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Alienware Planning Android iPhone Killer?
meteorit found a story about
rumors of an Alienware phone based on Google's Android phone OS. As Dell has a history of bombing with handhelds, it would be interesting to try the Alienware brand instead. And I'm not exactly sure where they get off claiming that their drawings are the first pictures of the thing. Cheesy renderings designed explicitly for your website are not quite pictures of a product... they are artists impressions.
...this thing looks more like a creepy, Gigeresque sex toy than a phone? Sil would be pleased.
I don't think the iPhone has attained the status that any new smartphone must be considered a competitor first and foremost to it. Especially when, as in this case, it's a completely different styling concept. I do see iPhones here and there, but by far most people still use other cellphones, so I do not think the iPhone merits a reference in the title of every story about cellphones.
1. liquid nitrogen very cool 2. fire very not cool 3. alienware cool 4. dell not cool 5. slashdot always cool
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As Dell has a history of bombing with handhelds
So does Apple, fool.
I really don't think that now the iPhone is the phone to beat. Most people I know have a RAZR or similar, while they would like an iPhone as most people would, the $600 price tag plus dealing with AT&T makes them not buy one.
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If you read TFA you find that it's not even a rumor, it's entirely speculation based on the purchase of Alienware by Dell. It states that the argument for the Alienware phone is "overwhelming" based on the fact that the author thinks that Alienware is cool and is well known outside of us build-it-yourself PC geeks. TFA is accompanied by something labeled "First Pictures of Alienware Android Cell Phone" that is actually a GIF mockup drawn by a staff artist based on what they'd like it to look like. So now the Slashdot "killer" label is being applied to products that not only don't exist yet, but for which there's no objective evidence that anyone is even thinking about. Can we retire the "killer" now? It's become parody.
That may be the ugliest piece of hardware I have ever laid my eyes on.
As for an iPhone killer? Why is everything these days an iPhone killer? This abomination does not compete with the iPhone in any way. Completely different design (if you can call it that) aesthetic. It's not based on a touch screen. Any mention of an iPhone killer exists only to drive people to the site so they can have a look. If the title was 'Dell subsidy designs cellphone, beats it with ugly stick' they would not get as much traffic.
"Dell has a history of bombing with handhelds"
The Dell Axim series was one of the most popular Pocket PCs in history, I would bet they sold several times more Axims than Apple has sold iPhones.
The highest powered Axims released in the later years of the series was more powerful and feature rich than the iPhone. The x50 had VGA, touchscreen, wifi, BT, SD/CF, IR, 620mhz CPU, over 6000 software apps, and came out in 2004.
If Dell was serious about releasing an iPhone 'killer' all they would have to do is resurrect their x50 and add phone support and it would be better than the iPhone except for the interface. After releasing 6 PDA models they have the knowledge and experience to easily do this. Its probably only a matter of business contracts with the mobile carriers that is holding them back.
Not to mention Alie nware can't make a cell phone if it meant their life. They can barely make laptops (the build quality isn't very good), and their case designs are generics from Asian suppliers, modified slightly to give it that distinct Alienware style at the top. I don't believe they have the engineering expertise to build a mobile system from the ground up - not when their status is merely a (substandard quality, overpriced) systems integrator.
Hell, the iPhone's only *real* advantage is its incredibly slick and easy UI. That Alienphone concept has a UI that looks convoluted enough that even a techie like myself will get lost.
"The Open Handset Alliance, a group of more than 30 technology and mobile companies, is developing Android: the first complete, open, and free mobile platform."
But the title suggests that there is an Android phone which will be killed! Android is a platform just like Linux, and Alienware's device will be based on the Android platform. so to me, this development will perpetuate Android instead of killing it.
It's like saying..."Bogaboga Systems is gonna come up with a Linux killer which will be based on Linux!" This does not make much sense to me.
I'm hoping for an "iPhone done right", and this aint it. By "iPhone done right", what I'm looking for is something that will replace my Treo and my iPod. I definitely like the real keyboard on the Treo - the touch keyboard on my wife's iPod Touch sucks. I also like the fact that the Treo has cut and paste, so I can trim down the quoted part of email. And it's compatible with my Palm apps. But the iPhone is multi-tasking, has a much better web browser, and would mean I don't have to carry around a separate iPod. If something could combine the virtues of both, I'd be right there in line.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Oh my god! It even has a touch sensitive keypad! Now that's unheard of!
How is something this ugly going to be an Iphone killer?
...in the market of "13 year old boy's imaginations".
I was thinking maybe they should add something that looks like a jet intake, a sub-woofer, some neon underglow, flame stickers on the side, and maybe some spinnaz.
I am pre-emptively naming it the Dell Alienware AREA 51 EXXTREME XENOMORPH. Its default ring tone would be "Crawling in my skin" by Linkin Park. I hope it has Myspace Mobile.
So nearly half of its structure is junky looking "futuristic" plastic just for looks?
If they got rid of hat and just put the keyboard there, they wouldn't need a failure prone moving slider part.
After a year or so, they come up with something that is bigger than the iPod, but has a load more features. They ramp up the hype machine and tell everyone about all of the great features it has. Consumers then go into a shop and look for a device with a nice form factor which has the one feature they actually want - the ability to play music - and buy an iPod. Yet another company fails to kill the iPod.
If you want to kill the iPhone, start with the form factor. Design goal number one should be to make something that fits better in the hand than the iPhone. Then take a look at all of the features in all of the smartphones out there, and rank them by utility. Start at the top of the list (presumably 'making voice calls') and keep adding them until just before your user interface starts to get cluttered. Then stop.
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All it needs is a Flowmaster.
The ipod wasn't the mp3 player to beat for years...
Uh, no - the iPod was the player to beat the day it was announced. It was the first player to use 5 gigabyte 1.8" hard drives while everything else used tiny amounts of flash memory or used big and heavy desktop hard drives. It also used a 400 Mpbs Firewire interface while everything else used 11 Mbps Usb 1.1 or even parallel. Combine that with a good interface and good integration and you had a product that was far ahead of the competition.
Now everything uses USB 2.0 and the same storage media, so there is little difference in the physical size/capacity anymore, but that wasn't the case to begin with.
Alienware couldn't, but Dell could. And besides, they could do exactly the same thing with phones they do with cheap computer cases, china has plenty of noname gadgets makers that can supply "phone blanks". It still does not matter at all, because Alienware as a brand does not really exist outside of the basements of a few rich parents. In comparison to Alienware, Apple is mainstream. And in the market of mobile phones, even Apple is still midget, despite of the biggest hype ever made around a piece of electronics and even a few serious technical merits.
[i have an opinion and i am not afraid to use it]
I think mobile consumers have proven themselves savvy enough not to buy substandard "phone blank" devices. Why is Motorola in the rut they are in now? Well, years of making substandard devices (hardware quality was fine, software was not) that had no ergonomics physically nor mentally. They thought they could ride on their brand (which at one time was THE most powerful in the market) with mediocre phones. Consumers knew better.
For anyone to break into, or even survive in, the mobile market, they need to bring to the table something amazing, either by offering unprecedented feature sets, or simply making the gadget slick and stylish. A "blank phone" would accomplish neither of those things.
In the end, any serious competitor in this market is going to have to spend a LOT of money building their phones, no corner may be cut.