Dell Streak review

Dell has partially got around this by including a 30-day trial version of NitroDesk’s TouchDown application, a fully-featured Exchange client, although this means you’ll end up with two contact lists and two email clients. There’s also a trial version of Quickoffice, which lets you view but not edit office documents. Aside from that, Dell hasn’t added to the default set of Android apps.

The downside of a large screen is that they generally use more power, so we were pleasantly surprised when the Streak lasted for just shy of 21 hours in our light usage battery test. This doesn’t take into account highly variable but power-hungry usage such as 3G data, WiFi or GPS, and more importantly the screen is off for most of this test, but compared to other Android devices the Streak performs well.

Design-wise, the Streak is dominated by the screen, which uses Gorilla Glass toughened glass and has a capacitive touch interface. In its default landscape mode, the left bezel contains a secondary camera, while the right edge has three touch-sensitive controls for Back, Menu and Home (there’s no dedicated Search button), and both edges are tapered towards the rear of the case. The case itself has an automotive-quality paint job, and while the black model we saw was rather dull, the coloured models have a deep, shiny gloss.

On the rear you’ll find the 5MP camera with twin LED flashes, which is typical of phone cameras. Snaps are colourful but lack sharpness, especially when shooting in dark conditions or when subjects are moving. It can also record video at a maximum 640×480 resolution. There’s a dedicated camera button along the top edge of the phone, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack.

A large and loud speaker sits under the battery cover, but with the Streak laying on its back the sound is muffled significantly. You can buy a docking station from Dell for £55, which also charges and syncs your Streak and lets you connect it via HDMI to your HDTV, but this doesn’t hold the phone at a suitable viewing angle.

Another accessory is the car dock kit (£55), which lets you use the Streak as a satnav. Google’s Navigation app looks great on the large screen, and the speaker is loud and clear enough to provide excellent turn-by-turn directions. You can also buy a spare battery (£39), a leather case (£32) and a spare USB cable (£24). You may need the latter, as the Streak’s connector is a proprietary one rather than the almost universally accepted microUSB that other Android phones use.

The Streak is available SIM-free from Dell, or from O2, which offers a data-only plan (starting at £25 per month), voice and data (£35 per month), or PAYG. Both models come with a generous 16GB microSDHC card to complement the 2GB of internal memory.

Dell has promised an update to a more recent version of Android, but hasn’t announced when this will happen. Until this happens, however, we can’t recommend the Streak as a phone, as the lack of ActiveSync support is a show-stopper. Samsung’s Galaxy S, which we’ll be publishing our review of soon, has a smaller screen but the same resolution, and with far superior colour and brightness, and is all-round a better Android phone.

If you’re looking for a tablet device for browsing the web or watching videos, the Streak is more attractive thanks to its large screen, but the lack of support for video-on-demand services does limit this appeal somewhat. Right now, there isn’t really anything that competes with the Streak in this form factor so it’s best to wait for other devices or the promised software update.