So yes, I bought it, took it back and bought it again. But I’m keeping my Dell Streak now. It’s great. And this is my last post on mobile phones – well, this month anyway… 😀
Usually new mobile phones are known about well in advance of their launch. Everything from specs to early reviews are made available in order to create a buzz around the product. For example, a couple of years ago I was sent an LG Shine and encouraged (although not instructed) to take photos of it and blog about it. With the Dell Streak, however, apart from a great video at jkkmobile I stumbled across on the night before it was released in the UK, I’d heard nothing about it!
Full specs of the device can be found here, but the highlights are that it’s an Android tablet/smartphone hybrid with a 5″ screen. Yes, five inch! :-p
Let’s just get past the two (related) questions I’ve been asked most frequently over the last couple of weeks:
- Is it too big?
- Don’t you feel a bit stupid putting it to your ear to, you know, make phone calls?
My responses:
- It’s certainly on the upper limit of what counts as a phone size wise. Some, undoubtedly, will find it too big. But given that I tended to use my iPhone more for Twitter and other internet based activities than for phone calls, I don’t!
- It’s not Dom Joly size and I don’t really suffer from self esteem issues anyway. As for people who think that phones should only be able to make phone calls, get back in your cave please… 😉
Things I really like:
- The whole experience and speed of the device makes it über-slick
- Spotify, Dropbox and other official apps are better (to my mind) than their iPhone counterparts
- The size of the screen makes everything… just better
- It’s really quite thin
- Several virtual desktops means you can organize your stuff
- I don’t have to jail break it to set it up the way I want it
- Widgets provide real-time updates
- The camera is legendary and the in-phone editing functions are actually useful
- It’s got a ‘gorilla glass’ screen – check out this video showing it being torture-tested!
Things I’m not so keen on:
- The placement of headphone socket
- Volume buttons alter up or down depending on orientation (confusing!)
- You can’t delete things (e.g. emails) by swiping
- It’s not running the latest version of Android (v1.6)
- Proprietary power/ sync cable
- Current lack of third party support (eg cases, speakers, other add ons)
- The quality of sound recording when shooting video isn’t gerat
Stuff other reviews might not tell you:
- As with the iPhone, music stops playing when you remove the headphones
- Sometimes tasks don’t shut by themselves and drain your battery (a force close app is pretty much essential)
- It’s not really possible to use the Streak with one hand whilst walking for texting, etc.
- With Android apps you’ve got 24 hours to get a refund if you don’t like it or it didn’t perform as you expected
- The power cable is similar to the iPhone’s in that the USB end plugs into the power cable
10 apps that are awesome on the Streak:
- Dropbox
- Fring (for Skype & instant messaging apps)
- Google Listen (podcasts through Google Reader)
- Handcent SMS (iPhone-like text messages)
- Opera Mini (web browser)
- Profiles (change between ‘Normal’, ‘Night’, ‘Outdoor’, etc.)
- Quick Addroid (add stuff to your Google Calendar quickly)
- Realplayer
- SlideScreen (really classy home screen replacement)
- Spotify
I’m happy to answer any questions you’ve got – including making another video, so ask away! 🙂
This week I have been mostly…
Planning for planning
I was asked to help put together the agenda for our upcoming quarterly planning meeting. This will be my first experience of the two-day events. I’ve proposed session titles including really bad puns – e.g. ‘Getting JISC-y with it’ and ‘Plone Ranger’ (Plone powers our website…)
Being trained
It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. A friend of a friend, Ben Mawhinney, came to give us some training on Google Analytics at my invitation on Friday. It was really kind of him to share what he knows and help us to better focus on our core audience!
Making the most of my flexi-time
With the sunny weather and spending all week in the office, I’ve been leaving at 15.30 and using up some of my flexi-time. What. A. Great. System!
Getting the go-ahead
My proposal for a review of mobile and wireless technologies was accepted, so I’ll be spending from next week until about the end of October on a review which will inform an upcoming JISC publication.
Returning my Dell Streak
It would appear that for everyone who knows me (however slightly) my decision to return the Dell Streak on Friday after a week was entirely predictable. What can I say? I’m a sucker for well-designed tools that increase my productivity. Like the iPhone 4…
It had nothing to do with it’s size.
- No multitouch. I didn’t realise until it was pointed out in an Android forum that this makes typing a whole lot easier.
- Lack of apps I use often. Having to use the National Rail website instead of it’s £4.99 app may seem trivial but it’s important to me. Apps pretty much always come out for the iPhone first because of the huge, standardized, user base.
- Lack of accessories. I could walk into almost any shop on the high street and purchase cases, speakers and other accessories for my iPhone 3G. How many cases did I have to choose from for the Dell Streak? One. And that was fugly.
- Unintuitive annoyances. Holding down the camera button should bring up the camera app. The device should charge if the power cable’s plugged in – even if it is in ‘aeroplane mode’ whilst I’m asleep.
- Email. Having GMail, Exchange and IMAP accounts means 3 different apps on Android. #fail
- Position of headphone socket. Why put it on top of the screen? Hold it landscape and the wire gets in the way. Put it in your pocket and it’s sticking out the side. Oh, and the volume up/down switch should do the same thing in landscape and portrait. #confusing
- Lack of website support. If you go to popular websites on the iPhone then you get a decent browsing experience because they’ve made sure it’s optimised for that platform. Navigating some websites on the Dell Streak was clunky, despite the lovely Opera web browser I installed.
- Apps that don’t work. The number of times I purchased apps only for me to have them refunded within 24 hours was ridiculous. I had to force-close so many I lost count.
- Lack of ‘magnifying glass’ function. If you’ve made a mistake in a text, tweet or email you to half-guess where to tap to get the cursor to go into the correct position. There’s no ability to ‘zoom in’. This leads to frustration.
- It’s not an iPhone. Close as I was to keeping it, the fact that I was indecisive about it kind of sealed it’s fate. I would have been tied into a 24-month contract with the Dell Streak. And that’s a long time for something you only like very much rather than love!
The Dell Streak is, technically, a wonderful phone, music player and internet device. It’s almost perfect for me. I loved the ‘Rooms’ (virtual desktops) feature and the ability to add widgets to these. Spotify was amazing on the big screen and Google Navigation is better than any Sat-Nav I’ve used. The Shapewriter app made text entry fun and the camera is top-notch.
It’s just that nowadays a phone has to be much more than the sum of it’s parts. And unfortunately the Dell Streak only consists of great parts reasonably well put-together… :-p
