PC maker Dell has officially announced its entry into the smartphone market. The company announced that it would begin selling its first handset — the Mini 3 — in China through China Mobile by late November.

The touch-screen phone, which does not have a physical keyboard, will run on the Android operating system from Google. Though the company is largely keeping silent on pricing and specifications, Dell has been boasting that the Mini 3 will have a 3.5-inch high-definition screen and high-quality internal speakers. No word yet on if or when the Mini 3 will be offered elsewhere, but Dell does hold agreements with Vodafone in Europe, Maxis in Malaysia and AT&T and Verizon in the United States, among others. With the smartphone marketplace increasingly resembling a rugby scrum (the Verizon Droid versus the BlackBerry Storm versus the Palm Pre versus the HTC MyTouch versus the Apple iPhone), Dell understandably may choose to sit on the sidelines and see how things shake out. (NYT)