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Hands-on with the Dell Streak

The Dell Streak hit my desk today. Only for half an hour, and even that required actual weaponry to be deployed against our comrades on CNET UK while we held the thing hostage.
Written by First Take , Previews blog log-in

The Dell Streak hit my desk today. Only for half an hour, and even that required actual weaponry to be deployed against our comrades on CNET UK while we held the thing hostage. But it was worth it.

There are many factors that play for and against the Streak being a success. It's genuinely portable, fast, has a big screen and a decent operating system: all these things are good and useful. It's expensive (£429 inc. VAT unlocked), is the largest mobile phone since 1990, and is made by Dell — a company that has tried out many handheld devices and succeeded with none.

Dell's Streak is a supersized 5in. Android smartphone

The good news is that the Streak is the most impressive small device Dell has yet produced. The bad news: it won't be a success, and won't be the product to break that duck.

Good stuff first. It really is portable, and does a great job of being a good way to get at all that internet while you're out and about. It has multi-touch in the browser, it's stable, it runs lots of applications, the screen is easy to read and it does make phone calls.

What's more, the quality of the construction is rather better than you might fear. It feels solid. It's not particularly well designed — the volume, power and camera buttons are sprinkled at random and with little thought for unsighted operation along the top, while the home, menu and back buttons are simply backlit bits of case with no give. You get a little haptic buzz when you touch them, but it's not the same as proper clicky. You've seen worse.

The back panel comes off well, too, which is where you'll be putting more microSD card storage.

Slip the Streak out of your jacket pocket (it'll just fit) in the pub and you'll be having a better time online than the iPhone crowd. And you can take it to the pub without needing special tailoring, so you're having a better time than iPad fans too.

Unlike an iPad, the Streak will (just) fit in a pocket, and gives you a lot more screen than an iPhone.

It runs Android (1.6, but 2.2 is coming later this year) and it's got a decent processor, so it works.

But, there are stupidities. Google Maps doesn't have multitouch. Grrr. You can't pick it up like a phone and dial, because the home screen doesn't switch to portrait mode — everything else does, but you have to hold it horizontal at first to get the apps started. And the phone app, while functional, looks ugly, like a standard phone app that's shuffling around uncomfortably in clothes three sizes too big for it.

The single biggest chunk of stupid, though, is the USB port. It doesn't have one. Rather, it has a custom connector on the base of the device that has various signals, including USB. Without the special Dell cable or special Dell dock, you can't charge the battery or move stuff on and off the flash storage.

Instead of a standard mini-USB port, the Streak has a proprietary connector. Why?

I don't know why Dell did that. It may be a cargo cult approach to Apple's iPod/iPad/iPhone aftermarket, which is admittedly largely contingent on that special dock connector. But that's more contingent on Apple being Apple, and Dell isn't Apple. Other suggestions are that it's all tied in with HDMI video connectivity — but is that any reason not to include a mini-USB connector as well? There's room in the device, you're charging top whack for it, and a few pence for a connector that means you won't run out of juice away from home...no, it beats me.

As a first-generation mutant phone/slate/tablet, the Dell Streak is an interesting experiment with much to recommend it. However, the company must find the one person in the design process who has lost the plot and lock them in a room full of real users for a month before moving on to the next — and hopefully irresistible — version of the idea.

Rupert Goodwins

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