With the Streak, Dell offers a hybrid terminal between a smartphone and a tablet. Despite its screen of 5 inches and its nearest design of a Google Phone, Dell Tablet place in competitor to the iPad, a consistent target? Response in this test of the Dell Streak.
The success of the iPad has encouraged manufacturers to offer an alternative to the Apple tablet. If the competition was slow in its offensive, leaving the field open Apple to impose its iPad, in this 2010 term, other shelves begin to arrive, heavily animated by Android.
As Apple with its iPad sounds like a variation of l iPhone 4 (near configuration, same OS) some manufacturers followed the same strategy as Samsung and its Galaxy S and Galaxy Pad.
Dell explores him an another track with its smartphone/tablet of 5 inches, thus risking to offer a niche product, a compromise poorly defined in its target.
Marketed 499 euros naked and 99 with subscription, the Streak is a big smartphone or Tablet ultra compact?
Hand
With its dimensions of 146 x 79.1 x 10 mm and its 5 inch screen Dell Streak closer actually more than a Samsung Galaxy S (4 inches) to an iPad (9.7 inches).
A large smartphone that fits well in the pocket with its low thickness of 10 mm and weight 220 g. Under the touch screen, there are the three sensory keys common to all terminals under Android, a touch of Eve, volume and physical trigger for the photo sensor.
If found the traditional exit audio jack 3.5 mm, step of making micro USB on Dell Streak. This decision-making that tends to become a standard for most manufacturers, Dell prefers it a PDMI connections. Still very marginal, the latter allows the load of the Streak and delivers audio and video in HD signal on channel 8. The video output will require going through optional dock that takes advantage of a HDMI output.
The finishes are good and gives an overall impression of solidity. Only metal battery protection is perfectible is turning sometimes poorly.
Telephony service requires, you will need to bring the Dell Streak to the ear, it is in this situation that the Dell Streak displays its dimensions outside standard (see video). Fortunately, a pedestrian kit is provided to the less foolhardy.
Android 1.6 crushing a muscular configuration
The Dell Streak is a configuration of a high range smartphone. Snapdragon processor running at 1 GHz and backed up by 512 MB of RAM and a generous 2 GB memory to store its applications. As in the usual, a slot for microSD card will allow d ‘ extend storage, a 16 GB card is included. We find modules, Bluetooth, Wi – Fi b/g, 3 G + (HSDPA 7.2 Mbps) and A – GPS.
Dell Streak 5-inch capacitive screen advance a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. Here not AMOLED but a TFT classic résituant an image logically less flattering than a Galaxy S for example…
With its multi-touch capacitive screen, Dell Streak responds well to the touches of the fingers, especially when browsing Web. Damage that Google Map is not managed in multipoint, need to go through the zoom keys.
With several apps in background tasks we not found big slowdowns, if the Dell Streak is long to start, it remains relatively fluid in its use.
So the Streak seemed less rapid than a smartphone with a similar configuration.
Probably the fault has an Android 1.6 which operates less well the resources of the Streak. To illustrate our impressions we delivered the Dell Streak set the Benchmark with the Quadrant appli and Benchmark that pass especially reviewed the processor and the performance chart. The result is positive, placing the Streak between a Nexus One on Android 2.0 and a Galaxy S under 2.1 but far behind a Nexus One under 2.2.
Version 1.6 is still a bad choice depriving users of new releases of Android 2.1 and crushing the user experience and overall performance.
An Android aging fortunately backed up by a wrapper well thought Dell, who catches up with the shortcomings of this outdated version of Android.
Software staffing is interesting with Quickoffice (doc MS Office), voice recognition with appli Nuance and e-books with the kiosk Aldiko (for electronic books mainly in English).
The update of the Streak in 2.1 see 2.2 is expected before the end of the year. Hope that Dell offers an update directly in 2.2 as we indicated the constructor.
An update to an Android 2.2 operating the config and the addition of the compatibility of the Flash will be decisive elements for the Streak.
Dell Streak as web tablet
In the absence of Flash, the Dell Streak deprives an argument to compete with the iPad or at least get to the level of a Galaxy Tab of 7 inches below Android 2.2.
If he cannot compete with a tablet in web navigation, with its large screen the Streak 5-inch screen should take advantage of the game in smartphones this!
Unfortunately, this is far from convincing. If the display is larger, the Streak also seemed rather slow in the display of web pages with his native browser Chrome Light. If the experience is a little better on Dolphin Browser, we expected good better.
Appropriate to wait for the update in 2.1 or even 2.2 to see an improvement in web browsing but in the State, the Desire, Galaxy S do not have to be ashamed.
More : Format innovative and promising autonomy, finish, comfortable screen, tablet that fits in a Pocket
Less : Android 1.6, a few slowdowns, disappointing picture/video capture
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