Crave

(Credit: Pocketlint.co.uk)

Less than a year after buying up smartphone maker E-Ten, Acer will debut its first handheld, a company representative confirmed Wednesday.

The Taiwanese PC maker has just begun distributing invitations to a press event that will be held next month during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Both President and CEO Gianfranco Lanci and Aymar de Lencquesaing, the head of the Smart Handheld business unit, will be on hand for the event. The invitation specifically says "smartphones" launch, so it doesn't sound like it's going to be an event focused on a single model or device like, say, Apple's past iPhone events, or the Palm Pre launch.

If Acer's found a way to enter the smartphone market in less than a year, it begs the question: where is Dell? The Texas PC maker has had almost a complete makeover of its consumer business in the last two years, but it's been focused on its laptop lineup mostly.

During that time, Dell hired Ron Garriques, a former executive in Motorola's cell phone division--and still nothing. It's coming up on two years since the company pulled out of the handheld market and all we've heard so far is an offhand comment from CEO Michael Dell last July that his company is "kind of working on" making another smartphone. To be fair, Dell did say during the summer not to expect it soon. But still...where is it?

(Credit: Crave UK)

Boldly going where few other tech journalists bother to travel, we at Crave UK make sure to check out as many new phone makers as possible--because you just never know. Only yesterday we plunged into the depths of sweaty London to see MWg's latest handset, the MWg Zinc II.

You're probably thinking who the potatoes is MWg? It stands for Mobile Wireless group, and it used to be O2 Asia--but O2 ditched it, so now it's gone solo and is coming up with some pretty interesting Windows Mobile handsets. The Zinc II is a compact handset that runs Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional--and it's quite a looker. Check it out here.

(Source: Crave UK)

Up-and-coming PC maker Acer is shifting its lineup a bit.

At its first-quarter investor relations conference in Taipei on Wednesday, Acer President Gianfranco Lanci said the company would release its first smartphone--a Windows Mobile device--by the end of this year or early next year, and that smartphones will account for 10 percent of company revenue.

Acer: Smartphone is due in the next year.

(Credit: E-Ten)

Acer made its interest in the smartphone market very clear in March, when it purchased fellow Taiwanese company E-Ten, which makes smartphones under the Glofiish brand.

At the conference, Acer said E-Ten would shift entirely to smartphones and away from PDAs, which it has sold in the past. In another change, the new Acer smartphone will be sold through wireless carriers, instead of directly to retail, as E-Ten has historically done.

Acer has played catchup to its PC rivals this past year, growing organically as well as through acquisition. The company bought U.S.-based Gateway and Europe's Packard Bell, and now finds itself behind No. 2 Dell with 9 percent of worldwide market share, according to IDC.

But will Acer be able to stir up the smartphone industry the way it has PCs? It's obviously not impossible for a new smartphone maker to enter the market and quickly scoop up share (hello, iPhone), but Acer is obviously no Apple. It doesn't have the same marketing machine or demonstrated design chops. But it doesn't have to make the next iPhone to find success. Betting on the evolution of mobile computing from laptops to a smart device like a phone is a no-brainer at this point.

Rumors continue to persist about Dell getting back into the handheld business.

The latest is from Digitimes (which should be taken with a grain of salt) which is reporting that Dell has placed orders with several Asian manufacturers for smartphones, PDAs, and GPS devices. Digitimes says those devices would run Windows Mobile. That differs from the rumor floating around in late January that Dell was about to announce an Android-based handset.

As of this writing, Dell had not yet responded to requests for comment.

After axing the Axim, above, is Dell placing orders for a new handheld product?

(Credit: CNET Networks)

It's been almost a year since the company ended production of its popular Axim handheld, and even longer since it brought on Ron Garriques from Motorola to run the company's consumer business.

So what is Dell up to? Its biggest competitors, Hewlett-Packard and Acer, both have made commitments to this product category. Acer recently showed how serious it's taking this market when it purchased smartphone and PDA maker E-Ten earlier this month for $290 million.

An industry source tells CNET News.com that at least back in November Dell was considering devices with screens under 7 inches.

What that device is or could be isn't clear--a GPS player that does video, a smartphone that plays music? But it could be that Dell is just throwing around some ideas, trying to stake out a place in the market, sensing how active it is and will continue to be.

"The question is, what do you position in that space?" said Roger Kay, analyst and president of Endpoint Technologies. "It's likely to be a high-volume market at some point, and you wouldn't want to be left out."

Plus, Intel's new Atom processors mean that there are better options for makers of small devices. Dell could be "responding to the availability of the silicon by preparing a device," Kay pointed out.

Continuing its spending spree, Acer announced Monday it plans to acquire E-Ten for $290 million.

Based in Taiwan, E-Ten has been around for more than two decades, and part of its business includes manufacturing Pocket PC phones and PDAs for other companies. But it's probably known best to consumers by its Glofiish consumer brand name, established less than two years ago.

Acer buys Glofiish maker E-Ten

(Credit: Glofiish)

With this purchase, Acer, also based in Taiwan, appears laser-focused on becoming a major mobile player. Thanks to its acquisitions of both Gateway and Packard Bell, it's already taken out Dell as the second-largest manufacturer of notebooks. Now it appears ready to jump into the handheld computing fray.

"The acquisition of E-Ten increases Acer's global footprint by giving us a strong and highly credible presence in the mobility segment," J.T. Wang, CEO of Acer, said in a statement.

It's interesting that Acer has apparently been in the market for a mobile phone company and bypassed Motorola, which was, even if only temporarily, up for grabs. Instead, it went for a relative unknown (outside of China), that is likely far cheaper but, more importantly, one that specifically makes smartphones, rather than flip phones and their ilk.

Acer apparently sees value in the smartphone trend. Regarding the announcement, Acer President Gianfranco Lanci added, "The worldwide smartphone market is estimated to grow by more than 30 percent by 2011. Acer will enhance the competitiveness in the ultramobile segment, by combining PC and communication technologies."

Smartphones are increasingly becoming tinier versions of laptops. And they're only going to keep getting smarter, more connected, and more powerful. So for a company that is doing well shipping a lot of notebooks, finding a way to sell even smaller versions of those computers makes a lot of sense.

(Credit: Crave UK)

Yesterday Crave attended the U.K. launch of E-Ten's new line-up, which includes the Glofiish M800, the X800 (which we reported on in March) and the X600. These oddly named handsets look very similar to HTC devices and pack many of the same features too.

The X600 (pictured), for example, runs on Windows Mobile 6 and features a large colour touchscreen, EDGE, GPS, Wi-Fi, a 2-megapixel camera and an expandable microSD slot.

Considering E-Ten managed to squash all these features into a casing that's only 15mm thin, the X600 is a formidable smartphone, although we would have liked to have seen HSDPA (3.5G) and a better camera. Click here for more information and pictures.

(Source: Crave UK)

(Credit: Crave Asia)

The QWERTY-enabled E-Ten M800 slider now has an official image and specifications, and everything said about it previously was true: It includes a VGA display, HSDPA connectivity, a SiRFstar III GPS chip and a 500MHz Samsung processor.

What wasn't confirmed then was the amount of RAM. We know now that it's a disappointing 64MB, just like the previous X800. Another interesting point we can see from the image is that it has touch-sensitive buttons under the display. We'll wait to see how well this latest Glofiish works after we handle one in the flesh, once it's distributed in Asia and Europe. Go to the M800's product page to see its full list of specs.

(Source: Crave Asia)

(Credit: E-Ten)

E-Ten has released an update to its pocket PC phone line, which some blogs are calling the slimmest handset of its kind in the world.

The X500 Glofiish--yes, it's really called the Glofiish--combines both Bluetooth 2.0 video and audio capabilities, 802.11b/g WiFi and an EDGE radio. The .6-inch thin phone, which operates on the Windows Mobile 5.0 platform, contains a 2-megapixel camera, a 400MHz Samsung processor, 128MB ROM and 64MB RAM of storage, and a slot for a microSD card.

While the E-Ten announced the X500 a few weeks ago, Mobility Site pointed out today's launch.