And it’s the phone that makes the difference to Paulina Baytler. We found Paulina at Orchard Valley Coffee Shop in Campbell, where we brought the Streak to people who had never seen it before. Paulina knows all about the iPad, but hey, she already has a laptop, and the Apple device doesn’t come with a phone or a camera. The Streak has both (5 megapixels for your photos), and she’s sold. “I like it,” she says, “BECAUSE it’s small and compact.”
Now, not to say that Apple should be worried about the Streak. Early reviews of Dell’s entry have been mixed at best. We’ve come to appreciate our photos, movies, and websites writ large on the iPad. Dell doesn’t give you that. The Streak is, again, barely larger than a smartphone (and the Sprint Evo’s screen gives it a run for its money).
But if Paulina is any indication (and we did find her with three gadgets at her coffee shop table), there just may be a market for a tablet that’s smaller. The Streak will fit into a pocket or purse, and with the increasingly popular Android operating system built in, it does a lot.
It’s also a bit cheaper. With a contract (Dell, like Apple, is going exclusively with AT&T on this one), it’ll cost you $300. If you’re shopping for a tablet, chances are that the Streak is not going to bring you to lust, like so many people feel with the iPad. But, if nothing else, it’s a very different choice. One that will actually fit into your pocket or purse.
Yes, Scott also expected something bigger. He’s on Twitter: @scottbudman
In the first paragraph you say this it supposed to the Android challenge to the iPhone and then in the third you say it’s the supposed contender to the iPad throne. How can it be both? This is a phone, it just happens to be a little large. It is in no way a competitor to the iPad. To whoever said “it’s only that big”, do you really want a phone much bigger than this? If you want a tablet get an iPad or Tablet PC.
Other people have other needs, but I can’t imagine carrying that around as a phone. Nothing much bigger than my iPhone or my wife’s Droid would work for me as a phone regardless of the other utility.
The phone goes with me pretty much everywhere and it needs to fit comfortably in a pocket. The laptop goes with me where I need a full on work environment. I don’t really need anything between those two poles, but if there was something it would need to be bigger and more capable than a plumped up phone while being significantly easier to tote around than my laptop.
Netbooks don’t meet the latter requirement and from the reviews I’ve read and the look of it, the Streak don’t meet the former. Which is why the iPad looked mighty good to me.
Like I said, though, different people have different needs.
One thing, though: since the iPad doesn’t come with a contract, is it really safe to say that the Streak is less expensive?
How about a phone that is a PHONE, a camera that is a CAMERA, and a computer that is a COMPUTER? A Swiss Army knife of a device that combines all of these things is not a very good any one of them. It simply pretends that it is something other than a very expensive toy not worthy of use by an actual productive human adult.
I am not into pretending and playing with toys that imitate real things. I am into actual devices that do what I want them to do with ease and with high quality results. I need to do real work and produce real results not some kind of synthetic pretense of work and fake results. I left the toys behind a long time ago.
Good point. It’s something I’ve often considered. I am tempted by many high-tech toys and understand the desire to have (covet?) them. But, I am a professional photographer, videographer and retoucher who also has written and edited a bit for a living. A very unfortunate combination – in order to work effectively, I need very expensive, large and serious cameras; extremely powerful desktop computers with rare, gigantic, accurate and expensive LCD’s; and the lightest and smallest sized phone possible to yield a fairly large and sharp screen with which to read my emails and search for the odd fact on the net while on location.
Although many photographers I know use “Apple-everything,” worship at the feet of Steve Jobs, and would have waited in a day-long line in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina to buy an iPad at 20% over retail, I am a PC. Also, I am reluctant to downsize a powerful laptop’s job to anything with a screen smaller than 16 or 17 inches, hold a communications device which requires two hands to support, or a camera that doesn’t have a large optical viewfinder that looks bigger than a glowing three inch rectangle at arms length.
In short, I agree that, when it comes to serious use, a jack of all trades device is simply inadequate, and that iPads and Streaks are merely wonderful and amusing toys designed for America’s otherwise jaded adult Yuppies. So, to conclude, as a toy only, I would consider something like the Streak if it offered me a lot more than a larger Android or Iphone, but as to the iPad, it would have to offer quite a bit more than the Apple logo, a bigger screen and finger/gesture based interface to justify its ungainly size for a largely undefined mission.
Hooray! Written like a true Griffith!
This is a pretty flimsy review. Basically, the Dell is smaller than the iPad.
Two people I know have the Ipad and it is a great device.
But as you point out it does not have a phone so you have to bring a phone along with it.
I am waiting for a mgf. to put out a series of devices designed to work together.
IE, A really small phone I can take jogging, but then use as the internet connection for my small or large tabet computer.
And with the tablet and phone together, being able to add the whole shebang to a desk top or lap top computer so all of my computing power is on the same device that may consist of two or three parts.
In other words a group of devices that work together so when I need to be a mobile office, I bring it all, but also allows me to take a small rugged (waterproof?) device when all I need is a phone. Or bring along my tablet when I just need to pass the time.
Personally, I’d like something between the iPad and the iPod Touch in size — something easy to carry, but bigger than an iPod Touch.
The iPad is big enough to make me favor a small notebook with a lot more storage and other capabilities. But it also makes me crave a bigger screen than the iPod and iPhone have.
Oh joy, another mobile device stuck with AT&T!
Is Verizon’s business marketing department asleep at the switch or is there some horrible corporate deformity looming under the hood that the general public knows nothing about? It seems like sooner or later we’d hear about a phone being launched on a network that doesn’t suck.
At least hopefully people won’t have to jailbreak this one, but it makes you wonder what it’d cost without the contract.
I use a Nokia smartphone — mainly as a phone, but also as a WLAN tether for my laptop (yes I have a data plan). Thus I can use my laptop to access the Web on the train, or while waiting for one of my kids to finish swim team or an appointment. And yes I also sometimes use the phone with a web browser but only for viewing blogs since the phone screen is fine for scrolling down the typical blog column format. So I like a combined device for this purpose. And no I don’t want a larger screen — that is what my laptop is for. And no I don’t want an iPad — why would I when I have a laptop?
I think iPads are for people who don’t have laptops, and who just want to browse the web and watch videos. Which is fine — if that is all you want to do a laptop is overkill.
I see the iPad as being (at this point, it may change when they make one that’s actually usable in the field rather than the lab) as a toy for kids who want to show how “kewl” they are.
Just what the iPhone and early iPods were in fact, borderline usable but you look so much “part of the in-crowd” if you casually hold one or toss it where people can just see it without having to instantly coo all over you.
The iPod has outgrown that, the iPhone is starting to outgrow it, so Apple had to come up with something new and the iPad it is.
No doubt they’re already working on the next thing to take its place in the hype-gadget market.
For serious users, there’s almost always something that does the job they want done better than an Apple device.
P.S. I have an iPod nano (my second in fact, the first broke after an incredible (according to the store guy, who thought they last only a year at most, go figure) 4 years, maybe because I don’t use it frequently) and use it when travelling (at home I prefer the higher quality sound of my SACD player with high quality amplifier and Sennheiser headphones, thank you very much).
I have an iPad and it’s absolutely wonderful. I also have in iPod touch — I find that the iPod screen is just too small to do online browsing, and that’s the main reason I’ve decided not to get an iPhone. I love the design, but that screen size is a bummer. I need to learn more — but based on what I’ve seen so far, I’d definitely consider getting a Streak. Maybe include product views just like Engadget or Gizmodo provide in their reviews. Also, you seem to mainly criticize the device — how about telling us the pros and cons. And more facts. How much does it weigh? How thick/thin is it?? Did I miss this information? That price is also very appealing. What kinds of phone packages are available on it?
Maybe they should just call it the Dell Zune. Like Microsoft’s intended iPod “killer”, this one looks like a sure loser. $300 for a Streak with a contract, vs. iPads starting at $499 with NO contract. Even without considering the other advantages that go with the Apple product, one saves himself a LOT of money by going for the contract-free product.
Full disclosure: I’ve had an iPod touch for almost two years – still love it – and intend to move to the iPad when the 2nd gen’ product is released. (I’m also an Apple stockholder.) I don’t foresee any company releasing serious competition to the iPad anytime soon. What we will see are niche products like the Streak that will fight for the scraps from Apple’s table.
This is actually pretty nice. A quasi linux fone that can probably run a windows emulator like ‘Wine’ without having to put up with window’s virus liabilities. Once in ‘Wine’ then old DOS games can be run. You know, the games that got microsoft to its leadership position. PC’s, for those too young to remember, got popular as game playin machines first and business machines second. Many games later had ‘boss’ keys that displayed fake spreadsheets at the press of a single key when a ‘supervisor’ was near so that the ‘Dilbert’ would not get caught goldbrickin at work. Microsoft developer Gates knew this and made verrrry sure that his original Windows95 could play games by the dozens right out of the box. He sold the original win95 for fifty dollars and promoted it shamelessly. It was his only real stroke of genius. Anyway, to be able to play ‘Command and Conquer’ while waitin in the SUV for junior to get out of school in a sunny parkin lot would really relieve boredom of waitin in the sun after readin the mags only made you want to snooze.
Looks to me like a PDA with phone function pushed by the press and hype into a corner as an “iPad killer”.
I wonder if Dell ever intended it to be, my guess is not.
For those of us who want something a little more userfriendly than our Blackberries (and similar), it might well be a nice choice.
Of course if it runs on Android it’s a big nono for those of us who value the security of our data, as Android is just another way for Google to spy on people.
There is a full sub-market in the field of the cellular mobile phone market place place associated to the jailbreak or unlocking of the cellular phones so that they can be employed on any mobile network, and current Supreme Court choices in the USA handed down have confirmed that the jailbreak marketplace is legal and genuine. That is, stop-user prospects are really inside of their legal rights to do what they desire to their cellular telephone handset to permit the cell phone to perform on other network carriers which is generally recognized as jailbreak or unlocking the network block.
Learn how to Jailbreak your iPhone