Dr.TECH

2012/12/22

Dell Streak (Android 2.2) review

Dell's five-inch Android offering now comes with Froyo

Just over eight months have passed since we first looked at the Dell Streak. An impressive five-inch device with 2GB of built-in memory, powered by a Qualcomm SnapDragon 8250 1GHz processor, the Dell Streak ticks all the boxes as far as specs are concerned.

When it hit the scene, one of the glaring drawbacks we noticed was that it was only running Android 1.6. Even back in June, this was a puzzling decision by Dell.

The Nexus One had led the way with Android 2.1 (Eclair) almost four months beforehand, and the HTC Desire had exploded on the scene, also touting Eclair, shortly afterwards.

Priced at £399 direct from Dell (unlocked), and found at only £20 a month on contract, the Streak is now in the ring with the Nexus S and the HTC Desire HD, so Dell has given it a fighting chance by giving the Streak an upgrade to Android 2.2. Not only has the base layer of the Android OS been upgraded, but the UI provided by Dell has been overhauled with Dell's own Stage Launcher interface.

So how big is it really? As mentioned, the screen is five inches from corner to corner, but this fills the front of the device pretty well – not a great deal of space is used for a bezel. The device is 153mm in width, 79mm high, only 9.98mm thick and weighs in at 220g.

You might think that sounds hefty, but when in your hands, it feels lighter than you expect it to, and the design is far from clunky. It has curved edges either side, and backlit touch-sensitive Back, Menu and Home buttons. The Dell Streak certainly is an attractive device.