Dell Streak 2.1 screens and first thoughts

[Guest worley]

All I can say is oh wow!

Thanks for the help everyone after bricking my phone temporary by using the boot menu to upgrade rather than through the browser. :D

2.1 rocks, everything is so much smoother, flicking between home pages is completely slick and fast, no juttering.

The live wallpapers rock, I love the stars one :D

The video recorder does actually record at 720p and the quality seems much higher.

The video file is 1280x720 @ 19.4 fps

Here's a test:

(apologies for my rushed poor camerawork! btw, this was uploaded straight from the camera from the share options, see last screenshot below).

The unlock screen is great with the swipe up to unlock, the new phone app is a huge improvement, and finally a mute button on the unlock screen, just swipe downwards.

Multi-touch! woooo, google maps with multi-touch, yay! :D

The new keyboard is much easier to use, but I still prefer Swype (which I managed to reinstall as I still have a beta account).

Oh and each time you open/close an app it fades between them, smoothly too!

While everything (but the SD card) was wiped, I still have my contacts, email, calendar from google and all my apps were still shown in the downloads section, so just got them again (all paid apps downloaded for free).

Few very minor niggles with some widgets such as the power widget not working and the retro clock widget I downloaded the time wouldn't update. However, power down and back up and everything works!

Fantastic job Dell (Google) ;)

I've used the SDK tools to get some screenshots (they don't do the screen justice as they appear to be in low (256 maybe?) colour png format, the actual screen looks much smoother and richer.

I've also done a 720p HD video test, just uploaded it to youtube, so here's something for those who haven't tried it yet:

Lock page:

Home (with my grooveshark widget and retro dialer from the market):

Note that the stars swirl around, it also changes the angle you're viewing them at as you flick between pages :D

The new rather sexy dialer:

Gallery (I slid it to the side with my finger to show the "3d" effect):

New Camera/Video recorder app in camera mode:

Video mode:

Video settings (note 720p!):

Gallery share options for videos etc.:

Edited August 13, 2010 by worley

[Guest griff_dai]

apart from this facebook problem, it does rock big time :-)

just need Flash for that web browsing now!

Dai

[Guest worley]

apart from this facebook problem, it does rock big time :-)

just need Flash for that web browsing now!

Dai

Yeah flash would really finish it off (oh plus the x5-x6 performance increase on 2.2!)

Oh the browser, forgot to mention how much better the browser is! I tried a few very complex sites and they worked extremely smoothly, no crashes/freezing so far, finger pinching/zooming works very smoothly (now a zoom +/- button in the bottom right too), tried a really complex site like TotalVideoGames.com which has tonnes of images and javascript and it works really well :D

[Guest rollindubs]

does the front camera work?

[Guest raidet]

I was a little disappointed with the speed increase over 1.6. It is a little faster than stock 1.6, but Paul's custom 1.6 was faster than this.

[Guest tomqman]

does the front camera work?

cant see how to open it in camera app. but it works in fring video calls

[Guest HorusUK]

Google Earth works! Couldn't find it on the market, but had the apk hanging around for an age. Looks positively awesome on the Streak :-)

[Guest rovex]

I was a little disappointed with the speed increase over 1.6. It is a little faster than stock 1.6, but Paul's custom 1.6 was faster than this.

I completely disagree. The 2.1 update feels smoother and faster as well as benching faster.

[Guest worley]

I completely disagree. The 2.1 update feels smoother and faster as well as benching faster.

Absolutely, everything feels much smoother and faster, especially the UI and browser.

[Guest vinokirk]

I completely disagree. The 2.1 update feels smoother and faster as well as benching faster.

Agree with this 100%. Pauls custom ROMS bugged out to hell on my Streak

Edited August 13, 2010 by vinokirk

[Guest prawnballs]

I'm loving 2.1 but my volume buttons have now been reversed.. has anyone else noticed this?

[Guest mancterrier]

I'm loving 2.1 but my volume buttons have now been reversed.. has anyone else noticed this?

Yep same here. I had a few problems. Backed up all my stuff on mybackup then when I tried to restore in 2.1 It couldnt connect to the market place? All my widgets on the hompage were replaced by a grey box saying problem loading widget. Had to delete em all manually and then reinstall them all again. Ill stick some pics up in a sec when I get everything up and running...

[Guest mancterrier]

Yep same here. I had a few problems. Backed up all my stuff on mybackup then when I tried to restore in 2.1 It couldnt connect to the market place? All my widgets on the hompage were replaced by a grey box saying problem loading widget. Had to delete em all manually and then reinstall them all again. Ill stick some pics up in a sec when I get everything up and running...

Edited August 13, 2010 by mancterrier

[Guest fards]

there are some issues with this (and I have to admit, despite damming the original keyboard I prefer it to this one) overall its a huge improvement.

going to try the HTC ime I think,

btw heres google earth

http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.google.earth if you have appbrains "fast web installer" installed then it will download direct from the link

[Guest rovex]

Agree with this 100%. Pauls custom ROMS bugged out to hell on my Streak

The Modaco ROM was fine, but 2.1 is just better than 1.6, whatever optimisations are applied.

[Guest mancterrier]

Changed my live wallpaper and clock/weather widget skin

[Guest worley]

I'm loving 2.1 but my volume buttons have now been reversed.. has anyone else noticed this?

What they've done is address a lot of reviewer's said which is that it's confusing that the volume controls switch when you go between landscape and portrait modes, so up is always up and down is always down. I guess it's a bit more confusing for us who already had the handset though.

[Guest Paul Brown]

Loving the 2.1 update, feels really nice to use and is pretty fast too. The new lockscreen is great! Market is now fully working too, so all good.

Only thing is, to those who have "Weather & Toggle Widget" does anyone know how to stop the clock/weather widget looking so squashed?

My weather part looks really squashed and just not nice to look at. Happened on both 1.6 and now on 2.1, anyone know a fix?

[Guest kupo]

The Tweetdeck beta works beautifully following this 2.1 update. I wish it had a landscape multi-column mode but I guess they're not aiming for us "tablet" users... yet...

[Guest rovex]

Benchmarks are up all round except that the 30fps cap still seems in place. This appears to be true of all snapdragon devices with HDMI capability.

Linpack is up to 6.8 from about 4.

Quadrant is up from about 650 to 750. The main gain is in memory speed and 2D. There is a slight gain in CPU speed, but its still lower than the Desire/N1 with 2.1

[Guest courtlandre]

Benchmarks are up all round except that the 30fps cap still seems in place. This appears to be true of all snapdragon devices with HDMI capability.

Linpack is up to 6.8 from about 4.

Quadrant is up from about 650 to 750. The main gain is in memory speed and 2D. There is a slight gain in CPU speed, but its still lower than the Desire/N1 with 2.1

I'm getting around 2.5 in linpack and quadrant isnt even finishing. My phone feels faster so no complaints, but when this rom is actually released I hope we see some actual improvements.

[Guest worley]

Just another note, had to disable wifi (counter to what it suggested) and use 3G to link my google checkout account up to market, otherwise, market is working fine

[Guest rovex]

Market is fine for me and all programs are working, apart from a few FCs here and there.

Benchmarks are funny things, you need to ensure there are no other programs running, especially background updaters for things like email and twitter.

[Guest courtlandre]

Market is fine for me and all programs are working, apart from a few FCs here and there.

Benchmarks are funny things, you need to ensure there are no other programs running, especially background updaters for things like email and twitter.

yeah, killed my tasks and got a score of 779 in quadrant which says is higher than N1 (not the 2.2). You running a custom rom on your N1?

[Guest Asphytxtc]

Anyone noticed battery life reduced in 2.1? My streaks barely lasting a day now, if that.. disabled everything that might be sucking battery to no aval and the "whats using my battery" doesnt really give me any insights :-/