Dell Flash Sparkles With Android Froyo

The Dell Flash is the third in the group of the major Dell leaks from the end of last week. The Flash is what Dell is calling their mainstream midrange device. If this is their midrange, then what's their high-end? They say it will be made from a piece of curved glass, rocking a 3.5 WVGA LCD screen, 850/1900/2100MHz HSPA (AT&T's new spec, which means speeds up to 14.4Mbps down/5.6Mbps up), 5MP camera, half a gig of RAM, and microSD up to 64GB. The processor is a Qualcomm clocked at 800Mhz.

Supposedly this particular Qualcomm processor is a newer model that will bring Snapdragon speed to the line. The Flash will definitely need that speed, since it also supports Adobe Flash 10.1. The device is also running Android, but not 2.1. It's running Android 2.2, also known as its code name "Froyo". It will be heavily skinned with the same UI as found on the Thunder, Dell's "Stage UI". What confuses me is that even though the Android version is different (2.1/2.2) it looks like there are quite a few differences between the two homescreens as you'll see in the photos. The changes aren't just cosmetic either, they seem to change some interaction points. It would seem to me that the upgrade in OS shouldn't cause such drastic changes to the custom UI, but we'll have to wait and see if this all stays as is for launch.

The Flash will work on AT&T's 3G network, but no word on whether it will be offered as a partnership, or a standalone like the Nexus One. Look for this guy in Q1 of 2011.