The lucky guys at TechCrunch ran into Michael Dell at the Mobile World Conference, and he was kind enough to preview the Dell Mini 5 for them. Admittedly, it looks really slick, and the brief demo showed a very fast and responsive device.
There’s bad news, though. TechCrunch says the UNSUBSIDIZED price will be $1,098! That is…a bit on the high side. Yes, it has a phone radio, but it’s a 5 inch Android tablet…it’s not that special. I hate to compare it to the iPad, but that’s the elephant in the room for this thing; you could buy two wifi-only 16gb iPads for one Dell Mini 5! And without just comparing it to the iPad, there’s also the Camangi Webstation, the Archos Tablet, the Zii Egg, and of course, actual phones like the Nexus One and the Droid. Is the phone radio and/or the extra inch of screen space worth $500+?
It kind of makes me think the world has gone slightly off-kilter, when APPLE is selling a device with more features for less money than Dell.
Via TechCrunch
This is why tablets fail. They get stupid. WHY would anyone want to buy this over an iPad at this point? Odds are it will have less storage too. As much as I hat the Apple lock in and love Android, I’d have to go iPad.
Unsubsidized smartphones cost a lot. Those of us who have bought unlocked phones are used to it.
Why I would rather have this than an iPad:
fits in my purse
makes calls
(baited breath)I want it now!
Also, like most new smartphones, this takes a microSD card up to 32G.
I know unsubsidized smartphones are expensive…but compare this to, say, the Nexus One…it’s an extra $500 for an inch more screen space, which just seems a bit excessive to me.
I really doubt this price is what we will see when it comes to market.