Major Chinese news portal 163.com, is confirming the news TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington first broke on Sunday, which suggested that Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) was about to launch within 24-48 hours a China-only mobile phone. Today that news was reconfirmed: the device is on its way.
What the world’s number two PC vendor will be offering in China, notes TC, is an Android-based OS “Ophone” called the “mini3i.” China Mobile (NYSE:CHL), the world’s biggest carrier with nearly half a billion subscribers, will distribute the new smartphone and plans to launch it in the next few days.
All Ophones will support TD-SCDMA (Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access – a mobile radio air interface and a technological principle that is perfectly suited for mobile Internet access and multimedia apps), a China-only 3G standard, which means it will be hard to get the Dell Ophone to work outside China.
Dell would benefit from this deal since the company would be able to capitalize on a growing market with little existing competition.
Today’s news marks the end of the computer maker’s smartphone saga.
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