Dell launches a smartphone in China

DELL HAS ANNOUNCED that its first smartphone will be launched in the Chinese market this week.

Unveiled today, the Dell Mini 3i has a 3.5-inch touchscreen, which is a little bit sleeker than the five inch screen that was rumoured.

The 640x360 display will also be high definition and the device has a three megapixel camera with auto focus and a microSD card slot for up to 32GB of expandable memory.

China is a budding market with around 500 million subscribers making it ideal territory for new smartphone developers. The Dell Mini 3i is not being launched in Europe, presumably because it doesn't have 3G and therefore can't compete with smartphones that we already have on offer here.

The smartphone comes in the rather erotically named "Red Passion" and "Oiled Bronze" colours, which makes it sound a bit like Mills and Boon in Essex. There mobile also has built-in GPS and Bluetooth.

Dell gave us a statement about how thrilled it is to be launching a smartphone in China, but said nothing about if or when it might launch a mobile in Europe. µ