Dell smartphone to launch in China this week?

We haven't heard a peep about this from anywhere else, but the
inimitable Michael Arrington at TechCrunch says Dell's
gearing up to launch that
long-rumored smartphone
in China "within days." Don't get too excited, though: even
Mike says the evidence is "thin," and we doubt anything Dell
eventually brings out in China will have much bearing on the rest
of the world, since the Chinese government requires quite a bit of

product customization for the domestic market. Still, we'll see
what happens -- and if dell manages to produce something
a little more interesting than its previous efforts.

HTC Hero coming October 11th to Sprint?

src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/07/htc-android-hero-rumor-rm-eng.jpg" />

Let's go through the steps together, shall we? A "senior member"
forum poster on the xda-developers forums has posted the
above pic as proof that the HTC Hero is coming to the US on October
11th -- a claim he's been making as far back as April, but this is
the first time he's brought a picture with him. The poster says he
works for a wireless developer firm, and while this picture can
easily be faked, we don't think it's necessarily that much of a
stretch. Let's look at some of the other phones listed. There's
"Samsung Q (Android)," which could provide a missing link between
the href="http://digital-camera-reviews-and-news.blogspot.com/2009/07/samsung-instinctq-gets-wifi.html">
InstinctQ and the company's
mysterious Android phone that was supposed to be out on Sprint
and T-Mobile by now.
BlackBerry Aries is the CDMA version the Curve 8520, and
traditionally RIM's CDMA devices wind up on both Sprint and
Verizon. The LG LX610 / Lotus 2 is a new one to us, but Lotus seems
to have been well-received for Sprint. So to pull all that data
together, if this list is the real deal, we'd say it came from Now
Network company. This is the sort of phone Dan Hesse would
be
glad to have waited for, isn't it?





href="http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=4221033&postcount=23">
Read - HTC Hero (Android) Release Date: 10/11/2009

href="http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=507668">Read
- Initial release date claim






[ Via: Engadgetmobile ]

China Mobile's 7-inch Android slate gets rendered

href="http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftech.163.com%2Fdigi%2F09%2F0729%2F17%2F5FDIH2SP00161MAH.html">
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/07/china-mobile-android-device-rm-eng.jpg" />

We've nothing much to go on outside of a few good renders and a
smattering of machine translated paragraphs, but it sure sounds as
if China Mobile is entertaining the idea of bringing a 7-inch
Android-based tablet to its airwaves. As the story goes, said slate
would boast China's
homegrown TD-SCDMA 3G connectivity, support for video calling,
a full-fledged web browser and an
OPhone operating system -- which is essentially a customized
version of android for the Chinese market. Sadly, no further
information was given, leaving us to wonder what kind of innards
are scheduled for implant and what kind of price tag / release date
we're looking at. Oh, and those "call" and "end call" buttons are
pretty darn evident, leading us to believe that China Mobile might
actually expect you to use this as your primary mobile. Can you
say... Sidetalkin'?







[ Via: Engadgetmobile ]

• Rockchip plans on slashing Android phone prices with new RK2808 chipset

Motorola Sholes Android phone for Verizon appears in the flesh

href="http://www.phonearena.com/htmls/First-live-photo-of-the-Motorola-Shules-Android-smartphone-for-Verizon-article-a_6270.html">
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/07/7-31-09sholes2.jpg" />




Hm, maybe Motorola should have
stuck with the render a while longer, cause this first shot of
the Verizon-bound Sholes android smartphone is looking mighty
rough. Of course, it is just a blurrycam leak, and there's a chance
we're not seeing this set's true beauty, but honestly, we're not
sure even the most loving press photographer can make that red
D-pad attractive. We'll find out soon enough, if things
go as planned.


[ Via: Engadgetmobile ]

• Confirmed: Samsung's SGH-T939 Behold2 for T-Mobile runs Android

Motorola posts $26m Q2 profit, promises cheap Android thrills, does a little dance

src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2009/07/happy-motorola-face.jpg" />See
that image there on the right? Yeah, it's a pretty drastic
departure from the
Sad Moto™ face that had become href="http://motorola-news-blog.blogspot.com/2009/01/motorola-to-lay-off-4000-starting.html">
all too common when talking about the company's financials.
Just a quarter after posting a dreadful
$291 million loss, the outfit responsible for creating the RAZR and then doing
nothing for half a decade is finally showing a profit once more.
The Q2 numbers show an "unexpected" $26 million profit on sales of
$5.5 billion, $1.8 billion of which came from the handset division.
Of course, that very division managed to lose $253 million and see
its
global market share slip to 5.5 percent, but with a big bang
from Android reportedly just
months away, CEO Sanjay Jha ain't taking time to frown.



Just hours after the Verizon-branded
Sholes smartphone surfaced, Mr. Jha was quoted as saying that
two Android devices would be "in stores for the holiday season,"
with launches occurring on "two major carriers in North America and
multiple carriers outside the US." He also noted that plans were in
place to ship "several additional Android-based devices in the
first quarter of 2010," but details beyond that were vague. So, is
this the beginning of a new, happier Moto? Our aged copy of
Photoshop certainly hopes so.



href="http://mediacenter.motorola.com/Content/Detail.aspx?ReleaseID=11645&NewsAreaID=2">
Read - Motorola's Q2 results

href="http://tech.yahoo.com/news/zd/20090730/tc_zd/242753">Read
- Jha on future Android devices


[ Via: Engadgetmobile ]