A little more Streak [Portal page] news out of the D: All Things Digital conference. Cnet has a video of Ron Garriques giving a brief demo of the Dell Streak in which Garriques says that Dell is working on a version of the Streak for the Asian market. Additionally, he says that Flash will be coming to the device in Q4 which means that it’ll be that long until owners see Android 2.2 on the device.

Though Dell doesn’t seem to have yet found a US carrier to launch with, it looks like they’ll be selling the Dell Streak [Portal page] toward the end of June for $500, unlocked, from Dell.com. $500 is reasonable for an unsubsidized device of this caliber.

Jkk has already had some extensive hands-on time with the device.

Ronald G. Garriques was on hand to demonstrate the Streak at the Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference where he stated the price and availability of the unlocked Streak.

The Dell Streak is also launching this month in Europe on the carrier O2.

Jkk seems to have gotten his hands on the official European version of the Dell Streak [Portal page] (aka the Dell Mini 5) which launches soon in Europe. He has a thorough 24 minute video walkthrough with the device which you can find over at his site.

A few notes about the device from Jkk:

– I would like it to have a kick stand on it

– Dell UI is ok but I think I still would go with standard Android

– It should have a micro usb port for charging.. I hate carrying custom cables

– Waiting for Android 2.2 will feel looooong.

– Battery life seems better than I thought.. more testing needed..

And a few thoughts of my own after watching his walkthrough:

• Headphone jack position couldn’t be worse. The device is already very big, if people are expected to walk around with the Dell Streak in their pocket, having a headphone jack stick out the side of the device while in the pocket will be very annoying.
• The fact that the Dell Streak is only running Android 1.6 is really disappointing. This is what happens when you take months and months and months to get a product to market. Presumably it’ll get Android 2.2 eventually, but that won’t happen until Dell gets around to integrating their custom Android interface into 2.2, then deploying it to customers. The sad part is that the Dell Streak is as a disadvantage out of the gate, simply because it isn’t running the latest firmware.

I don’t know where to start with this one but highlighting the incompatibility between Moblin and ARM-based devices is a good place too start and it gives us a hint that this might not be the huge and interesting MID and ‘smart’ book leak that it could have been.

The ‘roadmap’ picked up by Android Central shows three Dell MID devices. The 4.1 inch 640×480 (also marked up as WVGA) Thunder based on Windows Mobile/Android is the first. Then we have the 5 inch Streak which is being shown as having a Vodafone (Europe) variant. This is where the Moblin logo appears. The Looking Glass is shown with a 4:3 format screen (800×600) and finally there are a couple of ARM-based netbooks called ‘Sparta’ and Athens. Once again the Moblin logo appears.

Clearly this is an old internal roadmap showing a possible Moblin / Moorestown option for the devices and probably explains the ‘MID’ label. Clearly Intel weren’t ready for Dell so in this case, they lost out to Android and ARM.

Via Engadget.

Source: Android Central

Engadget has apparently received a leaked internal Dell announcement, as well as a few images of more upcoming devices in the Dell ‘Mini’ family. We knew that Dell was planning more devices than just the Dell Mini 5 [product page], and now we’re getting our first look at the rest of the family which includes 7 inch and 10 inch slates. I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if these are renders of the same device. We’ll likely see some changes before they make their way to the market. No specs have been shared at this time, but it should be safe to assume that the larger slates will be running Android and using the ARM platform, just as the Mini 5 is.

Engadget is also saying that the Dell Mini 5 (A.K.A. “Streak inch) will be released sometime “later this summer inch. There has been evidence in the past to suggest that AT&T will be the U.S. carrier for the Dell Mini 5.

Engadget has apparently received a leaked internal Dell announcement, as well as a few images of more upcoming devices in the Dell ‘Mini’ family. We knew that Dell was planning more devices than just the Dell Mini 5 [product page], and now we’re getting our first look at the rest of the family which includes 7” and 10” slates. I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if these are renders of the same device. We’ll likely see some changes before they make their way to the market. No specs have been shared at this time, but it should be safe to assume that the larger slates will be running Android and using the ARM platform, just as the Mini 5 is.

Engadget is also saying that the Dell Mini 5 (A.K.A. “Streak”) will be released sometime “later this summer”. There has been evidence in the past to suggest that AT&T will be the U.S. carrier for the Dell Mini 5.

UMPCPortal is where we take mobile devices and hold them up against a template of productivity, technology, battery life and engineering. We try and look deep into the technology to not only see what’s possible today, but what’s possible tomorrow and how it can fit into pro-sumer and productivity scenarios.

If you’re looking for a more consumer-focused ride though, that’s what we do over at Carrypad. There we take mobile devices and focus on the things that are important to the casual user. Price, features, ease of use, style and user interfaces play a huge part her because not everyone needs the Full Internet Experience when lazing around on the couch catching a little YouTube in the advertising breaks on TV.

We’ve Got an iPad on the Way, and You Can Too

In the last week we’ve invested in an iPad. Ben is going to take the reigns on it and see if he can work out where the device fits now and to track it as applications start feeding through. It seems strange to be following Apple into this new segment at such a low price but it looks like they really will have the first 3G-enabled consumer-focused tablet on the market beating the Dell Mini 5, the JooJoo and the IDC ultra by a long margin.

The Top Consumer Internet Devices.

The database has been running for a while now and we’re seeing an interesting Top 5 battle. Consistently at the top is the Dell Mini 5. This 5 inch Android-based handheld tablet promises to trump the already-popular Archos 5 in two ways. It will not only contain a full 3G and voice radio but it will also be one of the first MIDs (i.e. a device targeted at Internet use as it’s primary function) with a full suite of Google applications. That means marketplace which means a whole new opportunity for developers to work with a huge 800×480 screen.

Also knocking around at the top are the ICD Ultra which should be available later this year. The Notion Ink Adam is a similar device and if they get the promised Pixel-Q1 screen in there it will be a great device for outdoor use.

More significant, I think, it the Archos 7 Home Tablet. This isn’t a powerful device but at $179, it should offer excellent value for the round-the-house experience. It’s claimed to offer a smooth video playback experience at near 720p quality along with a reasonable browsing experience and a good set of Android applications. Archos will be following-up with a whole range of Android-based devices later this year too so they are clearly putting their bets on the Android OS. If Google allows them to use their marketplace, the whole range of Archos devices will get a huge boost.

Of course, the iPad is going to be important but it’s not rising as high in the ‘charts’ as I expected. Maybe that’s still to come!

There’s a lot more news out there in the world of consumer devices but we’re going to be honest; you won’t find everything at Carrypad. There’s a lot of hype out there and a lot of products that just won’t get past stage one a showing at an exhibition. We’ll be focusing on the cream of the crop and only bringing you the news that you need to hear.

Check out more at Carrypad where you’ll also find the RSS feed and the ability to sign up for the daily email.

Meet:Mobility Podcast 45 is now available. Streamed live (meetmobility.com/live) on 12th March 2010 with special guest Charbax (Twitter, ARMDevices.net)

In the podcast we talk about the mobile computing highlights of CeBIT including the Archos 7, four convertible netbooks, the new Atom processors and ION GPU options and much more.

Full show notes and links to download/listen are at Meet:Mobility