Dell Streak Review (01/07/10)

As promised I’ve finally created my own full Dell Streak Review. I’ve tried to cover all the major points which helped me choose this product over other devices such as the iPhone 4, Blackberries and HTC devices.

Hardware

The hardware of the device is simply nothing short of amazing.



The Device has some of the most powerful specifications out there to date and it shows with it’s smooth operation. It is a beauty to use and quality throughout is excellent party due to the huge amount of power under the bonnet. Go back a few years and this would be a state of the art specification for any notebook!

Screen & Audio

The Dell Streak screen is of course one of the main selling points of this device. Coming in at a huge 5″ 800*480 widescreen display it’s no wonder many people are slightly shocked to see you walking around with this device as your mobile phone! However after the brief look most people just accept it; in fact it’s quite a good way to start a conversation with a stranger. Obviously this device completely dwarfs most of it’s competition.

The above doesn’t give the screen it’s true justice, similarly to the iPhone 4′s amazing display you really need to hold this device to appreciate it fully. But to give you a greater understanding of it’s pure size check out the image below. I’m comparing it to an iPod Touch 2nd Gen (Same size as the iPhones) as well as a TV remote and penknife.

Audio is also quite impressive. This device, with a good pair of headphones, is easily as good as any iPods or Creative devices. However when you purchase the product do not be alarmed by the provided hands free set being plagued by interference. Mine suffered from this heavily however when I switched to my cheap £7.99 create in-ear headphones the interference was practically gone apart from on the odd occurrence when there was an incoming text or email, however I put that down to the software not being very sleek at stopping audio completely.

Camera(s)

I was shocked with the quality of the 5 megapixel camera. After reading other reviews stating it as poor to average I was expecting it to be grainy and be terrible no matter the condition. I never expect my mobile device to be as good as another device with that aspect as it’s sole purpose. Such as video playback versus and Archose device or in this case being a camera.

The post http://raw-uk.org/?p=110 shows you a few images which are also below. The 2nd of which I think truly shows what the camera is capable of. I don’t expect this device to be better than an SLR or even close for that matter. However this device is definitely good enough due to it’s convenience of being a part of my phone!

There is also the front facing camera which seems adequate for what it is designed to do such as video calling. However I find video calling a bit of a lack luster affair since in reality you need to be in wi-fi range and generally when I am I have my PC within reach so can use my far better quality webcam device with Skype.

Interface (UI)

The custom designed interface by Dell on the Streak is beautiful. While it is not as polished as the iOS 4 on the iPhone it is still a pleasant user experience for all the major parts of the device. The screen real estate is constantly used by the native applications and I must admit from using a N95 to this I am loving the simplicity yet vast amount of information available.

As you can see from the post http://raw-uk.org/?p=122 the Dell Streak uses a standard Android setup. You can place widgets, shortcuts and other useful bits of information onto your Home Screen. The brilliant part of the Streak is the shear size of the screen providing just so much room to play with.

Other parts of the UI are also suitably brilliant in their simplicity yet also great functionality. Foremost the simple UI of the Phone is a blessing rather than curse in my opinion. A few blogs have stated it’s to simple, yet that’s what a drunken man wants if he’s out and about! Or if he only has one hand to ring someone due to holding an icecream (we can hope that the weather holds can’t we? ).

The Email and Messaging interfaces are also brilliant (2 Images to the right). They take complete advantage of the screen and just enable you to read so much.

Software (Apps)

I am currently still looking at the best Apps. A few have been posted which you can find under the “App’s” category. Until I have a sufficient number I recommend looking there.

Accessories

There are quite a few accessories. I will be adding an updated post for this very reason later on.