Dell Planning To Launch Android Powered Handset?

According to sources quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Dell are “preparing a move into cellphones as early as next month.”

The news comes just weeks before the Mobile World Congress 2009 in Barcelona, where many cell phone manufacturers are expected to make their big announcements.

The Round Rock, Texas, company has had a group of engineers working on the phones for more than a year from an office in the Chicago area, these people said. They produced prototypes built on Google Inc.’s Android operating system and Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile software, these people said.

Sources claim that smartphone protypes included a QWERTY-less touchscreen model and another with a sliding keyboard.