Dell Streak 7 Tablet Review
Dell Streak 7 inch Android tablet
Dell Streak 7 tablet offers dual-core processing, 4G network compatibility, Adobe Flash 10.1 support, front and rear cameras, and an inventive reimagining of Android 2.2. Streak 7 is the tablet we’ve been waiting for Dell to make. It’s a device that’s worthy of the company, it couples solid, refined hardware with a creative spin on Android 2.2. Granted, we’ve seen similar 7-inch Android tablets come and go, but this time around Dell is raising the stakes by making the first 4G-compatible tablet (courtesy of T-Mobile), priced at a tantalizing $199 with a two-year contract ($450 without). Part of Dell’s Streak family, this tablet was able to beat most of the tablets seen at CES to market, because Dell has made the decision to launch it with Android 2.2, also known as Froyo. This means that the Streak 7, like the Streak 5 before it, won’t be released with a version of Android designed specifically for tablets, but rather a recent version of what is largely considered a handset OS.
Specs and Performance
Dell Streak 7 tablet is powered by NVIDIA’s dual-core Tegra 2 SoC, putting it on par with some of the more powerful upcoming tablets like the Motorola Xoom as well as the Viewsonic gTablet which we recently reviewed. Streak 7 is also the first dual-core 7-inch tablet, but it certainly won’t be the last.
Rest of its specifications are in line with what you would expect from a high-end Android tablet, with the exception of the screen which only sports a resolution of 800×480, a bit lower than most other high-end tablets. Dell doesn’t advertise the amount of RAM the Streak 7 has but judging from system information on memory usage it seems, the Streak 7 is packing about 512MB (360MB was available according the Linux Kernel, we’re still waiting for an official actual number from Dell).
Display
Dell Streak 7 display size, is decent. But if you have been playing with smartphones and tablets, you will see right away that the resolution is relatively low for a 7-inch screen (800×480), you basically get the same resolution than most (recent) 3.5-inch / 4.3-inch smartphones, except that the image is now 7-inch big!Battery Life
Battery life depletion varies a lot depending on what you do, but for example, if you play games, things can go downhill fairly fast: leaving Raging Thunder ( a car racing game) in demo mode for 40 min used 21% of the battery, which means that you could play it for about 2 hours before you need to plug again – take this as a worst-case scenario. If you just browse the web or read a book, the battery life will be much better, but it won’t reach what you can get on an iPad.
Price:
The current price of the Streak 7 is $449.99, it looks like Dell is retiring the Dell Mini Streak 7. After its release they have found some flaws in it and currently removed it from their site.