Tablet Hands-On Roundup
by Vivek Gowri on January 27, 2011 10:25 AM EST
We hit up T-Mobile’s keynote, and while the biggest news was the Honeycomb-based G-Slate by LG, Big Magenta also showed off the new Dell Streak 7. It’s a larger version of the previous 5” Streak that we reviewed last year, this time with a 7” screen (hence the name) and Nvidia’s Tegra 2 instead of Snapdragon. The industrial design is pretty similar to the smaller Streak, just stretched to fit the newly enlarged screen. It’s larger and thicker overall than both the Galaxy Tab and the PlayBook, and at 450 grams, it’s heavier as well.
The build quality is good, and the weight gives the system a very substantial feel. I’ve been a fan of Dell’s recent handheld products - the Venue and Streak families are well-designed, well-built products that are honestly pretty decent to use (now that the Streak has been updated to Froyo). As with the other Streak, this one has Dell’s proprietary Stage UI on it, and it’s a good bit quicker than the 5” Streak. Even with Froyo, we found that one to be a bit on the sluggish side, but given the extra power on tap here, that wasn’t a problem.
The rest of the specs are good, with an HSPA+ radio (supporting T-Mobile’s “4G” network), a 1.3MP front facing camera, a 5MP rear camera, 16GB of internal storage, 2.4GHz 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, and Corning’s Gorilla Glass on the screen. But there’s a big problem - the screen resolution. This is a 7” tablet with an 800 x 480 (WVGA) screen resolution in a world running at 1024 x 600. I’m guessing Dell stuck to WVGA because Stage UI didn’t scale well to WSVGA screens, but really, WVGA is considered the standard for 3.5-5” screens. On a 7” display, WVGA computes to 133 pixels per inch, which just doesn’t cut it.
Other than that though, this appears to be a well built and highly specced tablet that is one of the better Froyo tablets we’ve seen. Unfortunately, with Honeycomb on the horizon, Froyo isn’t going to cut it for much longer. Hopefully, Dell has something up its sleeve for the future.
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kenyee - Friday, January 28, 2011 - link
I'm curious how well it does at displaying photos. From the specs, it looks like it only has 256K colors when the backlight is on and I think this will be a significantly worse display compared to an IPS display like the iPad's and even the Color Nook which also uses an IPS screen...ibex333 - Friday, January 28, 2011 - link
All these tablets are irrelevant. They have already lost to the iPad before they even started selling. Why? SEVEN INCH SCREEN. Which means - sucks for reading PDFs.So people will keep buying iPads specifically because of the large screen, and Apple WILL NOT lower prices, because technically they are still king of the tablet market.
Is it really so damned hard to start making 10" tablets and NOT 7" tablets?
JMC2000 - Monday, January 31, 2011 - link
That's what I wonder also, does Apple own the iPad's screen manufacturer? The is almost like the iPhone vs. the World issue, everyone claims to have an iPad killer, but they lose mainly on one aspect, screen size.Seriously, it is like everyone is handing Apple the market... FFS!
Penti - Friday, February 4, 2011 - link
I'm pretty sure that like nobody else wants to pay 200-300 dollars for LG's "iPad" screen. Many stick to simple TN-panels. There are some other good panels out there though, but 7" is totally fine. A tablet is also not a e-reader. There's separate devices for that.Ylurien - Monday, January 31, 2011 - link
I stopped reading this article after I looked up the specs on the Adam because that tablet only has 1024x600 resolution and I assume all the rest have pretty much the same or worse since Adam is the biggest tablet.In the day of HD video, why are manufacturers making tablets that can't even play 720p video at its native size? And where's the 64 ~ 128GB of disk space to allow all that video to fit on there?
Why build something that's obsolete before it even goes on the market?
Malih - Tuesday, February 1, 2011 - link
i suppose you should wait for Windows 7 tablet from Acer, utilizing AMD C-50 which presumably will have acceleration for H.264 playbackVinny DePaul - Friday, February 4, 2011 - link
I planned to buy an Android tablet and was going to buy Notion Ink. However, after reading countless complaints, I have changed my mind and going to buy Xoom instead. Notion Ink is good if it is hand delivered to you. The ordering process is tedious, the returning process is a horrendous, and too many defective units. I may consider Notion Ink if the quality control, ordering and return processes are improved. For a new company, they are not bad. However, I want a good tablet, not just a "not bad" tablet.Since I live in US, I prefer to purchase in US and be able to return products easily. The protection for international purchase is almost zero for most people.
alexkinsella - Tuesday, February 8, 2011 - link
Hi Vivek,It’s Alex from RIM’s Social Media team, here. I’m glad you were impressed with the BlackBerry PlayBook at CES. The crowd reaction was amazing. At just under a pound, it’s easy to take anywhere. I can confirm that you’re correct: the PlayBook has a combination of the QNX based BlackBerry Tablet OS, and a TI OMAP 4430 dual-core 1GHz Cortex A9. One point of clarification: There will be a 4G/WiMax version of PlayBook available on the Sprint network this summer (this was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January). Please stay tuned to the Inside BlackBerry blog for the latest updates on BlackBerry PlayBook!
Thanks!
tina2010 - Sunday, July 17, 2011 - link
The touchsquid universal tv remote control tablet has a built in IR transmitter which opens up a whole world of remote control possiblities. It is a tidier solution compared to using dongles. See http://www.touchsquid.com