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Hands on with the Dell Streak 5 inch hybrid

Guess what? I’m doing my very first hands on without actual photos. That’s because I came by the unit through means which I cannot disclose in public. No worries. I didn’t crash an event. I was quite surprised though to have met someone who actually had a unit on him. Old news na pala ito. So without “in the wild” pics, I’m going to give you my first impression of this new device. Trust me I’m a blogger.

The Dell Streak, although labeled as a Tablet by Dell, sits in between the 3 and 4 inch screen Android phones common to HTC, Samsung and Sony Ericsson and the 7 inch Android tablets and iPads. The Dell Streak is at the golden mean of 5 inches.

I was floored with the form factor. A 5 inch device CAN be a sweet spot between a regular phone and a tablet as I was able to hold the Streak up to my ear without looking silly and still have a tablet-like feel for browsing sites and playing games. It holds well on both hands — and even with one hand and provides, IMHO the best touch screen SMS-keyboard experience I have yet seen without sacrificing portability. Sure you can do the same thing on a Galaxy Tab or an iPad but you won’t have the gift of being able to slide the phone into your pocket. Because the Streak has a pretty huge screen, Dell bundles the device with its own neoprene carrying pouch.

The Dell Streak runs on Android 2.2 with support for a front face camera. In terms of performance, I found the UI to be a step less than fast but I’m, not sure if this has anything to do with the fact that the screen is huge. It is, at the end of the day, workable. I didn’t have time to run apps. Neither did I have time to road test the battery.

Pros: Great screen, best form factor, fits in your pocket, “5 inch sweet spot”
Cons: Battery cover is hard to snap on and off

I’m not sure if the Dell Streak will be launched officially but if it does, the sweet spot form factor and screen size is sure to win the hearts of many LOLZ. I definitely would not mind owning one.

By Jayvee Fernandez

Jayvee Fernandez is a tech enthusiast, EAN certified SCUBA Diver and underwater photographer based in Metro Manila, Philippines. His photos and videos have appeared in various international and local publications including Random House Germany, Discovery Channel Canada, and CNN.

9 replies on “Hands on with the Dell Streak 5 inch hybrid”

I have seen this beast in two retail shops at SM North EDSA Annex. Price is around Php25-27k. Considering that the hardware is old, it is a bit pricey.

is it an official release? i think that’s gray market since Dell only works with laptops / desktops here in MLA. anyway, cool. the price of the streak online is 499USD retail so IMHO at PHP25k pwede pa. I would not touch it at 27k

25k = SE XPERIA Arc I think?

I think this is officially released here already. The Dell Philippines official FB fan page says so. I should trust it since it’s on FB right? =D Kidding aside, I remember reading something about a dell sponsored event to celebrate the release of Streak here in the Philippines. Nope, it’s not an event where people ran in the nude (as the definition of the word “streak” says so), but it could have been sweeter if that’s the case. =P haha!

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