A long, long time ago (it seems) we first heard tell of the Dell Lightning, a device that utilized a form factor not often seen in the world of smartphones: a slide-down QWERTY. The rumored specs turned out to be pretty close to the truth. It’s now known as the Venue Pro (a name that doesn’t do justice to its coolness), and it’ll have the bands necessary to do 3G on T-Mobile in the USA.

We didn’t get a real hands-on with the Venue Pro, but from behind the glass, the largeness of its screen was striking. The keyboard also looked quite nice, though perhaps a bit cramped. The device, when expanded, is very tall, thus granting us more understanding of why other OEMs haven’t attempted this form factor. It remains to be seen whether the large size of the Venue Pro when expanded will make it difficult to use; we’ll have to see if it’s properly weighted.