Dell Streak review redux: thoughts from the New World

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.

As a refresher, this thing matches or exceeds the specs you'd expect to find on any modern high-end smartphone in most respects, starting with a 1GHz Snapdragon core, a 5 megapixel camera with dual LED flash, 850 / 1900MHz 3G for use on AT&T, Rogers, Bell, and Telus, and 2GB of internal storage coupled with a bundled and pre-installed 16GB microSDHC card. Where the Streak sets itself far, far apart from the crowd, though, is with an absolutely enormous 5-inch capacitive touchscreen at 800 x 480 resolution. Needless to say, it's a polarizing feature -- and for many, it'll singlehandedly determine whether the phone is a buy or a no-buy.

Our original review ultimately concluded that the Streak was a promising device in need of an update from Android 1.6 to Froyo. On second look, does our American reviewer agree? Read on.

Dell Streak review redux: thoughts from the New World

Hardware

The Droid X is an extraordinarily imposing device -- so for us to be able to say that the Streak dwarfs the Droid X is making one hell of a statement. It's clear that Dell expects you to generally hold it in a landscape orientation (more on this in the software section), and in that respect, it works fine for users of any hand size; if you imagine the way you'd normally hold a PSP (a real one, not a Go), you're on the right track. Be that as it may, there are definitely times when you'll want to hold it portrait, and for that Herculean operation, you'll need the hands of a yeti. Actually, that's a bit of an overstatement -- we'd consider our hands just a little bigger than average, and we were able to get a comfortable grip on it, though trying to reach every corner of the display with your thumb is a tricky affair at best.

At 10mm, the Streak is among the thinnest smartphones around, but the effect of that thinness is amplified by the device's surface area. In other words, it feels even thinner than it actually is. As we'd noted in our review, as long as you're not wearing tight pants (or pants with unusually small pockets), it's totally pocketable without too much drama or bulge; a good rule of thumb is that if the 4.3-inch Droid X or EVO 4G fit for you, the Streak should fit, too, particularly thanks to the curved edges and glossy, slippery surfaces. It's a good thing that it's so easily concealed, because it's a serious conversation piece when it's out -- a testament to the fact that there's seriously nothing else quite like it in the market today. Seriously, strangers of all types will come up to you and want to know what the heck it is you're tapping on, so be prepared for that.

Talking a little bit more about the Streak's materials and construction, we can't overstate it: it's a simply gorgeous phone, truly one of the prettiest we've ever seen. Dell has done a magnificent job of blending the Gorilla Glass display almost completely flush with its surroundings in such a way that it appears to be a solid, uninterrupted sheet of curved, glossy blackness -- an effect similar to that achieved by the Palm Pre, but with far more reassuring levels of construction and quality here. In fact, the Streak really feels more like a computer than a phone in some respects, a testament to Dell's traditional comfort zone. That said, we did have a couple concerns; first, the plastic caps that sit on either side of the display had a tendency to creak when pressed, particularly the top one where the earpiece and front-facing camera are located. That's not a big deal since you don't really have a valid reason to be pressing too hard on these parts of the phone, but a bigger concern lies with the display itself: pressing on it with anything more than a light touch causes some LCD rippling around the edges, a sign that it's taking more stress than it should.

Controls and ports on the Streak are fairly standard for an Android device with a couple notable exceptions. The capacitive buttons below the display (or to the right side of it, depending on the orientation) are capacious and work really well. Strangely, though, there's no dedicated search key among the trio, a strange omission for any Android phone, let alone one with this much room across; we thought "no big deal" at first, but we did actually find ourselves regularly missing it. More importantly, though, the Streak eschews the nearly universal micro-USB port for a wacky custom one -- it kind of resembles an iPod connector, but without the ubiquity or the availability of hundreds of compatible crappy alarm clock docks. Apple, of course, can get away with pretending micro-USB doesn't exist because it's cultivated its own widely-popular standard over the last decade, and by now, most people have an iPod cable or three lying around. Dell, however, can't get away with it. The fact that we couldn't use our already-connected cables to charge the Streak or transfer files to and from our PC drove us nuts, never mind the fact that you're stuck buying accessories and spare cables -- likely at jacked-up prices -- straight from the source or from whatever relatively small third-party ecosystem develops to support this phone. Of course, the advantage to the proprietary connector is that you can purchase an awesome dock for the Streak that features HDMI-out and a USB port, and that's totally fine, Dell -- just give us a micro-USB port on the phone, too.

The Streak's display is fantastic. It's not quite as vibrant or bright as an AMOLED device or an iPhone 4, but it's exceptionally usable outdoors and has some of the best touch sensitivity we've ever experienced -- there were actually a couple cases where we had to prove to ourselves that we were even making contact with the display with our fingertips when taps were being registered (turns out they were, but just barely). Dell makes great use of the screen's real estate, too; even though its 800 x 480 resolution is no higher than, say, a Nexus One, the Streak uses lower-resolution screen elements (icons and the like) so that you can fit far more on the screen at one time -- and because it's five inches across, you can really take advantage of it. Sure, you can make out individual pixels in some of the fonts and icons, but so what? We'll take being able to see twelve Gmail items on the screen at once with message body previews (pictured above on the right, versus a Droid X on the left) any day over higher pixel density.

Mirroring our British colleague's sentiments, we were a little underwhelmed by camera performance and disappointed that video capture tops out with VGA. Shots were generally oversaturated, seemed heavily compressed, and just generally looked like they came off a cheap sensor with poor optics; the standard-def videos didn't fare much better, hampered by mediocre sound quality. That all may not be an issue for many users -- especially since a phone as big as the Streak doesn't really make for the most convenient camera -- but considering that many modern smartphones like the Droid Incredible, EVO 4G, iPhone 4, and N8 are all delivering high-def video capture and superb stills, it's still a bummer. We also had some strange issues with the automatic white balance delivering stratospherically high color temperature indoors (check out our sample shot of the iPhone 4 in the gallery), and were confused to see that the phone offers no automatic flash control -- you've got to trigger the dual LEDs yourself if you think you need them.

Dell Streak US camera samples

Software

Herein lies the true tragedy of the Streak. Glancing at the downright mean-looking hardware, you assume that this is an extraordinarily powerful, full-featured computer that could replace a laptop or netbook in many cases. In some respects, that's true -- Android is arguably the most powerful, flexible mobile operating system on the market today -- but we came away feeling like the thing was gimped in some significant ways that arbitrarily limit its appeal.

First, and most obviously, the Streak is launching with Android 1.6. Froyo and Flash 10.1 are promised in an update, but the fact remains that Dell is releasing a high-end smartphone in the middle of 2010 running a platform that is now three major revisions old. And that's not just a meaningless number, either -- there are some very practical implications to the version gap. For example, Google Maps doesn't support pinch-to-zoom here, even after you update the built-in app to the latest that's available, version 4.3 -- that especially sucks considering how great it looks on a display this large! You're also denied access to the "official" Facebook and Twitter experiences for Android, instead being stuck with half-assed clients that Dell has baked into the firmware.

Then, there's the skin. We see what Dell tried to do here -- we think -- but it didn't work out. It seems they sought to make Android just a little more MID-friendly by adding capabilities geared specifically toward taking advantage of the 5-inch display; the pop-up app menu and notification window, for example. In doing so, though, they've left a trail of questionable design decisions that left us yearning for stock Android (or Sense... or really, anything) at virtually every turn. Here's an example: you can't swipe down from the top of the screen to get the notification drawer, which is arguably one of Android's most brilliant gestures. Instead, you've got to tap a surprisingly small gray area in the status bar, which in turn pops up a bubble listing your current notifications. Dell has also managed, against all odds, to not have room to show the time in the status bar when you're in portrait orientation -- an impressive feat, considering we're talking about a 5-inch WVGA display.

Speaking of portrait orientation, Dell really doesn't plan for you to be using it very often -- which, depending on your style and your hand size, may or may not be a safe assumption. The home screen doesn't work at all in portrait, though some elements of it -- context menus, for instance -- can occasionally be coaxed to do it. Virtually all apps, of course, are more than happy to work in portrait -- so when you're using the phone that way, you might find yourself getting used to using the home screen sideways to launch apps you're trying to get into. We were also surprised to see that Dell killed the concept of the trash can on the home screen, so when you want to delete an icon or a widget, you've got to hold it until you "pick it up" then drop it again; it'll stay highlighted red, indicating you can press the Menu button to get a delete command. Awkward and unnecessary.

We were also unimpressed with the keyboard, which Dell has made as full-featured as possible (to take advantage of the display size, we think) at the detriment of usability. In portrait mode, they've tacked on punctuation keys and a dedicated Caps Lock key in the letter rows, which we were accidentally hitting almost constantly (though the dedicated numeric row at the top is a neat addition). In landscape, they've inexplicably put a full numeric keypad to the right of the letters, which means you can sock away any dreams of typing with two thumbs unless you want to learn how to effectively do it off-center. Considering our extremely positive experience with the Droid X's keyboard, we'd come into the Streak assuming that we would do even better -- bigger is almost universally better when it comes to screen size and soft keyboards -- but it's just not the case with the Streak. Needless to say, we'd love to try the stock Android keyboard on this display in portrait mode and see what kind of typing speed we could achieve.

There are bright spots in the Streak's software, though. We really liked its home screen panel system, which is user-configurable in real time -- just by tapping in the status bar, you can add or remove panels so that you don't have to swipe through five if you don't want five. The browser has also been customized from the stock Android 1.6 app to add in pinch zooming, which is a major usability issue for some users (though interestingly, the Streak's screen is just large enough so that you can totally read some full websites completely zoomed out). It seemed a touch slower than it should've been considering the 1GHz processor, but not to the point of annoyance.

Wrap-up

For many, high-end browsing and messaging capabilities have overtaken the importance of voice calling in a phone, and that's a philosophy that giant handsets like the Streak embrace with open arms. It's an exciting, young segment of the smartphone market where we think we're going to see a lot of growth and innovation over the next few years -- and in many ways, Dell's 5-inch monster is at the forefront of that charge. What makes the Streak such a heartbreaking device for us, though, is that the types of folks it's most likely to appeal to -- power users and road warriors who value sheer capability over portability -- are the very same people who are least likely to appreciate Dell's heavy-handed and generally unhelpful UI tweaks.

We're more than willing to forgive a weak camera to carry this beauty, but ultimately, it's the firmware that's holding the Streak back from its full potential -- and we're not confident Dell is going to tone down the skin when the time comes to launch the Froyo upgrade (which, by the way, can't come soon enough). For now, we'll look to the hacker community to get us some nice, clean Android 2.2 builds for this thing -- but if Dell wants to play in the hyper-competitive smartphone market over the long term, they're going to need to remember something that they've known in the PC space for many years: they're a hardware manufacturer, not a software firm.

[MrJimlad Posted Jul 20th 2010 11:46AM]

@Engadget

Please get over pinch to zoom... im not impressed when i have to use two digits to do something that i can do with just one and it wastes valuable milliseconds of my life that i could quite frankly use else where... like for sex, for example.

[That guy 2 Posted Jul 20th 2010 12:31PM]

@MrJimlad Get over pinch to zoom? And what, use + and -? and crappy doubletap? Pinch to zoom was a revolutionary idea, and is not only a cool trick or fun thing for little kids with iPod touches, but it's also very functional and accurate when done right

[ale Posted Jul 20th 2010 3:32PM]

@MrJimlad
you Would last a "millisecond" in bed

[TMC Posted Jul 20th 2010 4:47PM]

@MrJimlad
Practice your pinch zooming and you might actually have better sex.

[Dig Deep Posted Jul 20th 2010 6:44PM]

@MrJimlad

I also don't like using two fingers when using my phone.

[mobilehavoc Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:06AM]

It's still too small.

[aubreyq Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:08AM]

@mobilehavoc
Here it comes...

[aubreyq Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:09AM]

I couldn't wait...THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!!

[strudopi Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:13AM]

@mobilehavoc
You know what they say about men with big phones....

[millertime021 Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:17AM]

@aubreyq I'm sorry.

[dswatson83 Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:21AM]

@millertime021
I'm ok with the size because its thin enough. Not ok with limited portrait mode, keyboard (which should be changeable right?) and android 1.6. Fix those and I'll at check it out

[Jive Turkey Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:32AM]

@strudopi large pockets?

[admlshake Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:43AM]

@strudopi

large bills...

[VAVA Mk 2 Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:44AM]

@mobilehavoc

That's what she said.

[SolidSnake Posted Jul 20th 2010 10:30AM]

@aubreyq
That's what she said.

[Landon Donovan Posted Jul 20th 2010 10:42AM]

@strudopi They have big ears?...

[zippzom Posted Jul 20th 2010 10:44AM]

@mobilehavoc The smaller the better
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9pu8GOIOvE

[loocas Posted Jul 20th 2010 12:25PM]

@strudopi I thoroughly don't care! I want a phone of this exact size! That'd be my ultimate smarphone for making notes, calendar orgies and generally typing e-mails or even texts on such a monster with my mits would be awesome!

C'mon HTC!

[Ninjilla Posted Jul 20th 2010 1:11PM]

@aubreyq

That's what he said

[jawman Posted Jul 20th 2010 1:45PM]

@aubreyq
Wow, are people still saying "that's what she said."
That's so old. Now, if you're in high school, it's ok. But if you're older than the age of 18, please stop now. I thought us nerds were always up on the coolest things, and knew when something got old and got overdone. A lot of the stuff that's cool or funny nowadays was first seen on the internet, in a blog, or video, etc., and was invented by nerds/geeks like us. So we should know when something gets old and is way overdone by the masses that it becomes not so cool anymore.

[Elranzer Posted Jul 20th 2010 2:22PM]

1. Landscape-only homescreen
2. Android 1.6 with skin
3. Anchored to AT&T

Sorry Dell. Three strikes. You're out.

[angermeans Posted Jul 20th 2010 4:06PM]

@Elranzer +1 for you and -1 for the Dell Streak

[IndustrialStrength Posted Jul 20th 2010 4:21PM]

@mobilehavoc
heres a better picture comparison...
http://www.pocketables.net/2010/07/dell-streak-htc-evo-4g-iphone-4g-photo-faceoff.html

[Welshy992 Posted Jul 20th 2010 4:55PM]

Cool story bro @jawman

[BaruteruKun Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:07AM]

Hey great friends :-D if i buy Dell Streak by chance on ebay (unlocked) of course, can i use my Sim-card from europe (Vodafone) ?? this dell looks very nice and knowing that will get a Froyo update it's really something :-D

Best Regards

[KyleLipp Posted Jul 20th 2010 10:27AM]

@BaruteruKun

You need to see if the frequencies match. The UK version is out on O2 I think so if you get one of those unlocked I would think it would work.

[dansus Posted Jul 20th 2010 1:31PM]

@KyleLipp

You can buy it direct from Dell UK too.

[aubreyq Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:08AM]

Oblivion calls you. However, the Streak calls ME!

[SolidSnake Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:08AM]

@iantolee
To fail.

[Accelerator Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:08AM]

:)

[bobcobb Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:08AM]

too big for a phone, too small for a tablet

[metformin Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:29AM]

@bobcobb

and the 2gb internal storage? That seems a bit lacking.

[Tes Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:44AM]

@metformin

That's for apps. The thing is the apps on android really are tiny compared to iOS. I have almost 60-70 apps on my HTC Desire, no rooting or apps2sd. I need more space but thats for about 5 or 6 apps I want but done have the room for. But saying that, all the apps I do have are on a space only 158mb small. 2gb would be a HUGE area for Android apps.

Then there's Micro SD for your media. Have a 32gb card (class 2) and the speed is more than enough, too much FUD out there about class 2 being too slow.

[juanvaldez Posted Jul 20th 2010 11:05AM]

@Tes But that isn't exactly true for games, and even though games are lacking a bit, some will be happy enough with the content and if there is hope for the future then this would be lacking a bit if it doesn't get to FroYo by the time a customer loads it up with games.

[system22 Posted Jul 20th 2010 3:33PM]

@Tes depends on the apps. most of the apps on my iphone are actually tiny (less than 1mb). a few really detailed apps get up to 20(ish) mb (usually games) and the very rare REALLY high end apps can go up from there but you hardly see them.

[gpmoo7 Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:08AM]

Dell should send Streak to Cyanogen and his friends so they can make CyanogenMod-6 run this device too.

In 2010, no one should use Android 1.0/1.1/1.5/1.6.

[Chris DPSN AggieCEO XBLThe Aggi Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:08AM]

if Only it had Android 2.2 on it AND it was guaranteed to get a 3,0 upgrade later this year...I would probably bite.....and the non-official twitter and facebook apps dont sit well with me

[lexitu Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:09AM]

Scorecard? Please.

[rommel Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:10AM]

... cmon Dell launch it

[xenbomb Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:10AM]

so when is it out on att??

[MrX8503 Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:10AM]

Tablet by day, smartphone by night

[ad Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:10AM]

No difference of opinions across the continent :p
seems a copy paste of uk review :)

[NotRandall Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:11AM]

Has anyone noticed the curves of the device resembles a Blackberry Storm? It looks like my Storm 2's daddy.

[rakeshin Posted Jul 20th 2010 10:40AM]

@NotRandall yes.. it looks verymuch like the storm. also the samsung captivate looks the same. actually.. the captivates metal back resembles the blackberrys

[inspiron41 Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:12AM]

so so close to getting to notion ink release date.......
.
but no on android 1.6. Once you had froyo, u can never go back. yummmm

[Yankees Win Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:13AM]

@iantolee this is very disappointing news about the software. What dell did is akin to what htc did using windows 6.5 on the HD2, making it obsolete as soon as it was released. They better hope they update the software fast, or the phone could become irrelevant due to software older than dirt

[sfox8 Posted Jul 20th 2010 5:11PM]

@Yankees Win The difference there is that HTC did not really have an option to put Windows Phone 7 on the HD2. It was released (and I'm sure even in the works) well before WP7 was even announced. WP7 still has yet to be released.

Dell has no such excuse with the Streak. Especially with Android being open source, the software is readily available but for whatever reason they decided not to at least put 2.0/2.1 on it.

Sad, because the Streak looks like an awesome tabPhone. And the way that screen blends into the hardware to look like one smooth black slab makes it a jaw-droppingly beautiful device. They probably would have been safer just going with stock Android though. Easier and faster updates, better performance and more function. It would have been a REAL serious competitor to the Droids, EVOs and Galaxy's.

[TheRealCJ Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:14AM]

I don't really have a problem with the size (hey, if I can carry a PSP around in my pocket for the better part of my school life, I can carry one of these around now).

But unfortunately, 1.6 kinda kills it for me as an early adopter. On the other hand, I'm almost NEVER an early adopter ("Let them iron out the bugs first" is my motto - perfect example is the iPhone), and since I've got to wait for this to be released in Australia anyway, I'll look into a phone like this in a few months.

[juanvaldez Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:15AM]

I expect more than 2 GB internal storage in my high-end phone. I was waiting for this until I heard about the Samsung Galaxy S and now that Froyo is a few short weeks away I couldn't be happier.


Sent from my Galaxy S, Korean version

[androidpedia Posted Jul 20th 2010 9:15AM]

I can carry one of these around now