Pictures of two Dell smartphones, including one with China’s 3G mobile common and a new body shape for Dell’s cell phone series, have been posted on the Web website of a Chinese regulator.
The listings for that Dell Mini 3T1 and Mini 3iX show the phones have received network access licenses for China, which are needed for phones to be sold within the country and suggest they will debut there soon. The regulator, the Telecommunication Equipment Certification Center under China’s IT ministry, issued the licenses to both phones within the last month.
The Mini 3T1 supports the Chinese homegrown 3G regular being promoted by carrier China Mobile, TD-SCDMA, according to the government regulator. That means China Mobile is likely to provide the telephone, and that the telephone could have a version of the Android operating system that China Mobile has modified, just like Dell’s last cell phone for that carrier. China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile carrier by number of accounts, uses the Ophone brand for devices with its tweaked version of Android.
The Mini 3T1 has a rectangular body that sets it apart from the Mini 3i, the smartphone that was Dell’s very first and that China Mobile started selling late last year, or the Aero mobile phone that Dell has announced for AT&T inside the U.S. The Mini 3T1 also has a shorter screen than the other phones, using the extra space for three buttons below the screen and a circular section that looks potentially like another button pad. The telephone appears to have a 2.0 megapixel camera within the Chinese regulator’s image of its back.
The second mobile phone on the regulator’s Web website, the Mini 3iX, supports the 3G normal being used by carrier China Unicom, WCDMA. The mobile phone has the rounded corners and large screen of the Mini 3i and the Aero, but it is different in having a Dell logo at the top of its screen. The regulator did not say if the cellular phone would use Android or another OS.
Both the Mini 3T1 and the 3iX also support a Chinese security protocol, WAPI, that regulators have needed on all phones that can connect to wireless LANs.
No details on pricing or launch dates were available. Dell, China Unicom and China Mobile separately declined to comment.
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