The Dell Aero is unlike any other Android phone you ever used. It does not feel like Android with a skin on top. It feels more like a feature phone with Android beneath. If you are looking for a phone that is slim and light and packed with features, read on for my in-depth impressions of Dell entry into the world of smartphones.

Screen 

The screen on the Dell Aero looks great. The 3.5-inch display pushes 640 by 360 pixels, which is an unusual resolution for Android devices, but not unheard of. Text looks sharp on the Dell Aero, and pictures look colorful and bright. Outdoors, the screen still performed well. It was easily visible in bright sunlight, and the LCD on the Aero bested the OLED screen on my Nexus One by a mile. 

Sound 

Sound quality on the Dell Aero was also outstanding. My phone calls sounded great. Callers sounded up close and personal on my end. Tones could be a bit warm, with more bass than treble sound, but this wasn’t unpleasant. On their end, my callers reported a slight, occasional hiss, but nothing serious. The speaker on the Dell Aero is also nice and loud. It could distort at the highest volumes, but this was mostly a problem with music. Speakerphone conversations sounded good, even over loud car noise. Ringtones were also loud and clear. 

The phone uses ring profiles, a feature that most Android phones lack. I found the profiles difficult to manage; they required lots of menu digging when I just wanted to tap and go. If you want the phone to vibrate, you cannot simply turn down the volume until the phone shakes. You have to dig through the sound profiles to “ring and vibrate," or just "vibrate."

Signal 

The Dell Aero had no trouble connecting to AT&T’s 3G network. Almost all of my calls went through with no trouble, though a few times the call would fail after dialing and I had to send the call again. Incoming calls found me every time. 

The phone was a bit shaky on the data network. Testing the network speed, the phone might be nice and fast one moment, then slow to a crawl the next. Data never stopped completely, but a few consecutive runs of SpeedTest bore this out. Data speeds were simply inconsistent, even sitting still. 

I also had trouble with the phone’s Wi-Fi connection. The first time I connected to my home network, everything worked just fine. After a restart, the phone would not connect automatically. When I tried to connect from the Wi-Fi menu, the pop-up screen that asks if you want to Connect, Forget or Cancel the connection did not work; the buttons would not register my taps. I tried multiple restarts, but I was never again able to connect properly. 

Video Below!

The iPad is setting the standard for the revived tablet market. What is it about Apple that makes these products so great? In part it is Apple dedication to user experience; but would it be argue that the larger factor in their success is Apple end-to-end control of the product. They make the hardware and the operating systems, and build the two to work in near-perfect synchronicity. A lot of CrunchGear commenters say they’re really waiting for a Windows 7 tablet to compete with the iPad, but I say they will be waiting for a long, long time: Windows 7 on the multitude of tablet hardware options will be just like Windows 7 on desktop PCs: an appeal to the lowest common denominator, thereby hobbling both hardware and OS advances. (And I actually like Windows 7, so belay the Apple fanboy comments for a moment.) But what about an Ubuntu tablet? The svelt, modular Linux kernel has breathed new life into many aging PCs, and Canonical has been working on a netbook-specific interface for Ubuntu for some time. They have multitouch support, now, too, so couldn’t they pretty quickly roll out a wonderful Ubuntu-powered tablet.

The multitouch stuff in Ubuntu is interesting in its own right, since they are developing a whole "touch language" that will allow for chaining touch sequences into sentences of complex actions. I’m actually quite excited to see how this develops, especially since the multi-touch libraries are hosted on Launchpad for public consumption and participation. More on this below.

Latest Registered Mobile Devices from Federal Communications Commissions site Friday (28/8/2010).

Phones
Read - Kyocera SCP-3820
Read - Huawei UM840
Read - Huawei U7520
Read - Huawei C2830
Read - Samsung S7230
Read - NEC Casio CAY01
Read - ZTE VDF-945

Peripherals
Read - ZTE K3806-Z
Read - Sony Ericsson VH110
Read - Haier CM210
Read - Iqua BHS-803

Enter Rockchip to the arena with their promise of delivering a 3D enabled tablet device that requires no glasses to use. The nice thing about Rockchip design is that it is dual purpose, you can switch between 3D and 2D modes so you are not saddled with something trying to push a particular feature that you might not use, rather you get a tablet device that has 3D tech for when you feel it will be worth using.

The bad news is that the tablet is still in the prototype stage so chances are that it won't be making it onto a store shelf any time soon. However, Rockchip do have plans to build an Android powered tablet using this technology, the idea probably being that a bigger, more well known brand, will re-badge the tablet and sell it.