 |
If you haven’t noticed, tablets are quite the rage these days, but much like last year’s buzzword — netbooks — too many folks are pushing out the same basic design spec and expecting miracles in the market. One that goes against the tide is Dell, which has taken a slightly different approach with its new Streak tablet.
At 6-in wide, 3.2-in tall, and 0.35-in thick, the first thing that strikes you about the Streak is its size as a tablet. It’s sleek, no doubt, and the build quality is solid, very much in tune with its premium pricing. The 5-in 800x480 pixel multi-touch display is covered with seemingly indestructible Gorilla Glass — the launch event saw Dell execs jabbing away at the screen with a bunch of keys (ouch!) with no effect in terms of scratches.
It is comforting considering this is a device that may find the same bunch of keys giving it company in your suit pocket. The tapered edges are covered with a hardy plastic that also conceal its three Android-style soft keys (back, menu, home), a earpiece, microphone, and a front-facing VGA-resolution camera. The rear of the Streak has the battery enclosure and the 5-megapixel autofocus shooter along with an integrated LED flash. The net effect — a device that’s chock full on features with a pretty awesome screen to boot.
Under the hood, the Streak is well specced, with a Snapdragon 1GHz mobile processor and 512 MB of memory, and you can expand your storage space upto 32GB with the MicroSD card slot (it ships with a 16GB card). I’m a bit disappointed that it runs the ageing Android 1.6 operating system, albeit one with some Dell enhancements, and while Dell aims to deliver the latest 2.2 version by December this year, I’ll believe it when I see it.
For now, the 1.6 release misses some of the new features we’ve seen in Android 2.1 smartphones. But possibly my biggest concern about the Streak is its form factor — it tries to achieve that middle ground between a smartphone and a tablet, but almost about misses on both.
 |
The inbuilt SIM card slot for voice and data connectivity will ensure comparisons are drawn with the best of the smartphone lot, for which it is simply too big, and as a tablet, there are a number of places, like reading lots of text or browsing, where the screen just isn’t large enough. Maybe an OS upgrade and the expected larger form factor may be what the Streak needs — as it stands, its Dell pedigree in terms of fit, finish and features certainly helps its case as a tweener device but doesn’t check all the boxes to conquer either segment.
Rating: 7/10
Price: Rs 35,000
Speed drive
 |
For anyone with even a casual interest in the sport, Formula 1 this year has been nothing short of electric, and there really couldn’t be a better time for Codemasters to release what is undeniably the best Formula 1 game in a long, long time. Most F1 franchise games just felt like the official F1 licence had been sloppily added on top of what was a really mediocre game, but not with F1 2010. The game strikes a crucial balance for what is a technically demanding sport — there’s a mix of arcade and simulation in the game that will appeal to both the hardcore auto-nuts without being too complex for the casual racer. So while the F1 fan in you can adjust everything from brake balance to gear ratios, downforce to ride height, those who just want to get down to racing can get their own race engineer to deal with all of these complicated settings through a ‘Quick Car Setup’ option. Likewise, if you’re up for a few hours of gaming, you can choose to race a full race weekend, or for those looking for a short game, the sessions can be limited to shorter 20-minute sessions.
 |
But once you get down to racing, the level of exacting detail around the cars and tracks astounds. You start off with one of the minnows and work your way up the season, buying technical upgrades as you do better. It has the 2010 line-up of drivers and tracks, including the inaugural Korean Yeongam track as well. Fact is, even if you’re not particularly good at driving but just love the sport, the game allows you to drive your favourite cars down the tracks, the attention to detail is that good. With F1 2010, the licence is back in the hands of a capable publisher who’s managed a fantastic depiction of the sport for serious and casual gamers alike.
Price: Rs 2,499 (PS3 and Xbox360), Rs 999 (PC) via Zapak Gaming
URL: http://bit.ly/cgijoe
