A few months after killing off the Dell Streak 5, Dell has now ended their 7″ model’s suffering as well. This is something that surprised no one, what with the Streak recently being priced at under $100 at local Staples and other retail outlets. What’s particularly telling, tough, is this comment from CEO Michael Dell:
The Android market has not developed the expectations [Dell] would have had.
Wait, what? I can’t help but read that as a massive showing of sour grapes on a level unseen since Aesop.
Read a book!
The Android market, particularly the low-cost 7″ Android market, is huge. Unlike the 10″ market segment, where Apple is the undisputed king, the 7″ arena is largely unclaimed. That’s why Amazon went there with the Kindle Fire, and it’s why Barnes & Noble decided they were tired of having an unofficial tablet and unleashed the nook tablet. Even Samsung, who arguably started the craze with the Galaxy Tab, have updated their 7″ model. Now with Android 4.0 coming down the pipe and already on one tablet, things are only going to get more interesting.
The failure here isn’t on Android at all, but on Dell. Searching the web for Streak 7 reviews shows exactly how unenthusiastic the buying public was about the tablet. Dell threw on a horrible skin, killed the notification area, and overall threw a bucket of suck over a great OS. This isn’t something new. Take Dell’s line of Android handsets. Did you even remember they had a line of Android handsets? Despite coming out with a massive press fanfare, they managed to largely stay out of the news since. Now the only one I can still find is the Dell Venue, an Android 2.2 headset running the same pucktastic skin as the Streak. Gone are any of the other Android headsets, including the horrible Aero. You can grab a Windows Phone 7 Venue Pro if you look hard enough, so I guess that market is developing to Michael Dell’s expectations.
They'll have actual Apps aaaany day now.
Before that, there was the Dell Axim line, running Windows Mobile on a PDA when just about everyone else had switched to making smartphones. Smooth timing there. The Streak’s failure was in no way Android’s. Dell needs to come out and admit that they absolutely have no clue how to approach the mobile market.
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