The Dell Streak has ultimately arrived in the real world, after months of questions and a several false starts. It’s technically the very first Android tablet from the big DESKTOP maker, nevertheless it’s actually a lot more similar to an Android smart phone than the usual rival to the Apple iPad. Find out the positives and negatives of the Streak and whether TechRepublic might highly recommend it or not.
Solid hardware – The Streak is sleek as well as light, but it surely also feels substantial adequate to make an impression. There’s nothing low-priced or maybe flimsy about this. Positioning it in 2 hands and flipping through menus and Web sites, typing emails, reading through written documents, and watching video clips all feel interestingly natural. When it comes to the processor, display, MEMORY, camera, and other computer hardware specifications, the Streak complies with the minimum specifications we’d expect, however it doesn’t surpass anything which you’ll come across on the top rated Google android smartphones on the market.
Expanded on-screen keyboard – The smartest Android UI add-on that Dell has built to the Streak is the custom made on-screen keyboard that has been extended from the standard 30-35 keys to a 49-key model (in landscape mode) that also includes a number pad and usually takes advantage of the excess space given by the 5-inch display screen. It’s not quite as specific as the HTC EVO’s ons-screen keyboard (which just utilizes its additional space for larger keys) though the number pad on the Streak is extremely helpful and makes this a powerful data entry system.
Android ecosystem – The reason why people have been looking forward to an Android tablet to compete with the iPad is because the Android ecosystem is everything that the Apple ecosystem isn’t – open, custom-made, as well as free for tinkerers to experiment on. It’s just too bad that the Streak transported with an outdated version of the OPERATING SYSTEM.
Inconsistent performance – For a device running a 1 GHz Snapdragon, the Streak feels slow at times. It’s not that it’s consistently slow. Some tasks are instant and faster as opposed to HTC EVO or Nexus One, but then navigating some menus and opening some applications will take much longer to load than they should, and longer than alternative similar Android devices.
Overpriced – At 0 (with a 2-year wireless contract), the Streak is 0 more costly than devices such as the EVO, the Droid X, as well as Samsung Galaxy S, nonetheless it’s only advantage over those devices is a larger screen. When you factor in that it’s less portable compared to any of those devices, runs an older OS, and doesn’t have access to many of the newest apps, it’s difficult to make a case for the Streak.
Bottom line:
The Dell Streak Tablet has an outdated operating-system, an expensive price tag and runs on an efficient processor but is slow. If you wish to choose between the Dell Streak and a smartphone our recommendation is that you prefer a smartphone over the Streak.