Going by a new Engadget report, PC giant Dell will mark its foray into the smartphone arena later this year, with the release of its new-age handsets – including a portrait slider phone running Windows Phone 7; and a handset running Android Froyo.

The Engadget ‘leak’ about Dell’s forthcoming smartphone market ventures is a substantiation of the fact that the company – which has incidentally lost it top PC-maker position to rival HP – continues to innovate on emerging technologies in the consumer market.

Some of the key features of Dell’s forthcoming phones – named Lightning, and Thunder – will likely be a 4.1-inch OLED screen; multi-touch capabilities; a QWERTY keypad; auto-focus camera; 1GB flash memory; 8GB microSD; GPS; FM radio; and full Flash support including video playback.

The Engadget report further says that Dell is also developing a tablet – ‘Looking Glass’ – which runs the Google Android 2.1 version, on a Tegra 2 processor; has a built-in WebKit-based browser; and supports Adobe Flash. Furthermore, ‘Looking Glass’ also features a 7-inch screen; 4GB DDR2 SDRAM storage; 1.4-megapixel camera; 4GB NAND; and Bluetooth.

However, there has been no official corroboration of the Engadget report, with a Dell spokesman clearly stating that “Dell continually develops and tests new products that extend the mobile experience. We have not made any product announcements and do not comment on speculation, rumor or unannounced products.”