Meet Dell's Newest Streak

We liked its little cousin's slim lines and balanced design. Now the Dell Streak 7 has made its debut.

By John P. Mello Jr., PCWorld

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Dell Streak 7 Tablet

It looks like Dell is finally getting the hang of this tablet thing. It unveiled today a new seven-inch model of its Streak slate. Streak 2.0, which will replace the five-inch version announced last spring. The new edition is built around Nvidia's peppy dual core 1GHz Tegra 2 processor and runs Android 2.2, also known as Froyo.

Photography and additional reporting by Melissa J. Perenson at CES in Las Vegas.

All About Widgets

Whereas the Android 1.6-based 5-inch Streak had kludgy widgets, this model is all about the widgets, and a fresh vision on top of Android 2.2. Seen here is the new, very visual widget-based home screen.

In addition to Android, Dell is including its Stage user interface with the new streak. According to Dell, the software delivers "a seamless and unified" experience for accessing content on the tablet. That experience will be expanded later this year when synchronization is added to the app. Then a user will be able to sync all their content with all devices running Stage.

Sociable Streak

Prominently set on one of the home screens are Facebook and Twitter widgets.

Media Center

Here you can play back recently accessed media files (although clearly, this demo unit lacks much of a selection).

Web-centric Home Screen

Again, visual tabbing and previews of pages are a core part of the user experience of the Dell Streak 7.

Some 100,000 programs are available for the tablet from Google's Android Marketplace app store, but the slate also has some special programs from T-Mobile. They include T-Mobile TV for watching live news and sports, as well as TV show episodes; and Zinio, a virtual newsstand with some 75,000 digital magazines.

Juggle Your E-Mail

In a nod to the modern-day reality that most of us have multiple e-mail address, Dell Streak 7 offers an easy way to access those accounts with a single click.

Optimized for Gaming

Since Streak runs NVidia’s Tegra 2 platform, with GeForce graphics technology, it comes as no surprise that games play smoothly.

Card Slots

This view shows how you can access the Streak 7’s card slots. Unlike its smaller cousin, this one has a full SD card slot and a SIM card slot tucked within this pop-open door.

T-Mobile and Camera

The unit also will connect to T-Mobile's 4G network out of the box and supports WiFi and stereo Bluetooth 2.1. (Its 5-inch cousin was sold through AT&T.)

Dual cameras are also part of the package. There's a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera suitable for video conferencing with T-Mobile's Qik chat app, which works on both 4G and WiFi connections. On the slate's back is a 5-megapixel camera for taking photos and HD video.

Tapered Style

From this angle, you can see how slim the Dell Streak 7 is; it measures 7.8 by 4.7 by 0.4 inches in its tapered design, and has a dock connector at bottom.