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Hands-on with the Dell Aero (photos)

AT&T's second Android device will be the Dell Aero. CNET gets a hands-on look at Dell's new phone at CTIA 2010; well, sort of.

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Bonnie Cha
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1 of 6 Bonnie Cha/CNET

Dell Aero

The Dell Aero will be AT&T's second Google Android device, after the Motorola Backflip, and is the first smartphone Dell has released in the U.S. Neither Dell nor AT&T would release pricing and availability information at CTIA 2010. Also, unfortunately, AT&T ordered Dell not to let us power on the Aero, so we could only grab photos of the smartphone's exterior.
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2 of 6 Bonnie Cha/CNET

Dell Mini 3

The Dell Aero is based on the Dell Mini 3 phone. The Mini 3 is available in Brazil and we were able to spend some brief time with it at Mobile World Congress 2010.

While we were impressed at the Mini 3's compact size, we thought its custom interface and lack of navigation controls made the device unintuitive to use.

The Dell Aero will also have a custom interface that will lay on top of the Android operating system. We hope that it will be easier to use than the interface we saw on the Mini 3.
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3 of 6 Bonnie Cha/CNET

Slim profile

The Dell Aero/Mini 3 is compact, slim, and lightweight. It's probably the smallest, lightest Android device we've seen yet.
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4 of 6 Bonnie Cha/CNET

Another side view

We don't know how much internal memory is on the Aero, but it has a microSD card slot.
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5 of 6 Bonnie Cha/CNET

Back view

The phone's plastic body makes it incredibly light but also a bit slick.
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6 of 6 Bonnie Cha/CNET

Camera

The Aero has a 5-megapixel camera, which is a step up from the Dell Mini 3's 3.2-megapixel camera.

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