Dell opens the Streak Android tablet for orders this week, with a product that promises that the tablet wars will not be all one sided in Apple’s favor. In fact the more we look at this, it may well end up one-sided in Google’s favor. On Friday it goes on general release and will sell for $300 with a new two year AT&T cellular contract or for $550 without. That price makes it more than almost every smart phone, and we could see that forced down to $200 in order to ship in volumes. There are no details yet whether or not Dell has signed any international carriers.
The Dell Streak is Android-based and has a far smaller display than the Apple iPad, at 5 inches and this is one market where size matters ‘ and Apple is currently seen as too heavy and too big. The screen is a capacitive multi-touch WVGA display (800’480). Dell says that it has made a few UI enhancements too, though hasn’t specified what they are.
With a screen that size some might say that it is more like a rival to an iPod Touch or even the iPhone 4, than an iPad, but we don’t think so. It expects to drive entertainment using Apps and widgets from Android Market, including games and of course video downloads and video streaming apps. The device comes with built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth and a 3G radio chip. So yes it’s a phone ‘ the iPad isn’t a phone, or at least it’s not supposed to be, though there’s an App for that.
The combined 3G chip and applications processor is a 1 GHz ARM based Qualcomm Snapdragon and the company is aiming at music, social networking, e-mail, text, IM, and voice calls and of course web browsing and watching video.
Dell reckons that the 5 inch screen format is the smallest that you can comfortably view normal Web pages in their natural form. The Streak will feature turn by turn navigation using Google Maps, with both street and satellite views.
‘The Dell Streak has found a way to fit your whole world in a 5-inch screen. Its unique size will help people discover new ways to enjoy the web, connect with friends, and navigate their lives.’ ‘ Ron Garriques, president, Dell Communication Solutions
It comes with Twitter, Facebook and YouTube shortcuts preloaded and has a 5 Megapixel camera as well as a VGA front facing camera, and 2GB of internal storage expandable to 32GB. It will ship with Android 1.6 and upgrade to 2.2 later in the year with an over the air upgrade. Observers reckon that this means that features such as multi-touch gestures and Flash video will have to come later with the upgrade.
The Streak was first shown at CES in January and properly launched in May, for delivery now. It seems to be the first viable competition, different enough to the iPad that it will definitely appeal to a sub-section of tablet lovers. It is even smaller than the Amazon Kindle, which mostly just lets you read books,
RIM, Samsung, Cisco and Motorola are all known to be working on a variety of tablet class devices ‘ some for specialized uses like TV control and video conferencing, others general purpose, in sizes from the full iPad size down to the Dell tablet 5 inch format. Reports say the battery claims 5 hours talk time