Laptop Thoughts: Dell's Giant Streak TabletPhone ...

"If you've been following the ongoing saga of Dell's Streak, you've probably already read our review of O2 UK's version -- thing is, the British perspective can be very different from the Yankee one (we didn't see eye-to-eye during the War of 1812, for instance). To that end, we wanted to circle back now that the gargantuan Android beast is finally coming close to a US release and get another quick take."

Thinking back to the days when I had a Nokia N810 Tablet, I really wished that it had phone capabilities. Dell's Streak is an Android 1.6 TabletPhone with an 800x480 5-inch screen, and is only 10mm thick. It supports quad-band EDGE, and 3G for AT&T, Rogers, Bell and Telus. T-Mobile 3G? Sorry. EDGE only. This giant has 2GB internal storage, comes bundled with a 16GB MicroSDHC card, and is powered by a Snapdragon 1GHz processor.

Is this perhaps "The One" that we've been awaiting? Unfortunately, early reviews point to No. Android is three versions behind, and Dell's customizations and tweaks don't make up the difference. Some annoyances? The home screen is landscape only. No dedicated hardware search button. Notifications no longer via down-swipe. No Android multitouch, although Dell has added some customizations to the UI. Unimpressive virtual keyboard. No trashcan on the home screen. The screen ripples when pressed moderately hard, indicating some stress on the glass. Camera and video mediocre, sound quality also mediocre. And, a proprietary connector/charger rather than microUSB.

Great potential, but the target market (power users and road warriors) probably won't like Dell's design decisions. Here's hoping that the hacker community makes a nice, clean Android 2.2 build available for this monster - the sooner the better.