Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Hands-On With Dell's Streak Android Device

Posted by timothy on from the 5-inch-abs dept.

adeelarshad82 writes "Dell Streak, the Android-based 5-inch tablet (which has also been called out as a smartphone) is set to ship starting in July, both from a US carrier and direct on Dell.com for $500. Even though Dell has not disclosed the name of the carrier, some experts believe that it will be AT&T because the Streak is a 3G GSM 850/1900 device and AT&T is the only major US carrier that supports those frequency bands. According to a hands-on, Streak is a sharp-looking device with a black front and candy-apple red back that unfortunately shows fingerprints easily. On the upside, Streak's curved body is comfortable to hold. Streak runs a customized version of Android 1.6, but Android aficionados will have to get used to the unusual button layout. Its 800x480-pixel screen makes images look tight, and web pages will benefit from the horizontal resolution. The 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, the same as in the HTC Incredible and Sprint EVO 4G, functions snappily. There's a 5-megapixel camera on the back, a VGA camera for video calling on the front, and a MicroSD memory card slot under the back cover."

5 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Android 1.6? Is this a joke? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Come on - how can anyone sell an Android 1.6 device with a straight face in this day and age?

    No wonder it's going to AT&T. AT&T hates Android and so far has only carried the worst and most crippled Android devices on the market.

    1. Re:Android 1.6? Is this a joke? by tftp · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Releasing a product in commercial space requires stability. Sure, you can't have everything in the release 1.0, but every release must be a solid product. If you look back, each DOS release was fine; most Windows releases were OK (as Windows goes,) and IIRC even OS/2 releases were reasonably mature.

      The major point here is to avoid the upgrade treadmill. I can understand frequent upgrades if they are seamless. But in Android they are not. Each OEM has to customize a base Android system to their hardware, and a handheld thing can have 10-20 different hardware items to worry about - the CPU itself, the display controller, the touch controller, the battery charge controller, WiFi, Ethernet, BT, compass, GPS... so it's a lot of work to the OEM to upgrade from 1.x to 1.(x+1). If you make them do it often they just say "stuff it, we won't be upgrading anything" and then you are stuck. In my work I occasionally have to upgrade frameworks. Qt offers a great example, especially when 3.x to 4.x transition changed *everything* and required rewrite of major pieces of code. Such an upgrade is often out of consideration even - the library pieces then get checked in along with your sources, and that's that.

      So IMO regardless of what Google wants to do, what they are doing is not working. Google people just don't understand what their releases are doing to the industry. Imagine yourself an OEM that plans a gizmo. If you pick Android you start development one day and never end, until the product is EOLed. That is hardly a winning strategy. If I were such an OEM I'd rather pick a no-name OS that at least allows me to build a product and let it be. If my product doesn't report its OS version I'm OK. If my product reports that it's Android x.y then it's already bad news - there is already a newer release by Google, and who will buy my gizmo then? Business-wise, Google is on a losing path here.

      Besides, as far as Google is concerned, implementing the latest version isn't really their problem.

      I'm afraid you are right and Googlers indeed harbor that foolish idea. But that very fact *is* their problem. They have enough cash to play ostrich for a few years, but the reality couldn't care less about what Google thinks. Reality deals with things that exist.

  2. Bad Form Factor by HandleMyBidness · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The picture in that article makes me think this is the exact wrong size for every use it's designed for, especially as a phone.

  3. Just what we need by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A phone with a pathetic screen resolution on a pathetic carrier with a dog-old version of Android.

    I mean, I want an Android tablet, but I'm simply not settling for this.

    1. Re:Just what we need by Threni · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > There is no such thing as an Android Tablet. Google doesn't officially make an OS for tablets yet,

      If someone puts Android on a tablet then at that point you can say that Google officially makes an OS for tablets. What Google intends to do, or where it expects an OS to run is neither here nor there.