Before we review the Dell Streak properly,
we should point out that it was officially discontinued in the US last
December, and Dell's UK stock was sold through at $160 a unit soon after. It's
anyone's guess how it's managed to hobble on this far in the UK, but you can
still buy units from some online retailers at the full, rather than discounted
price. For reference, that means they're even more expensive than an iPad Mini.
With all that in mind, we'll try to be gentle.
Dell
Streak 7
Originally released running Froyo (which
dates it somewhere in the Paleolithic era) the Dell Streak is an Android tablet
with the dubious honor of having the worst name in a field of technology beset
by routinely terrible names. Specs wise, don’t expect anything too impressive -
after all, it’s getting on for two years old now. The dual core Tegra 250 can't
compete with modern CPUs, and 512MB of RAM is only acceptable if you've got
Apple's software engineering to back you up, and even they wouldn't stoop to an
800 × 480 resolution screen.
Still, rather than give it a merciless
hammering, we'd rather concentrate on the things that make the Streak worth
considering at all, such as its nostalgia value, and potential as a museum
piece. It's not completely bereft of good ideas unlike most tablets, it’s
explicitly designed for use in landscape orientation, which is a bold decision,
but one that works well for browsing the web. Clearly, Dell did make some
interesting decisions.
It also contains a few features you’d expect
even of a modern tablet 5MP rear camera, 1.3MP front camera, 3G capabilities
and memory card support. It even has a reasonable 16GB of integrated storage,
although another big disappointment comes in the form of a truly woeful battery
life (5 hours, tops).
It's truly baffling that anyone is still
selling the Streak 7, but since they are, we felt it was right to give it a
proper appraisal. With that taken care of, we can conclusively state that you
shouldn't go anywhere near this unless you see it for under $160. And even
then, we're not so sure it's worth it.
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Details
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Screen Size: 7"
·
Internet: Wi-Fi + 3G
·
Price: 16 GB ($448)
·
OS: Android 3.2 (Honeycomb)
Verdict
·
Quality: 4
·
Value: 2
·
Overall: 3
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