Dell's Device Deluge

Dell's been pretty busy behind the scenes over Easter and on April 21st, the mother of all leaks landed in the laps of the Engadget Crew. In the leak there were details and photos of no less than five previously unknown devices and more detail on two as yet unreleased gadgets. The bounty detailed one Windows Phone 7 device, the Lightning, three Android phones, the Thunder, Flash and Smoke, plus the previously known Aero and a seven-inch Android based tablet called the Looking Glass, which will join the previously detailed Dell Streak Android tablet. Whilst each device has its own merit and target market, let's have a look at the two flagship devices Dell's aiming at your wallet.

So what does the Dell Lightning have in store for us? Well as you can see above it's a pretty slick looking portrait QWERTY slider like that of the Palm Pre, with the required three button Windows Phone 7 control scheme up front. Packing a 4.1 inch WVGA OLED capacitive touch screen, the Lightning is powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, the QSD8250 for those keeping count. Dell saw fit to give Windows Phone 7 512MB of RAM to play with and on the storage front 1GB of built-in flash plus an 8GB of MicroSD, plenty of space for your apps. Of course the Lightning also comes equipped with the usual array of toys including GPS, an accelerometer, a compass, an FM radio, a 5MP autofocus camera and full Flash support. Looking decidedly like a Windows Phone 7 launch device you can look forward to getting your grubby mitts on it in the fourth quarter of this year, with an LTE (read 4G) version scheduled for Q4 of 2011.

If Android is your thing, and let's be honest, Windows Phone 7 has potential but it's starting to look a little outdated even now, and it's not been released yet, then Dell's got lots for you.

The Thunder pictured left does away with the sliding keyboard that defines the Lightning, for a sleeker package. Like the Lightning however, the Thunder packs a 4.1 inch WVGA OLED screen, but the rest of the specifications are a little sketchy at this point. It'll probably be running a similar Snapdragon CPU and storage; however Dell has upped the camera to an 8MP shooter. With Android 2.1 Dell's gone all out on the customization with the device running Dell 'Stage' UI tying into Facebook and Twitter for social networking and using Swype for its onscreen keyboard. It certainly looks classy and has a similar feel to that of HTC's Sense UI.

Dell also claims that it'll have Flash and a Hulu app on the device at launch, not that that's much use to us over here in Blighty. Give us iPlayer eh Dell?

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