SPG - Android Reviews

SPG - Android Reviews SPG - Android Reviews http://www.smartphonegurus.com/forums/index.php Sun, 20 Jun 2010 14:12:53 +0000 20 Review: O2 Dell Streak http://www.smartphonegurus.com/forums/index.php?/topic/10998-review-o2-dell-streak/ Supplier: O2 UK

O2 have once again kindly provided us with a rather unique product to review - the Dell Streak, which is a mammoth 5" screened beast of a machine running the Android operating system. This alas will be a review in brief as we only have the machine on loan for a very short time.

The Streak specification is as:

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Operating System : Android (multi-touch UI)
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Processor : QSD 8250
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Bands : UMTS 2100 / 900 MHz, GSM / EDGE 1900 / 1800 / 900 / 850 MHz, HSDPA / HSUPA:HSDPA 7.2 Mbps / HSUPA 5.76 Mbps
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Display : 5" (12.7 cm) WVGA (800 x 480) in-cell TFT LCD supporting multi-touch
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Camera : 5.0M Rear-Facing Auto-Focus Camera + VGA Front-Facing Camera
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Video : H.263 / H.264, .3GP, MPEG4, WMV
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Sound : MP3, WMA, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, AMR, Midi, WAV
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Messaging : SMS, MMS, Email, IM
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Browser : WebKit (Android)
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Memory : 512 MB ROM + 512 MB SDRAM + 2 GB non-user accessible MicroSD for system & applications files only
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Storage : 1 user accessible MicroSDTM cardslot (8GB, 16GB & 32GB pre-installed options available)
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Connectivity : WLAN 802.11b/g, Bluetooth® 2.0 with EDR, USB 2.0
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Dimensions : 152.9 x 79.1 x 9.98 mm
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Weight : 220g
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Battery :Li-ion 1530 mAh
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Others : Ambient Light Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Accelerometer, e-compass, GPS, Capacitive sensor keys

Our review package comprised of:

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The Dell Streak itself
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The Li-ion battery
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USB cable

USB to mains power charger
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Streak 'sock' case
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16Gb Micro-SD card

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The very first impressions that the Streak gives are two fold:

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It's very very BIG indeed 152.9mm wide x 79.1mm tall (landscape orientation)
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It's very bright as the back of the housing is a metallic red!

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As you can see compared to other current devices:

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HTC HD2

HTC Desire
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HTC HD Mini

the Streak is massive indeed, but think on, a few years back most Windows Mobile users fell in love with the O2 Exec (HTC Universal). Granted the Streak is an inch (25.7mm) wider but it is slightly less in height and a lot thinner. So considering it is massively more powerful that the Exec with a heck of a larger screen maybe folks need to take those facts into account! Yes the Streak is bigger than current 'PDA' devices but as it is marketed as a tablet device it's really quite small.

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On booting the Streak illuminates the front LH side buttons:

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Back

Home

and presents a glowing white Dell logo on a black background. You'll notice one button missing, there is no dedicated Search button.

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Which clears into a beautifully clear rendition of the O2 logo

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And eventually reaches the 'desktop', with the Dell lock screen showing at this time no SIM card has been inserted, that the screen is locked, and the current time and date. One nice touch is that the desktop screen (and indeed the three screen wallpaper) shows a rather nice landscape image on the O2 Dome. Pure class that is, and a nice touch by O2. Pressing the 'Menu' button unlocks the screen.

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The upper side (or top) of the Streak holds the rest of the control buttons:

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Volume up / down rocker button
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On / off button
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Camera button

as well as the 3.5mm jack socket on the right of the volume rocker (underneath my thumb)

The base holds the Dell non-standard (that is non micro-USB) USB connector. This looks to be based on a similar design as to that used by Apple on their devices and means if you want accessories you must use Dell specific ones!

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Moving on to the back of the machine we have the battery cover which is constructed of a very thin piece of steel, which feels flimsy indeed, and which is very easy to slide on / off. To the left of the cover is the single speaker which the back plate slides over when it disengages. To the right of the cover is the 5Mp camera as well as a LED flash / auto-focus sensor.

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Removing the back cover reveals the battery socket and battery as well as the slot for the micro-SD card and the SIM card. The SIM is inserted sideways and lies directly underneath the SD card. When the back cover is removed the phone automatically turns off - I assume to ensure that is the SD card is removed there is no data corruption.

As you can see to remove the SD card the battery does have to be removed.

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Once at the main desktop of the Streak (the central screen of the three available) you are presented with a goodly number of pre-loaded applications and widgets.

One nice touch is the Getting Started widget which is specific to the machine and it guides you around the control interface.

The control interface comprises of the segmented touch top of screen menu which offers (from left to right):

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Menu which contains shortcuts to; Browser, Phone, Contacts, Email, Market, Google Mail, and More. Selecting the More icon pops open a modified Android launcher - See below:

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The next segment allows you to either access recently used applications or to add more screens to the desktop system, up to a maximum of six. This is pretty damned impressive and a nice Dell innovation.

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Next is the 'dot display' which serves (iPhone like) to show you which desktop screen is currently active. This is followed by the Notifications segment which when tapped pops downwards to show any current notifications.

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The final segment displays the status of the machine showing if WiFi is active, the GPRS signal, and battery remaining. If tapped upon it pops downwards to offer more detailed status information as well as allowing access to the more commonly used settings such as Aeroplane mode, WiFi and Bluetooth toggling, etc.

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When at the desktop the 'Menu' button activates a further pop out screen which allows you to add a program shortcut or widget (which you can of course also do by tapping and holding on the screen), change the wallpaper for that specific desktop portion, perform a Google Internet search, view any notifications, or access the main Android settings screen.

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As standard the far left desktop is populated with the Facebook and Twitter widgets, and you can of course change these to any others you may prefer. Installed as standard are:

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Analog clock
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Calendar

Facebook Widget from Dell
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Latitude

Now Playing
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Picture Frame
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Power Control
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RSS

RSS - BBC Business
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RSS - BBC Entertainment
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RSS - BBC UK
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RSS - Sky Business
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RSS - Sky News Home
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TouchDown Calendar
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TouchDown Email
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TouchDown Universal
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TouchDown Tasks
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Twitter

Now you may be wondering what on earth TouchDown is, I was

Touchdown is a commercial Exchange application of which a 30 day trial only is included on the Streak which is not good news, to me a license should be included. The good news though is that Touchdown can handle multiple Exchange profiles - I've just tested it out with my own Exchange accounts for home and work and it works perfectly!

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One very nice application included on the Streak is the Pictures and Videos program, when loaded it displays any media discovered on your storage card, and they are all displayed very sleekly with a timeline bar underneath so you can see when each was taken. Scrolling through the pictures is smoothly accomplished via left and right swipes of the screen.

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Tapping on an a photograph opens it in full screen.......

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And a further tap zooms the image to full size. All of the transitions are smooth and fast.

Impressive Dell, very impressive.

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We'll finish of the screen shots here with a few other applications. Here you can see the phone dialler, nice large buttons.

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Google Maps displays in awesome clarify and detail on the large 5" screen!

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And Google Night Sky (not loaded as standard) is amazingly impressive in both speed, accuracy and detail.

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The keyboard; Dell have made good use of the screen real estate and include as standard a full QWERTY keyboard with a numeric keypad, this makes data entry very easy, even though you do end up stretching a little due to the keyboards span. The only niggle here is that there is no haptic feedback which would be useful to indicate a key had been tapped.

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And finally, those who know me probably expected this. eBooks - I loaded FB Reader and wow - the large screen is wonderful for enjoying a good book - who needs a Kindle device!

Example Photos:

The camera application loads with a press and hold on the camera button, taking around 3 seconds to become fully operational.

There are the usual features concerning resolution, balance etc, but there are some omissions too; there is an autofocus on the camera but nothing to set the point of that focus, no tap to set the focal point, there is no auto-flash, it's a manual toggle.

There is however a 4X digital zoom option, although the quality when the device is hand held is not that impressive:

Note: Each of the below is a large thumbnail which may be clicked on to load an original non-reduced size image.

Conclusion:

Dell have worked hard to produce something rather unique, that is a small form factor tablet device (or a large form factor phone device) that has a decent balance of size against functionality. Their customisation of the Android operating system onto the machine has been carried out with aplomb and the interface is a pleasure to interact with. The segmented bar along the top of the screen gives a lot of added functionality and works very well indeed.

However there are a few serious niggles that do need resolving (in my opinion of course):

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Google Contacts - When using search to bring up a contact, if that contact is then tapped on the contact application crashes.
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The micro-SD card is held in place purely by friction, there is no locking mechanism at all.
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The USB connector should really be micro-USB.
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The operating system is using Android firmware 1.6 which is now pretty old, really what it needs on there is Froyo - version 2.2.

Some of the above are obviously hardware issues that need a redesign but the others should be resolvable via an OTA software update. Dell have promised a Froyo reboot towards the end of 2010, and one would hope by then that the Streak would use the Android Exchange system to support multiple accounts instead of a third party application.

However saying that the current OS implementation is speedy enough and the Streak offers a lot of user goodness:

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Large screen (well readable in sunlight)
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Very smooth in operation
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Dell customisation of the interface works very well
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Photo and video playback are wonderful on the large screen using Dells enhanced software
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Good battery life - 81% left after 5 hours usage with WiFi and GPS turned on
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Impressive large keyboard

Final thought would I buy a Streak? That is difficult, if it felt a little more robust, and had the software glitches fixed, then yes. Otherwise if I bought one now I'd be handling it very carefully and complaining to Dell over the few bugs that are in there!

Out thanks as always are extended to O2 UK for providing us with the review sample!

[All images processed using Snagit from Techsmith]

]]> Sun, 20 Jun 2010 14:12:53 +0000 http://www.smartphonegurus.com/forums/index.php?/topic/10998-review-o2-dell-streak/ Graffens Desire Review http://www.smartphonegurus.com/forums/index.php?/topic/9770-graffens-desire-review/
I now had the pleasure of owning the HTC Desire for the last couple of days and here is my review of the latest HTC Android handset. Hopefully I will cover the important bits that people are interested in. Please ask any questions if I miss anything

First Impressions
First impressions on opening the box is of the nice big 3.7 inch AMOLED screen. It takes up nearly the whole front of the device with just small home, menu, back, search buttons and the optical trackball in the center. The power button is on the top next to the 3.5 mm headset connection. As with other HTC Android devices, the volume rocker is on the left and at the bottom is the standard micro usb connection.

The SD card slot is underneath the battery cover, but to change it you will need to take out the battery. Not really a problem for myself, but some people do like to swap and change their memory cards frequently.

On first powering on the Desire's display is bright, sharp and crisp and an improvement over the Hero's display. The display itself is a 480 x 800 WVGA display so that is the reason why the screen looks better than the Hero

Oh and I know that some people have reported having a pinkish hue on the display of thier Desire and Legends but so far I haven't noticed any such hue on my Desire. I'm hoping that the people reporting the hue problem either have a defective batch or a pre-production model that has slipped into their hands.

After getting over the very nice display, the next thing you will notice about the Desire is the 1Ghz Snapdragon processor that makes the Desire just fly. Even now after several days of using and installing a number of apps, the phone runs just as smoothly as when I first turned it on without any lag or delay. The various apps start quickly and the whole thing just runs alot quicker than the Hero that I'm used to.

For the full specifications of the HTC Desire, take a look here: http://www.htc.com/u...cification.html

The Home Screens
The Android 2.1 (eclair) OS coupled with HTC Sense UI makes this phone a dream to use. The 7 HTC home screens mean that everything I need can be put on one of the 7 screens. The new pinch and select feature (also by pressing the home screen from the main home screen) means you can jump to any of the 7 Home screens quickly and without effort.

HTC have re-jigged the way it presents the widgets in the widget selection screen. Gone is the seperate HTC and Android widgets, now they are both shown under the simpler heading of Widgets. HTC have also included a link at the top that looks for more HTC widgets. Handy for in the future when HTC bring out more widgets.

Contacts
HTC have re-done the contacts or people side of the Desire bringing together alot of information from various places including facebook, google, your sim card and even Exchange contacts. This will bring all the information, phone numbers, email addresses, postal addresses and display them all under a single contact. As with the Hero, you also get all the SMS, emails and photos from facebook or flicker along with individual call history. Nice.

You can also split things down to only see one particular type of contact, from only contacts on your SIM card, only google contacts, only facebook contacts etc.
A different tab brings you to your Online Directories. Here you can get your Company Directory (Exchange activesync),Facebook contacts, Flicker contacts and twitter contacts (who you are following and who is following you).

Messages
The messages area of the Desire hasn't undergone any major changes as far as I can see. It still lists all the SMS/MMS messages in threaded form displayed by who your having the conversation with. One nice little feature that has been included in 2.1 is old messages now include the time beside the date that messages are recieved.

Phone Calls
With the phone not having a Call or End Call button, everything to do with phone calls is done on the screen. With the phone pad being available from any of the home screens, making a phone call is easy and the same as any other HTC android handset.
It's at the start of recieving a phone call that the updates become apparent. The first thing you will notice is that the ringer volume will reduce when you pick up the phone. Handy if you get a phone call in a public place like a train and don't want to annoy every one with your groovey ringtone

Added to this feature is the ability to silence the ringtone by simply turning over the phone face down.
The improvements continue into during the phone call. As is standard nowadays, when you call someone and then put the phone to your ear, the screen goes blank to stop any inadvertent pressing of screen buttons. With the Desire, when you pull the phone away from your ear, the screen comes back to life. Handy for when your calling likes of phone banking where it asks you to input various numbers at different stages during the call.

The quality of the phone call is as you would expect from HTC, clear and crisp and the speaker phone is loud and clear, even when used in a car going at 50.

Internet Browser
There seems to have been a number of behind the scenes changes to the Internet Browser in Android 2.1. Using a Wifi connection the webpages are rendered quickly without any waiting around that I sometimes got with image intensive webpages on the Hero.

And the big thing.... Flash works! The sites that I've had a look around at all work with the Desire. I'm sure if I looked hard enough then I might be able to find some sites built with flash that won't work with the Desire, but so far they have all worked.

One new feature that has impressed me in the Desire's browser is when you select a block of text. You can select one word or the whole page and then are presented with 3 options: copy to clipboard, look up, and share.

Copy to clipboard does what it says on the tin, copies the text to the clipboard to be used in any other application.
Look Up lets you look up the word on Wikipedia, lets you look up the word(s) in google dictionary, and also lets you look up the word(s) in google translate. Handy for when you want to look at those websites written in french

Share lets you share the word(s) via twitter, facebook, email and messages.

Multimedia
I haven't had too much time to play around with all the multimedia functions, but what I have played with, it all seems to be the same as the HTC Hero, the HTC music player has all the basic functions you need to listen to your music.

The video side of things still seems lacking. Although the videos that did play, played well without any jerkyness or stutterting ( a problem that I had with some videos recorded on a N95 and viewed on the Hero) I still had issues getting some .WMV or .AVI files to play.

Exchange
Unfortunatly I havent been able to test the Exchange side of things

If I get a chance, I will update this part with mmy thoughts.

Battery Life
With any device that has a large screen, battery life is a big factor in their consideration for picking a device. With the Desire, I have been using it alot over the last couple days, more than I would normally use it day to day and at the end of the day it does need charging. Unplugging at 7am and plugging back in around 10-11pm with the phone reporting around 20% battery left.

The sorts of things I have been doing over the last few days include:
- playing Air Control for about 2 hours at a time. It's dangerously addictive little game available from the market place.
- playing Blow Up LITE several times during the day. Again, although only 10 levels in the LITE version, this game is addictive, trying to get the best set-up for the explosives.
- Wifi on 15 hours. I'm visiting my folks and they live in an area that doesn't get very good phone signal, so I just leave the Wifi on.
- general playing around with the phone, going into various menus and just seeing whats there.
- A couple phone callsabout 30-40 minutes
- SMS/MMS, over the easter weekend, I've been sending alot of texts and picture messages. I'm glad I've got unlimited texts lol.

I think once I get back into my normal routine with the phone then the battery should last me around 2-2 1/2 days. That said, I am already in the habit of plugging in my phones when I go to bed so battery life isn't going to be an issue for me.

Overall
The Android OS seems to be going from strength to strength. At the moment, Windows Phone 7 will need to pull some serious tricks out of the back in terms of one handed finger friendlyness in order to pull me away from Android. As with every OS, there are still areas that can be improved, in this case the video playback is one area that could do with extra codecs being put in or at least 3rd party codecs so that most if not all file formats can be enjoyed on what is a very good screen.
The phone feels like it has been built to last, it's firm in the hand and doesn't feel like it will break easily. While the optical trackball will take me a couple days to get used to, I don't think I will need to use it that often.

The overall feeling about the HTC Desire is that it is a very fast and capable device and should last me for the next 6 months until a better one comes around the corner

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