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Early Hands-On Preview of Dell's Streak 7 Tablet

Posted by timothy on from the maybe-it's-the-year-of-linux-on-the-tablet dept.

MojoKid writes "Dell recently started shipping their Streak 7 tablet and it's the highly anticipated big brother of Dell's 5-inch tablet, the Streak 5 that came out in September of 2010. The larger Streak 7 goes up against stiff competition with the likes of Samsung's Galaxy Tab, though the Streak 7 is retailing slightly lower with or without a contract through T-Mobile. Regardless, the Dell Streak 7 offers some pluses over the Galaxy Tab, like its 5MP rear-facing camera, but comes up short in other areas, such as its lower resolution (800x480) display — versus the Galaxy Tab's 1024x600 display. The Dell Streak 7 also has NVIDIA's Tegra 2 dual-core 1GHz processor under its hood for a rather snappy Android 2.2 experience, as you can see here in this early, hands-on preview of the device. In early benchmark testing, the Streak 7 is looking pretty strong versus the Galaxy Tab, which comes in neck-and-neck with the Streak 7 in Neocore, at around 54 FPS."

31 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Pwns the galaxy S... by markass530 · · Score: 2

    From delaying updates, slacking on them, to a VERY overpriced galaxy tab next phone I get won't be a samsung (the one I have now is) The Venue 7 is dual core, and cheaper then the Galaxy tab. It also owns the Ipad from what I can see

    1. Re:Pwns the galaxy S... by FyRE666 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Not sure about "owning the iPad". There's a lot of things to dislike about Apple - i'm certainly no fanboi - but the user interface response of the iPad isn't one of them. I was looking at Android tablets just yesterday, tried out a Galaxy Tab in the flesh and it seemed clunky and slow compared to my iPad. This is before I'd read any reviews that basically also slammed the performance. With my iPad, it responds instantly to swipes and taps, the Galaxy seemed to be having serious problems responding to events - especially in its web browser. Yes, it's a cheaper device, but the specs are not far from the ones in the iPad.

      I'm working on apps for both iOS and Android at the moment (don't bother looking on my website - hasn't been updated for about 10 years ;-) ) and the difference in performance on both the devices and the emulators is striking. Obviously it doesn't help that the Android tablets are currently running operating systems designed for phones. I'll be interested to see how Honeycomb performs on live kit. I really hope it does fix the performance problems.

      I might as well rant about the Android emulator while I'm on it - it's virtually unusable on any hardware I have - a well specced iMac, and even my gaming rig with 12GB RAM and an i7 950 can only run it at about 70% of the speed of an old Google G1! (528mhz phone with 192MB RAM) I mean come on! The iPhone simulator is doing the same job, and easily outpaces the hardware phone. I was using emulators 10 years ago on a PC with far lower specs that ran flawlessly. The excuses for the lamentable performance that I've read are centered around the Android emulator being an accurate emulation of all aspects of the platform. This is all well and good, but if it means it's too slow to accurately emulate the speed of even the slowest hardware, then it's pointless. I hope to god that someone at Google is sorting this out, because bad toolsets are one of the biggest turnoffs to developers.

      --
      Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
    2. Re:Pwns the galaxy S... by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Not sure about "owning the iPad". There's a lot of things to dislike about Apple - i'm certainly no fanboi - but the user interface response of the iPad isn't one of them. I was looking at Android tablets just yesterday, tried out a Galaxy Tab in the flesh and it seemed clunky and slow compared to my iPad. This is before I'd read any reviews that basically also slammed the performance. With my iPad, it responds instantly to swipes and taps, the Galaxy seemed to be having serious problems responding to events - especially in its web browser. Yes, it's a cheaper device, but the specs are not far from the ones in the iPad.

      From what I've heard this is due to differences in the way the two operating systems work. iOS takes an approach that the UI should always be responsive and fluid at the expense of other things. Load a /. article and have it display hundreds of comments and start scrolling like mad towards the top. It'll scroll smoothly, but eventually you'll hit a point where it hasn't rendered that part of the page so you don't actually see anything there until it renders it (usually a second or so). Android on the other hand will load the entire page and render it, but trying to scroll through all of it will cause things to appear choppy. Things get even worse if there are a lot of Flash elements on the page. The device prioritizes those over UI touch events so it starts to feel clunky at times. Comes down to different design philosophies.

    3. Re:Pwns the galaxy S... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Doesn't Android use QEMU for its emulator? Is ARM QEMU running Debian/etc similarly slow on your machines?

    4. Re:Pwns the galaxy S... by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 2

      I have no idea if this is the case but an iPhone simulator should have little need to emulate *anything*.

      Sans ARM assembly, the Xcode environment should transparently cross compile objective-c. Darwin is the common platform, so ios libraries on OSX would be trivial to implement. The main difference being that ioswrites directly to the screen whereas the simulator would write to an OSX window. Hence a good simulator would run your iPad app *natively*.

      And since Mach-O supports multiple CPUs, don't be surprised when the app store starts selling apps that work on both OSX and iOS from a single download.

    5. Re:Pwns the galaxy S... by iluvcapra · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Based on what I've read, the architecture, the event and view models, at least from the client's perspective are very similar. Events go on a queue, get dispatched down a data structure that identifies the targeted UI element, MVC workflow, etc. I am aware that Android, at this present juncture, does very little hardware acceleration, and almost none in 2D, and it doesn't really affect the UX right up to the moment the user tries to scroll, though of course users judge the whole touch experience by the scrolling...

      One can imagine how this sort of thing happens... the Apple engineer hands the prototype to the Steve, and the first time it stutters he gets smacked, The Google engineer hands the prototype to whatever-his-name-is, and the first time it stutters they say, "oh well, it'll ship, it's up to the HTC guys to come up with a fast enough processor." Nice to just do the OS, huh?

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
    6. Re:Pwns the galaxy S... by dara · · Score: 2

      This is a very interesting point about the emulator. I haven't tried one yet, but I was thinking of downloading Meego (though I don't have a Linux PC right now - so I'd have to wait for Mac or Windows versions) and Android emulators and playing with them side by side as a way help make a decision on which platform to go to. I'm leaving iOS after trying an iPhone 3g for a few years. Among other things - I will never forgive Apple for crippling this model with iOS4 and then not supporting a downgrade to iOS3. That and the other non-open aspects to the platform have me definitely going to one of the two main open alternatives (I guess Symbian is a third, but although I've read some positive reviews of the N8, I've read enough negative comments to cause me to wait for the N9. I don't think I can stomach any of the current Android offerings except for a Nexus S and I've got plenty of gripes with that particular hardware. I totally agree with another poster recommending Dell get to a winning Android Tablet design by using the most current version of Stock Android.

      I'd have to see what Nokia ends up offering for Meego, but I do like some of what I read, advertising the Meego core (perhaps not including many Nokia add ons that will dominate the N9 experience - I have no idea) being more open than Android. E.g., a big effort to modify code upstream before releasing in a handset, using open development practices such as letting users download betas, etc.)

      So I wonder if the Meego emulator is any better than the Android one (on Linux). Has anyone done this comparison?

    7. Re:Pwns the galaxy S... by t2t10 · · Score: 4, Informative

      With my iPad, it responds instantly to swipes and taps, the Galaxy seemed to be having serious problems responding to events - especially in its web browser. Yes, it's a cheaper device, but the specs are not far from the ones in the iPad.

      Apple did a good job on optimizing specific applications, and they trade off memory and speed. That's a nice touch if you happen to run just a few Apple apps, but it only goes so far. Once you start using other apps and once multitasking comes into play, the iPad can hang and stutter with the best of them. (Also, a lot of the apps that you run on the Tab don't even come from Google, they come from Samsung.)

      In practice, the Galaxy Tab works well; it isn't as sleek or polished or impressive as the iPad, but I find it actually a lot more useful.

    8. Re:Pwns the galaxy S... by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

      I have no idea if this is the case but an iPhone simulator should have little need to emulate *anything*.

      Sans ARM assembly, the Xcode environment should transparently cross compile objective-c. Darwin is the common platform, so ios libraries on OSX would be trivial to implement.

      This is what the iPhone simulator does, when targeting the iPhone simulator you get x86 binaries that use iOS libraries also built for x86.

      It does a great job of making sure your code will all basically run well. What it does mean though is that things are far faster in the simulator, so sometimes going to a device can mean a surprise in performance (and not in a good way). But you get used to that pretty quickly as you learn what is efficient and what is not.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    9. Re:Pwns the galaxy S... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Or they were busy implementing other things, like browser plugin support (Flash), live wallpaper, widgets, object sharing, wifi tethering, voice recognition, requiring to effectively make two copies of the api (Native and Dalvik), a push notification system that doesn't just send tiny numbers and symbols, etc. Android's functionality is a lot greater, and that's the target audience Google was aiming for first -- those who want functionality and freedom, not the common everyday person -- they knew they had no chance to go toe-to-toe with the fruit for the common everyday person.

      Until, of course, Honeycomb / Ice Cream Sandwich.

      Now their interface support is now so much richer than that of the fruit. There's more than just sliding panes as you might have seen with the Honeycomb preview. (if not, go to youtube.com/Android)

      It's pretty pathetic that Google - who's probably putting as much resources into Android as it is making off of the "Google Experience" licensing - is largely keeping up or surpassing the fruit considering the fruit has only about 4 major products on the market *AND* is making money hand over fist due to their closed infrastructure. Sure the UI isn't as smooth right now, but it's significantly more capable and useful (not to say it can't play games either).

    10. Re:Pwns the galaxy S... by 4phun · · Score: 2

      The only real contender in the next wave of tablets seems to be RIM's PlayBook. The videos out so far are pretty amazing -- dare I call it revolutionary?

      It steals all the best of WebOS in terms of UI and the hardware is top-notch. It's smooth and responsive even when multitasking wtih several CPU intensive tasks.

      It really makes the Streak 7 and Xoom tablets, which feel like an incremental upgrade to the iPad, seem outdated.

      If the iPad 2 doesn't bring something new to the game, we could see a major shift in the tablet market this year.

      How come it can not do BlackBerry email when it is a BlackBerry device? You need to mate it with a BlackBerry phone. The iPad does email in spades and it doesn't need an iPhone.

  2. The real question... by rampant+mac · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Which one will be able to be upgraded to Honeycomb? I wouldn't buy an Android tablet before their tablet version of software became available, regardless of the hardware. Are there any upgrade paths that *either* vendor (Dell or Samsung) has specified? I feel some early adopters will be left out in the cold.

    --
    I like big butts and I cannot lie.
    1. Re:The real question... by tlhIngan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Which one will be able to be upgraded to Honeycomb? I wouldn't buy an Android tablet before their tablet version of software became available, regardless of the hardware. Are there any upgrade paths that *either* vendor (Dell or Samsung) has specified? I feel some early adopters will be left out in the cold.

      The best answer is "if it didn't come with Honeycomb, don't assume it will".

      Buy it for what it has now, not what it might have. After all, there are tons of people who were promised upgrades only to be left stranded, so it's best to assume that what you buy now is what you're stuck with.

      Most likely you'll be able to get Honeycomb through hacks at the very least, but buying now to get a future upgrade is a losing proposition. Best to wait for the Honeycomb tablets to come first.

      This is especially so when you buy Android devices that come with 1.6 firmware, too.

    2. Re:The real question... by Rennt · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I don't get the attitude that Gingerbread is somehow unsuited to tablets. The definitions of "tablet" vs "phone" are arbitrary and mostly dictated by marketing anyway. A couple of years ago we would have called a 4 inch device a tablet, and look where we are now.

      But to answer your question, Samsung at least are apparently planning on sticking with Android 2.X on 7 inch class devices and 3.X on the 10 inch class, and I have to say this seems like a good move. Having used the wife's Galaxy Tab fairly extensively, and having watched the demonstration videos of Honeycomb, I'd honestly recommend against upgrading to 3.0 if given the option. Honeycomb looks like it really requires a full 10 inch display before the UI gets out of your way, whereas the stock OS (albeit with DPI tweaks and an aftermarket launcher) is a great fit.

    3. Re:The real question... by alostpacket · · Score: 2

      There was a chart put together about manfacturer upgrade rates recently, that may shed some insight on this. http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9204779/Android_upgrades_Manufacturer_comparison_?taxonomyId=75&pageNumber=1

      However tablets are a bit of a different ballgame, how much different is hard to say though.

      --
      PocketPermissions Android Permission Guide
    4. Re:The real question... by CastrTroy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is what I think is stupid about android. It's touted as being "open" but you are left depending on the manufacturer of the device to upgrade the software. You should be able to download the software directly from Google and install it on any tablet. Without the manufacturer getting into the way. This should be a condition of allowing the manufacturers to use the Android OS. Making it user servicable. Otherwise what's the point of going with Android. Apple was a great step forward, allowing updates without going through the cell phone carrier, and having only software from the manufacturer. Android needs to go to the next step and make it so that everyone can upgrade their software, without going through any barriers.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    5. Re:The real question... by JoeytheSquid · · Score: 2

      Android is most open to the manufacturers, not necessarily the end users. The manufacturers are free to do whatever they like with the OS. While this openness might be seen as a bad thing (no consistency between devices, no OS updates, tons of pre-installed unremovable junkware) it's also a huge part of Android's market dominance.

      Of course end users are always free to install their own homebrew firmware. So they're not entirely left out in the cold.

    6. Re:The real question... by shellbeach · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is what I think is stupid about android. It's touted as being "open" but you are left depending on the manufacturer of the device to upgrade the software. You should be able to download the software directly from Google and install it on any tablet.

      Well, actually you can. The source code for Android is freely available, and you can literally roll your own. That's exactly what's been going on with heaps of Android phones right now, that are happily running Gingerbread long before the manufacturers have even thought about releasing an update.

      Where the model falls down, though, is in the hardware drivers -- for my phone, an HTC Desire, developers are still waiting on Google's long-promised-but-never-delivered OTA update to the Nexus One in order to grab the proprietary hardware drivers for the device. Don't misunderstand me -- everything works right now, and very well too -- but not quite as well as it might with the proprietary drivers.

  3. Meh by wiredlogic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let me know when honeycomb is out. Since these devices are all going to be treated as abandonware there's no point in buying into a dead end that will be obsolete in months.

    --
    I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
    1. Re:Meh by Fnkmaster · · Score: 2

      Generally true, but the Tegra 2/Android platform is so standardized now that most of the ROMs are easily portable between devices, and there's a very healthy community on XDA Developer forums building, porting and supporting ROMs and useful apps for Tegra 2 tablets. Especially for the G Tablet, because we have kernel source available unlike some of the other devices out there.

      I'm running a port of the Advent Vega ROM on my Viewsonic G Tablet, and there's a port of the Notion Ink ROM now too.

      CyanogenMod runs well on the G Tablet too.

      I'm fairly certain we'll get ports of the Honeycomb ROMs as soon as they come out for other Tegra 2 devices.

  4. Specs Meh by MrDoh! · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Power drain appears to be drastic.
    Screen rez being lower than the Tab is going to be annoying.
    And releasing a 2.x version device NOW when if they'd wait a couple of weeks they could do 3.0?
    Then again, the Tab was nobbled by not allowing regular voice calls in the US.
    But at least it's price is better, but overall a lesser experience when Android Tab makers should be aiming far higher.

    Dell, what are you doing?

    How to make a decent 7" Android Tablet
    Tegra appears to work well. Don't be afraid of standardising on it.
    Latest version of Android, whatever version that is.
    Full Bluetooth support so we can pair up devices
    HDMI output so we can use it with bigger screens if we want to.
        Speaking of HDMI port, if you need to use a non-standard port then split out the hdmi? well, if you have to, but make a standard USB port too for us to charge/connect upto.
    Voice calling as an option, not limited. Let me choose to pay a phone company 50 bucks a month and make you more money, don't limit us
    Standard Android UI, no motoblur/horrible stuff we only load a newer launcher over anyway
    1024x600 at least (Tab's display really is bright and clear. Should be the bare minimum rez for future devices, 7" at least, and don't even /think/ of less on a 10" device.
    Decent speakers (again, the Tab does pretty good here)
    Clean edges. Glass fronted. Tab/Ipad/Streak, cover the full front of the screen. Not try and jam in terrible trackpad controls like the cheap version being sold in BestBuy atm.
    Rootable. (if you want to put the entire bootable OS part on a seperate SDcard inside that's not easily accesible? Go for it, but these devices WILL be hacked. Making it repairable as people learn helps make a better device for customer/client.)
    Accept that some people will use them landscape, some portrait, take into account button/headphone positioning. Don't try and force landscape. (again, launchers help us get around this, so... save some time!)

    More blue LEDs please

    --
    Waiting for an amusing sig.
  5. Battery life is crap by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Informative

    Engadget has a much better and more detailed review of the device. They disliked the poor screen resolution and really dinged it for the abysmal battery life. The most they could get out of it was 6 hours if their usage was light.

    Battery life with screen at 65% brightness, WiFi on, playing standard definition video.

    Dell Streak 7: 3:26
    Archos 70: 6:00
    Samsung Galaxy Tab: 6:09
    Archos 101: 7:20
    Apple iPad : 9:33

    The Galaxy Tab outclasses this thing in just about any conceivable manner.

    1. Re:Battery life is crap by TheRecklessWanderer · · Score: 2

      Well if you want to bring up Archos stuff, if you buy one of those things, better hope you don't need support from the company. I couldn't get my 2 month old archos fixed, i ended up having to throw it in the garbage. Buy something else, which is sad because it was a good machine while it worked, for those few days.

      --
      Mean what you say...say what you mean.
  6. Re:what is the minimum desired resolution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Except competitors already have NFC, competitors already had >200PPI on PDAs, phones, and tablets well before the iPhone 4 launched (though in fairness, the jump to ~330PPI did leapfrog all but one or two), etc.

    Personally, much as I'd like the battery life of an ARM tablet over an Atom machine, until they can match my U820's 1280x800 5.6" screen, I'll get by with the 820 and an N900.

  7. Not the next iPad by SuperKendall · · Score: 2

    The next Pad supposedly has the same resolution display, but a screen that's improved in terms of glare and angled viewing.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  8. Re:Rubbish by alvinrod · · Score: 4, Informative

    The OP is probably referring to phones. Here's an analysis of how long it's taken the various manufacturers to release updates. Samsung has taken roughly three times as long as either Motorola or HTC to get Froyo out. They've also been accused of withholding updates unless carriers paid them for it, but no one was able to confirm that for a certainty.

    Based on their past history, I have a feeling that they won't be upgrading the Galaxy Tab to Honeycomb, but that's just my opinion. Sorry, but the data supports the OP's point of view. He may have an axe to grind, but he has plenty of justification.

  9. Doing it wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you are reviewing a new tablet based on FPS and hardware benchmarks then I bet you are one of those people who still can't understand why the iPad is owning the market.

    1. Re:Doing it wrong by Swampash · · Score: 2

      mod parent up times infinity.

    2. Re:Doing it wrong by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not really. Apple sold, to consumers, 7.3 million iPads. That number was limited by supply. Samsung channel stuffed 2 million Tabs but actual sales to consumers was under half a million. And 16% are being returned.

  10. Re:Bad name choice by sunspot42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What is with these names, anyhow? Streak? Pad?

    What's next? Stain? Chunk? Smear? Dingleberry?

  11. "Highly Anticipated" by Renderer+of+Evil · · Score: 2

    By whom? Who is anticipating this aside from a handful of people on gadget blogs?

    This is running smartphone OS on a tablet that's kinda-sorta not really a tablet and has been disowned by Google as "not ready."

    Sometimes I wonder if the editors here are even paying attention.

    By the way, Engadget gave it a pretty dismal score as far as gadgets go. 4/10