Dell streak mini 5 how much did it cost. Big phone or small tablet? Dell Streak Review

DELL Streak 5 - New from the leading brand in the Android tablet market! While retaining all the functions of an "advanced" laptop, the device can nevertheless be used as a simple mobile phone. However, it’s not the other way around: in no case can one assume that DELL Streak 5 is a phone with more extensive capabilities. It is complete tablet PC dimensions 152.9 × 79.1 × 10 mm, and weighing 220 grams.

DELL Streak 5 has incredible multimedia capabilities. Play video up to 1080 pixels - no problem for him! The video file optimized for the 5-inch DELL Streak 5 screen with a resolution of 800 × 480 pixels is 720p HD video. Over touch screen there is a VGA standard camera (which opens the possibility of making video calls). The built-in camera is capable of recording 640x480 video, there is also the ability to diversify the footage with various video effects. If you are taking a photo, you can indicate the time on the photo and set the photo parameters.

You can buy such a tablet at a price 550 USD.

There is also a larger 7-inch DELL Streak model -

The American company Dell, which has repeatedly conquered the Russian market with non-standard sales of mobile electronics, has recently released a kind of "intermediate link" between smartphones and tablet computers. The controversially evaluated device was named Dell Streak 5 and loud praises from manufacturers who call their creation almost a new phenomenon in the world of mobile technologies.

Dell is known in Russia as a manufacturer of high-quality and expensive laptops and netbooks. Devices that have come out of the hands of solid Americans steadily occupy their place in the mid-price segment of the market, sometimes breaking through to the hi-end. In the case of Dell Streak 5, the situation repeated itself, however, competitors with approximate characteristics of the device on russian market does not have.

"tablet smartphone" Dell Streak 5

It's worth starting with the fact that, defined by the manufacturer as a tablet computer, in fact, the Dell Streak 5 is something like a smartphone with an extended set of functions. Same android platform, which has become almost mandatory for almost all types of mobile devices, the same communication capabilities that allow the device to work in gsm networks, only the performance is higher and the screen size is larger. However, the half-tablet will still find its buyers: the symbiosis of the two devices is quite useful for people who are not too demanding on multimedia capabilities. In any case, Dell Streak 5 deserves the closest attention, despite the fact that it is not a novelty: it was announced a year ago and was originally intended to work on the network of one American operator.

The design of Dell Streak 5, as, indeed, always with this vendor, is quite original. For game lovers, it may well remind the shape of the PSP, but this is a rather distant similarity. Much more important is another circumstance: outwardly, the creation of the Americans does not resemble either the iPad, with which the manufacturers intended to compete, or the popular models of smartphones, from which almost the tablet has moved quite far, or the Chinese nameless devices that flooded the electronics markets of the CIS countries. Of course, the screen is in many ways the image-creating one - the diagonal of 5 inches obliges the model to be rather large and heavy: 152.2 x 79.1 mm and 220 g. Despite its similar dimensions, Streak 5 has one of the thinnest cases among this class of devices, therefore wearing comfort is a controversial issue. Naturally, its orientation is horizontal, however, unlike standard 7 and 10-inch devices, it can be operated with one hand, which is quite consistent with the presence of phone functions.

The glossy plastic used for the Dell Streak 5 case spoils the impression: old problem with fingerprints does not disappear over time. As for the rest, the quality of materials and workmanship raises no objections: the tablet really looks and feels expensive, it feels solid, oriented towards serious business. The entire front side is occupied by a 5-inch screen, and the scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass coating, tested on smartphones from HTC, pleases. Naturally, the screen is a capacitive touchscreen (it would be strange to expect something different). FROM right side (does everyone remember that the orientation is horizontal?) there is a microphone and traditional Android control keys (Home, Return and Search). Fans of tactile feedback will have to be disappointed - touch control, not hardware. On the left - proximity sensors, front camera and earpiece. The top side contains a volume rocker, camera and power buttons and a standard headphone jack. On the bottom, we see the main disappointment - an interface connector of a completely unthinkable type. Apparently, the laurels of Yabloko are so worried about the rest of American manufacturers that they are ready to sacrifice the versatility of their own developments for the sake of imitation. On the back of the Streak 5 is a 5MP camera and a speakerphone. By the way, the battery compartment cover is completely metal, and the entire back side is covered with a soft-touch.

If speak about technical characteristics, then the hardware stuffing of Dell Streak 5 is beyond praise: a QSD 8250 processor with a frequency of 1 GHz, 512 MB of RAM and the same amount of internal memory. This allows the device to perfectly cope with multitasking, run complex graphics, and watch videos in original formats. Moreover, the half-tablet, loved by users of divx / xvid, supports without any shamanic dances, without lifting only the hardest "sailor" in the resolution of 1280X720. A screen resolution of 800 × 480 seemingly provides standard image on the screen, however, even the picky user can be surprised by the clarity of the graphics. The colors of the screen are the brightest, practically do not fade in the sun, and the viewing angles can be considered the greatest not only in the mid-price segment, but also in the hi-end class. Naturally, all communication modules are on board (including 3G).

Overall, the Dell Streak 5 is a remarkable piece mobile devicetoo small for a full-fledged tablet and too large and functional for regular smartphone... This option is perfect for people who regret that the iPad and other "tablets" do not fit in their pocket, and also do not want to carry both a tablet and a mobile phone. On the other hand, Dell Streak 5 is still a bit big for use as the latter: the weight and dimensions make us talk about the constant use of the headset. However, the price of Dell Streak 5 at the moment is from 15 to 20 thousand rubles, which practically leaves him no chance in competition with many new smartphones from LG, Samsung and HTC. This is probably why the manufacturer recently announced the end of the production of such a pretty device, switching to standard 7-inch tablets.

Dell Streak 5-inch Tablet

While the majority of tablets have a screen with a diagonal of at least 7 inches, Dell has taken a bold step - released an unusual 5-inch tablet that can also serve as a phone.

Why 5 inches? The fact is that 10- and even 7-inch tablets can hardly be called portable. They require a separate folder or bag. Until recently, the maximum diagonal of communicators was 4.3 inches, which was not enough for everyone. So it turned out that a 5-inch device will be quite in demand, taking up physical space a little more than a phone and at the same time not much inferior to older brothers-tablets.

I must say that this is not the first popular device of this form factor. The Archos 5 IT model is quite successful. However, the manufacturer "forgot" to add multitouch and subsequent software support to the good hardware component. As a result, the device is still on the outdated Android 1.6 to the discontent of users.

In 2010, Dell introduced its 5-inch Streak tablet (other names Streak Mini, Streak 5), taking into account the mistakes of its predecessor. The dimensions of the device are 152.9 x 79.1 x 9.98 mm, and the weight is 220 g. The tablet is available in three colors - classic black, stylish red and elegant white. At the time of release, the Dell Streak hardware was respectable. The heart of the device is the Qualcomm Snapdragon gigahertz processor. RAM - 512 MB. The screen has a resolution of 800x480 pixels of capacitive type and is made using TFT technology. It is covered with a protective Gorilla Glass coating that resists scratches and even shocks. Color saturation is common for this type of screen, it is inferior to AMOLED, but in the sun the display behaves surprisingly well. The battery capacity is 1530 mAh, which is standard for communicators, but not enough for tablets.

The 5-megapixel camera is equipped with a flash, but the quality of photos is average. There is also a front VGA camera. There are also mandatory for devices of this class GPS and Bluetooth. The highlight is the GSM-module, which allows you to use a 5-inch tablet as a phone. As a result, Dell Streak turned out to be a unique device that simply has no analogues.

At the back, the metal cover slides easily to the side, giving access to the battery and the memory card and SIM slots. However, this design is rather controversial. After all, the lid is equipped with a special sensor. The device turns off immediately when it is opened, even accidentally. Many users also complain that the lid does not hold tightly when closed.

To connect Dell Streak with a computer and charge it has its own connector, which is not compatible with any of the existing ones. This is also inconvenient, because you have to constantly carry a cable with you.

On the other side of the device there is a group of hardware keys at once - increasing and decreasing the volume, turning on the power, turning on the camera. This location cannot be called successful either. An important power button was "lost" between the adjacent ones. As a result, it is not immediately possible to get on it. This is a strange decision, as most modern communicators have this key separately. It is also inconvenient that the volume up button is located on the left, and its decrease - on the right. In the vertical orientation of the device, this is justified, but after all, its main use is planned in a horizontal position.

A standard headphone jack is located on the same side. To the left of the screen is a telephone speaker, and to the right is a microphone and three touch-sensitive control keys "Android" - "Back", "Menu", "Home".

Dell Streak was originally released based on Android 1.6. At the same time, the manufacturer created its own rather attractive superstructure, which made it possible to work comfortably. Dell even changed the task manager. Today this version of the system has long been out of date. Although the manufacturer delayed the update for a long time, it did take place. Latest on currently official firmware run on Android 2.2.

Again, the company tried to embellish the operating system with its own means. However, this time there are fewer of them. The task manager already has a traditional look. The user is invited to use 7 desktops at once. You can work with them both in horizontal and vertical orientations, although it is assumed that this will be the first option. The device determines its orientation by itself, quickly rearranging elements on the desktop. Pressing the Home touch button always switches to the fourth table. At the bottom there are three keys - "Phone", "Main menu" and "Web". Scrolling up the entire screen will bring up the Main Menu items. Very convenient, since you don't need to aim at the corresponding button. A swipe from top to bottom of the screen will show a notification window. Almost all of the desktops are pre-loaded with Dell's own widgets by default. Each of them has a button at the bottom left to go to the corresponding application, and at the bottom right - a button for setting the widget itself. They can be deleted, just like the usual ones: by long pressing and dragging them into the trash can that appears. Instead of proprietary Dell widgets, you can also place traditional, more compact options that exist by default in Android - Power Management, Calendar, YouTube, Search and others.

So, what's interesting about Dell's widgets?

Books - bookshelf. This widget helps you contact your Amazon store to purchase and read books. After a simple registration or entering a password, you can order books and place them on this shelf. Clicking on the book in the widget panel will bring up a simple reader program. There are few settings here - font size, background color, brightness.

Contacts - quick contacts for phone dialing. They are taken from your Google profile settings. Photos of people can also be transferred from there. In the settings, you can specify what to display. These can be generally all contacts or favorites, or you can display frequently used ones. A very handy widget that solves a significant part of telephony tasks. It will be useful for those who usually call a certain small group of people.

Email - mailbox... Dell offered to work with mail in such an application. Well, pretty convenient. You can add several mail accounts... If there is an Internet connection, letters will be sent to the mailbox and displayed in the panel as a single list.

Home (Large) and Home (Small). This widget is the main one for the device. It contains the labels of the latest running programs, and at the top left is the weather indicator. If it is cloudless outside, the edge of the sun will be visible. If it rains, the whole widget will be covered with droplets. In the settings, you can specify the current location, as well as in which degrees to show the temperature - Celsius or Fahrenheit. The smaller version of the widget (Small) simply contains fewer lines, leaving part of the screen for other needs (for example, for the Google search widget).

News... This widget allows you to subscribe to an RSS feed of news, set the time of their update. And here, as in the case of mail, the news will be sent in a single list. The large screen makes using such tools quite comfortable.

Photos - work with photographs. The widget offers a preview of the gallery. It is possible to connect it directly to Facebook and display your photos from there.

Radio - work with internet radio. Although the Dell streak has an FM receiver, the widget offers Internet radio as a source. The panel shows the selected radio stations, and control is performed by launching the Tunein application. There are many settings here - you can select stations by region, sport, language. There are even podcasts for kids. In listening mode, it is possible to set an alarm clock or a sleep timer.

Social - quick start Twitter and Facebook. There is no possibility to reconfigure the widget for the usual "Odnoklassniki" or "VKontakte".

Video - online video catalog. This widget is designed to work with a paid video store. But you will not be able to connect local folders and display the shortcuts of your films on the panel.

Web... The widget contains the most frequently visited or favorite pages. By clicking on their shortcuts, the standard Android browser starts and goes to the selected link. Here you can just start the browser. By the way, it supports multitouch and tabs.

There are not enough preinstalled programs to start working right away. For example, no file manager, no media player - you will have to go to Market for them. But there are incomprehensible Arcade, Coplito live, Pageonce and other programs that are clearly not in demand from an ordinary Russian user.

The experience of using the device remains mixed. On the one hand, as the Dell Streak phone is still unnecessarily large. Yes, it can be used as such. However, the size and location of the keys do not allow this to be done easily. Streak is no longer twisted in one hand like a regular phone. Working with the Web is much more convenient than on a phone, even with a large diagonal. In the end, the device turned out to be a compromise, yet it combines well the functions of a phone and a tablet.

Surfing the web on a 5-inch screen is more comfortable than on a 4-inch screen

Today the price for the device is already quite acceptable. Dell asks for $ 450 for an unlocked device. In Russia, prices range from 14 to 16 thousand rubles. It is worth mentioning that in the version of the device for the American operator AT & T, some functions are blocked. Applications can only be installed from the Market, and Russification will be difficult. So it is better to buy a device already in Russia, with firmware adapted for our country.

So, the advantages of the device:

• original size for portability;
• capacitive screen with multitouch;
• good display behavior in the sun;
• good hardware (processor, memory);
• interesting proprietary widgets from Dell;
• the ability to use as a phone.

Not without drawbacks:

• small size still does not allow you to feel all the "delights" of the tablet (working with text, web browsing, video);
• the screen is made using TFT technology, which means average color reproduction;
• poor arrangement of hardware keys;
• own charging connector, not compatible with anything;
• medium quality camera;
• too large for a phone;
• loose back cover.

The new Dell Streak Mini 5 is the cheapest tablet on the market today. This novelty is able to compete with more eminent rivals. Moreover, the cost was reflected only in the size of the device - its screen is only 5 inches. But it's more of an advantage, and now it's a really powerful pocket-sized option. At the same time, Dell Streak is equipped with the ability to access the Internet anywhere in the world: there is 3G, Wi-Fi and even Bluetooth.

Compare appearance Dell Streak Mini 5 with tablets from Apple and Samsung, at least it is not correct - the format of this model is completely different. But its compact size and light weight allow you to comfortably hold the Dell Streak in the palm of your hand. In terms of dimensions, this is a very large phone, and the weight is 220 grams. The tablet looks pretty stylish. The front panel is glossy with smooth rounded corners, but back side made of matte plastic, so prints and scratches on this part of the case are not terrible, which cannot be said about the front panel.

Control keys and connectors are traditionally located on the sides. There are buttons responsible for turning on the power, activating the camera and the volume control. In addition, there are three touch keys located to the right of the screen that allow you to zoom, return and launch the main menu. The following connectors were found: an input for connecting headphones, uSB port... Not much.

Touch screen Dell Streak Mini 5 bright and glossy. The diagonal is 5 inches and the resolution is very good - 800 x 480 pixels. This indicator allows you to watch videos, chat online, play and even read with comfort for your eyes. Ease of management is enhanced by support for multi-touch control, with the help of which Internet communication will become even faster and easier. And for video communication, two cameras are mounted in the body of the device, one of which is located on the front panel, and the second with a resolution of 5 Megapixels is located on the back.

The tablet Dell Streak Mini 5 equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8250 processor with a frequency of 1 GHz. Volume random access memory equals 512 Megabytes, and the capacity of the built-in storage is also 512 Megabytes. To the storage volume, you can add a microSD of 16 Gigabytes, of which 2 Gigabytes are reserved for the operating system and other programs, and the rest of the space can be used at the discretion of the user. The filling allows its owner to read, work with documents, play and watch HD quality videos. The tablet runs Android 2.2 and supports H.263, H.264, MPEG4, .3 GP and WMV video files and MP3, AAC +, eAAC +, WMA, AAC, AMR, MIDI, and WAV audio.

Among other things, the new product has the functions of an electronic compass and a GPS navigation module. And despite the small size, the battery has a solid capacity - 1530 mAh.

Summing up, we can say that there is no equal to the miniature Dell Streak Mini 5 tablet yet. The device is a kind of symbiosis of a communicator and a netbook that plays video, allows you to play and use a wide range of communication options to the maximum.

Let's move on to the screen. Dell Streak uses a 5-inch capacitive touchscreen transflective TFT display with multitouch support (more precisely, dual-touch, since only two clicks are recognized at a time). Yes, it is not AMOLED, but it looks, in fact, not much worse, the brightness is just not enough. Let me remind you that transflective displays also know how to glow themselves, and the image on such a TFT display is subjectively perceived better than on a "regular" one. The screen reacts to pressing clearly, there are slight slowdowns, but this is due to the interface itself, since in the same games everything works great - no delay in control was noticed.

I also note that the aspect ratio of the screen is 16:10, and is just right for the WVGA resolution (800x480). So this is another reason not to look at the abundance of cheap chinese tablets with the image stretched to 16: 9.

Interface, applications, performance

Dell Streak uses native operating room shell android systems 2.2 with some additions in the form of its own wallpapers and full-screen widgets. In addition, if you flip through the panels of the desktop by swiping your finger along the bottom of the screen, a panel appears similar to the dock in Mac OS X, only the icons will not jump out, like the latter. The panel itself is not editable; it only shows on which screen which Dell widget is installed. That is, if you install any other widget, the icon will change to a green android.