when they first appear, then revisit them a few months after to see how they fare. This give the manufacturer a chance to get a handle on bugs, issues and anything else that slipped through quality assurance before launch.

The big news at the moment is the new Dell phone, the Venue Pro. This new handset is set to compete with BlackBerry, and only time will tell how that one will go. However, the new phone looks to include lessons learned throughout the past couple of years, and seems a step up from previous releases. But we aren’t here to talk about that Dell phone, we’re here to revisit the dell streak.

The Streak is an awkward beast. It’s like the tall guy you knew at school, too big for class, too big for you, but really good at soccer or long jump. He seems awkward in some situations, but perfectly suited to others. That was my initial impression of the Streak, and it hasn’t changed much since.

The unusual form factor is what gives me pause. It’s a 10 millimeter thick lump of plastic, with a 5-inch LCD screen that looks not unlike a Sony PSP. This Dell phone makes a bold statement in a pocket, as it barely fit into my jeans. There is a nice lump in the front pocket that illicit a glance or two as I walk down the street.

It fits nicely in the hand and doesn’t weigh as much as the earth, despite how it looks. It has a smooth, reassuring feel to it. The Gorilla Glass front is clear and thankfully scratch resistant. There are four buttons along the side, a front-facing VGA camera and a headphone jack. There is also a USB port, which is nice.

The big battery is a 1530nmh, out of which we managed a little over ten hours continuous operation. Compare that to barely six for the HTC Desire, and things are looking good.

Performance-wise, the interface is fast and intuitive. The newest Dell phone firmware has speeded things up considerably and now we can flip and slide to our hearts content. Media is handled well, with our test MP4 clip playing seamlessly on the large screen. Detail was good, sound was great and it didn’t kill the battery.

Call quality is also good, sound attenuation is effective, and it seemed to clear out a lot of background noise in our tests. The dull Dell dialer interface is still there though, but doesn’t detract much from the overall feel of the device.

While marketed as a tablet, the Streak is a smartphone in our eyes. Yes it might reflect the fact that society is getting bigger, but it’s capable, colorful and can handle everything you throw at it. The camera is good, call quality is good, applications are good, it’s just, well, good.

The Venue Pro is the new Dell phone that uses Windows 7, and is coming to a store near you. It has had a lot of media coverage over the past week or so as it’s Dell’s new flagship phone. Despite that, it actually seems to be quite good. Considering the state of the previous Dell Aero and the Android phone they produced for AT&T, it’s going to have to be.

The Venue Pro smacks of being primarily a phone for business users. It’s solid, weighty and has a reassuring bulk about it that hints at longevity. It has a raised area on the back, and tough, scratch resistant glass on for the screen. It’s the same material Dell uses on the Streak, so we know it works quite well.

The Venue Pro just feels more like a corporate mobile than a sleek, shiny consumer unit. There isn’t anything in there especially for businesses users, not as far as we could see, but much like the Blackberry, even though consumers can still use them, they lack the appeal of the iPhone or others.

That said, the new Dell phone packs quite a punch, whoever uses it. There’s a large 4.1” screen, which is ideal for the Windows 7 interface. While the screen size does make the phone a little bulky, it’s much easier to see what’s going on, and to use the applications effectively. It’s a little larger than an HTC or LG Optimus, but not so much that it becomes unwieldy.

The phone comes with a QWERTY keyboard, with rounded raised buttons. Even pudgy fingers like mine could tap out a text message in a few seconds, and had no problem navigation my way round. Dell phones are relatively new, so we don’t know how hardy these guys are, but the solid construction gives us a feeling of confidence. Let’s just hope the electronics are up to the job.

The Venue Pro is a slider phone, which keeps the orientation vertical, which neatly circumvents the Windows 7 screen issue where it prefers portrait mode to landscape.

Hardware wise, it has a 1-GHz Qualcomm QSD8250 processor, a 5-megapixel camera, and 16GB of storage. This seems pretty standard for Windows phones right now, and so far has been more than capable of running the OS and applications.

With the phone comes some Dell phone goodies, such as a year’s subscription to Pageonce Personal Finance. If you get it through T-Mobile you also get Netflix, T-Mobile TV, Slacker, Telenav and other apps. To get the phone through T-Mobile you’re going to have to order direct from Dell, as these aren’t going retail. No T-Mobile store will have these in stock, so it’s mail order only I’m afraid.

From our brief test, the Venue Pro looks like a significant step forward for Dell phones. It’s slick, quick, and seems perfectly capable of handling anything you can throw at it.

I must say, that’s a very good looking phone!

If you want to see the phone specs, go here.

Dell has 25,000 employees who until recently were using Research in Motion (RIM) Blackberrys, but it plans to move them to the Windows Phone 7-powered Dell Venue Pro.

According to the Wall Street Journal Dell is in discussions with T-Mobile USA, the carrier for the Venue Pro, for buying voice and data in bulk.

Dell’s CFO Brian Gladden said that the reason for the switch is because the company competes with RIM.

Dell claims that the switch will save money and is part of a larger effort for the PC maker to convince its business customers to switch to the company’s smartphones.

But it is not all going the Vole’s way. Dell will also offer employees phones running Google’s Android, which is already used in some of the company’s devices.

Still, Microsoft will be pleased at seeing so many phones switched to its mobile operating system at one go.

Venue Pro over BlackBerry

Dell will shift 25,000 employees – about one quarter of the people it employs – onto its own Venue Pro handset powered by Windows Phone 7, and expects the move will slash the company’s mobile communications costs by 25 per cent. Not only is this good from a cost-savings perspective, it will also give Dell staffers some insight on their own products’ strengths and shortcomings since they will be eating their own ‘dog food’, so to speak.

As for those 25,000 used BlackBerry’s? Dell CFO Brian Gladden says that: ‘We actually had a conversation last night around creating a site on eBay where we can actually sell these BlackBerry devices.’ Ouch.

Cracking at the seams or just strategy?

This is definitely a major blow for BlackBerry to lose that many customers at once, particularly in such a high profile organisation, but it may also just be a strategic play to boost Dell’s smartphone ambitions. In this respect, it may be premature to say RIM is losing its touch with its core customer base – the enterprise space – but this does not bode well for the company.

Major Phone 7 boost

Furthermore this is a massive boost for the Windows Phone 7 mobile OS platform. Sure, 25,000 subscribers is a mere drop in the ocean when compared to the tens of millions of Android handsets shipping and the 14 million iPhones shipped in this last quarter, but it’s that particular customer base that matters. Having that many concentrated users sharing professional networks could be a massive seed and a catalyst for growth in the enterprise space.

And for Microsoft and the Windows Phone 7 mobile OS platform, any growth potential is good, especially with the all-out assault Apple and Google have launched.

Kolkata: Dell’s 3G phones XCD28 & XCD35 hit the Indian market! Android phones have already made to the India market, but Dell has recently launched its own Android-based smartphones — XCD28 and XCD35.

The features that will enamor the 3G phone are 3.2 megapixel digital camera, a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen display, high speed connectivity, WiFi and Bluetooth, FM Radio and access to Microsoft Email Exchange through Active sync, 200MB of internal memory that can be expanded upto 16GB using Micro SD memory cards.

Dell XCD28 also offers full internet browsing, a media player supporting multiple formats for videos, music and photos and features such as location awareness.

The 25 years old company that is spreading its holds tp capture the internet computing world into more accessible ways like cell phones at an affordable cost are looking to offer technology solutions to a much larger audience through their new launches.

And to add to all the delight of the tech savvy customers, Dell XCD28 is priced at Rs 10,990 while Dell XCD35 will sell for Rs 16,990 only.

Relevant sources confirmed that Dell, XCD28 will be immediately available in the market while XCD35 will be available by December 2010.

The dell streak is a hybrid device that lives in the space between a smartphone and other larger tablets or netbooks that you might be using right now.

Dell designed it to provide a wide range of users flexibility to do what they need with a mobile device.

Key features and specifications of the Dell Streak included:

• Google Android 1.6 OS (should get an upgrade to 2.2 this year)
• 1GHz Snapdragon processor
• 5-inch multi-touch WVGA (800×480 pixels resolution) display
• 5 megapixel camera with dual LED flash and VGA front facing camera
• 3G/WiFi/Bluetooth radios
• HDMI out
• 2GB internal storage and microSD expandable memory card support for up to 32 GB

Most all of the specs of the dell streak are the same as the HTC EVO 4G (processor, display resolution, HDMI out, microSD card) with the display size, camera resolution, and current operating system being the major differences. Personally, the higher resolution camera and 2.1 Google Android operating system are more compelling to me than the slightly larger display. The display size makes this much less like a smartphone while the EVO 4G is still very pocketable. Engadget shows Google Maps Navigation on the Dell Streak compared to the Nexus One, but I would like to see how the HTC EVO 4G looks instead.

The Dell Streak will be an interesting tablet device, but I personally think making the jump to a tablet over a smartphone requires a display size of at least 7 inches. Is there enough appeal in the Dell Streak over Google Android smartphones?

The iPhone 4 has arrived with all the fanfare of Gollem launching a new model of Precious, but does the Apple attack look likely to thrash the other smart phone big boys once more?

We’ve taken five of the hottest new and upcoming smart phones (and one wild card) and thrown them in the ring for a clash of the titans. Screens will shatter and hearts will be broken as we sort the phones from the fools.

We’ve put the iPhone 4 is up against the Dell Streak, the HTC Desire and the Samsung Galaxy S — and just for kicks, the old iPhone 3GS too. If we haven’t matched up your favourite heavyweights, let us know in the comments, and let battle commence. Fight!

dell streak

The dell streak is part of a huge-phone trend that includes the HTC HD2. The focus is on surfing the Web, rather than making calls, and with the Android OS on board, the Streak is well up to the task.

Big and beautiful

The Streak flaunts a 127mm (5-inch) screen, which backs up its claims to be a tablet computer rather than a phone. But you can still make phone calls on it, and even slip it in your pockets if you wear baggy jeans. Add that to a sleek, good-looking case and you’ve got a great smart phone for people who’d rather chat on Facebook than talk on the phone.

Lagging behind

The Streak runs the older, 1.6 version of Google’s Android operating system, until an update to version 2.2 comes later this year. When it does, the Streak will go from good to great, because right now it’s missing some key features, such as native support for Outlook email.

Read our full Dell Streak review here.

HTC Desire

The HTC Desire has been around for a while compared to the other box-fresh contenders, but time hasn’t dulled this smart phone’s charms — and best of all, a few months on the market tends to bring prices down, making the Desire the most affordable of these phones.

Android with benefits

The Desire runs Android 2.1, covered with HTC’s own special user-interface sauce, which we think adds handy features and makes the robot better looking. It sounds like a perfect world, but the customised version of Android could mean you have to wait longer for updates, as HTC Hero users have discovered — they’re still stuck with Android 1.5, and are starting to miss out on new apps that don’t support older versions.

Blinded by the light

The Desire’s AMOLED screen is stunningly bright and vivid indoors, but outside on a sunny day, it’s so reflective you can hardly see it. Luckily, we don’t get too many sunny days here in Blighty, but if you fancy making a call from the beach, get ready for some touchscreen trial and error.

Read our full HTC Desire review here.

Apple iPhone 4

The iPhone 4 doesn’t launch until 24 June, but that doesn’t stop us craving its curves. The networks are lining up to offer Apple’s latest creation, but despite the competition, this is likely to be the priciest phone in the punnet.

Refresh and renew

Unlike the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4 is a new design compared to its predecessor. An epically high-resolution screen should be just the thing for reading e-books from Apple’s new store and watching video filmed in 720p with the new 5-megapixel camera. A glass front and back looks slick and should be more scratch-resistant than plastic — but the moment before your dropped phone hits the concrete will feel like an eternity of pain.

Blast from the past

We’re excited about the limited multi-tasking and other new features of the iOS 4 operating system, which will be on the iPhone 4 as well as the iPhone 3GS, iPad and third-gen iPod touch. But video calling didn’t tempt us when it came out five years ago, and we’re even more indifferent when we can only do it between iPhone 4s.

Read our full Apple iPhone 4 preview here.

Samsung Galaxy S

The Samsung Galaxy S is slated to be released by the end of the month, but that won’t stop us from speculating about this crave-worthy phone. A huge 102mm (4-inch) touchscreen means the Galaxy S is another option for those of us with clown pockets or roomy handbags.

Super duper AMOLED

The Samsung Galaxy S is yet another phone in our battle that’s running Google’s Android OS, but it’s the only one with a Super AMOLED screen. It’s far less reflective than the AMOLED type, so unlike the HTC Desire, we should be able to see the Galaxy S when we’re strolling in the sunshine.

Android anticipation

Samsung has been slowly warming up to the Android OS with two other Galaxy phones — the Galaxy Portal and the Galaxy i7500. Both were solid efforts, but we’re still waiting for Samsung to blow us away with something special, and with a 1GHz processor, a 5-megapixel camera and HD video, the Galaxy S has real blowage potential.

Read more about the Samsung Galaxy S here.

Apple iPhone 3GS

The iPhone 3GS may be old news with the launch of the iPhone 4, but it’s still a great smart phone — especially now the price is certain to drop.

Still getting better

The iPhone 3GS will receive the iOS 4 software upgrade, which means many of the features of the iPhone 4 will go to 3GS users too. Basic multi-tasking, wallpaper and room for more organised apps are all in the cards for the update. That’s on top of a phone that’s so powerful and fun to use, it’s been sitting on top of our mobile phone reviews table since the day it came out.

The cool factor

The iPhone still won’t be cheap, and buying an older version of a top of the line gadget just feels wrong. If you want to blow your bonus on the latest thing, you can go the whole hog with the iPhone 4 — otherwise, an HTC Desire will save you a good deal of money on your contract and pricy iPhone apps. On the other hand, if you can get over your gadget envy for the iPhone 4, the iPhone 3GS remains a phone that’s well worth having.

Read our full Apple iPhone 3GS review here.