Tinman Michael Dell needs to rethink his outfits smartphone plans after releasing an out-of-date phone on a disinterested world. For some reason Michael thought it was a wizard wheeze to shove a version of Android under the bonnet of the Dell Aero which is so out of date, Noah would have thought it a bit jaded.

The Aero, which is appropriately named because the business plan is full of bubbles, is Dell's first stab at the smartphone market. It is being billed as "one of the lightest Android smartphones in the US and is available for $99.99 with a two-year contract from AT&T.

Weight ratios apart, the Aero uses an out-of-date 624MHz processor, when most of the rivals use 1GHz chip and Android 1.5 which is 16 months out of date and a lifetime behind in functionality and performance.

The OS has been upgraded four times since its release. It now has a better  user interface shedloads more features system speed has been boosted numerous times. So Dell hopes to enter the most competitive marketplace in IT with a phone that would have been cutting edge when Mike Mageek was in shorts.

Dell seems to be hoping that users will notice that it has given the Aero some bells and whistles of its own like a handwriting recognition utility and a "Flash Lite-enhanced" version of the Android browser. But it is like putting lipstick on a pig as it will not be able to run many Android Aps and Google's new Voice Actions voice-command system won't run on anything less than Android 2.2.

True Android phones may cost closer to $200 but you can pick up some for half the price of the Aero that will run 2.1 even from AT&T.

The question is, did Dell really expect people to buy it?  After all, we doubt Michael would try to flog a computer running a version of Windows that was four generations old, so why try it when your rivals are using something better?