The Dell Streak is a device whose 5-inch display makes it either a very large smartphone or a very small tablet computer. Whatever its classification, this model runs Google's Android OS on a 1 GHz processor, and offers Wi-Fi, 3G, GPS, and a 5 megapixel camera.
Dell Streak: Build & Design
This may sound odd, but how large the Streak is depends on how you classify it. If you consider it a smartphone, it's really big. On the other hand, if you think of it as a tablet computer, it's very small. In concrete numbers, it's 6 x 3.1 x 0.4 inches (153 mm x 79 mm x 10 mm).
Dell Streak: Screen
The centerpiece of the Dell Streak is its 5-inch, 800 x 480 pixel (WVGA) capacitive touchscreen. This largedisplay allows you to get more done with this device than you would on a smaller smartphone. It makes web browsing better, emails easier to read, and is a blessing for watching video and reading ebooks.
Colors are great, and thisscreen offers a wide range of viewing angles, so it's possible for two people to watch a movie together. It isn't too bad a fingerprint magnet -- it's no worse than any other item you regularly rub your fingers on.
Dell Streak: Keyboard
The Streak doesn't have a physical keyboard, but its large display gives plenty of room for an on-screen one. There's room for all the commonly used punctuation marks to have their own keys, and there's a dedicated number area. In most apps you have a choice of a landscape and aportrait version of the virtual keyboard, The landscape oneis definitely better, but the portrait version is still usable.
Dell Streak: Processor & Memory
The Dell Streak is based on Google's mobile operating system on a 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with 528 MB of RAM. This is a combination that gives this tablet phone very good performance -- you're almost never going find yourself waiting for something to process.
This tablet phone comes with 16 GB of storage in the form of a removable microSD memory card. You have the option of switching this out for a 32 GB card if you want more storage and are willing to spend the money.
Dell Streak: UI
But there's a hitch: this device launched with Android OS 1.6, a version that's almost a year old and is well behind the current one. This means the Streak is missing full support for voice recognition and the pinch-to-zoom gesture, though a few apps offer these features. There are also a number of third-party apps that won't run on this older version.
The main reason I don't often miss a newer version of the OS is because Dell has created it's own user interface for the Streak -- a UI that I think is an improvement, if not a huge one. It adds a few enhancements without significantly modifying the standard user interface.
Dell Streak: Wireless and Call Quality
Dell built a wide variety of wireless features into the Streak. In addition to support voice and 3G service, this model sports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1. plus a GPS receiver. 3G network provides fast data transfers when you're on the move, but you can get even faster Net access by connecting to a Wi-Fi hotspot. You can also make voice calls, but this really isn't this model's forte. Incoming calls sound fine, but callers report that this device tends to clip offthe beginningsof words I speak.
Dell Streak: Camera
This tablet phoneincludes a 5-megapixel auto-focus camera on its back, and a front-facing one for video conferencing. The rear-facing camera takes fairly decent pictures. Most of the ones I took came out looking fairly good.
The Streak has an LED flash, but it's quite weak. In my tests, it wasn't capable of making a dimly lit object close to the camera bright enough for a good picture. This device comes with a nice addition from Dell: a set of image editing tools. It's not Photoshop by any stretch of the imagination, but you can sharpen, crop, resize, and make other tweaks.
Dell Streak: Battery
Given it's large screen, I expected the Dell Streak to have a short battery life, but I was pleasantly surprised. It's actually decent -- not great, but decent. It usually gets me through a day of average use without needing a recharge -- that includes push email from two different sources, some web browsing, and maybe a phone call.
Conclusion:
The Dell Streak is the best Android tablet yet, but there's still room for improvement. Its sleek and feature-packed hardware is let down by a fairly old version of Android that's missing some key features, and a fussy user interface that doesn't take full advantage of the big screen.
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