Mobile
Dell Streak Leak: Colors and Amazon partnership
Leaked documents (still the best kind) regarding the Dell Mini 5, a.k.a. The Streak, have made their way to Engadget revealing a bevy of color and design selections and a partnership with Amazon for music, eBooks, and video.
Nothing new spec-wise. 5″ capacitive touch display with WVGA 800 x 480 resolution, capacitive touch front buttons, 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, front VGA camera for video chat, and 30-pin docking connector. But the all-important pricing, shipping, and carrier info are still unknown.
Some interesting strategy going on with this device. Still not sure how the size will play into its popularity, bigger screen affects pocketability, but I believe there is a need for it to fill. The docking connector is long overdue, as demonstrated by the huge after-market accessory industry that grew around the iPod’s connector, though Dell is cutting out skin/shell makers by providing their own custom finishes. And of course, a partnership with Amazon for content is absolutely crucial. Overall, it looks like they’re doing things right.
Arturo
03/10/2010 at 9:31 am
DRM-free MP3 support is easy, but would this be the first/only Android device to offer compatibility with video purchased through Amazon Unbox/VOD? I know some older Archos and Creative devices supported Amazon video playback via MS’s PlaysForSure DRM, but AFAIK not even Archos’s newer Android devices support Amazon video.
Video file lock-in remains huge for portable devices like the Streak and the iPad. If you’ve bought a bunch of movies from iTunes, you can *only* watch ’em on an Apple-blessed device (iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV) or a computer sufficiently powerful enough to run the desktop iTunes app (something like the HP Slate may or may not cut it). Depending on how much video you’ve purchased, that can greatly influence hardware buying decisions.
I’m curious how Amazon’s video marketshare compares to Apple’s these days. I used to buy a lot of stuff through iTunes, but I’m gravitating more and more to Amazon these day. Amazon already lets customers stream purchased videos on demand from any Flash-capable browser, watch on Tivos and a few other STBs, and/or download files to a standalone Windows app. The last option is most like the iTunes download-then-watch model, but unlike iTunes purchases, you can delete your local files and download them again from Amazon’s servers as often as you’d like.
Portable device compatibility is the one place where Amazon suffers enormously vs. iTunes and its huge ecosystem of video-capable devices and software, so client software running on Android would be a huge win for Amazon, regardless of whether it plays downloaded video files or streams them over the internet. For me and my video collection, the Streak just got a lot more interesting.
TateJ
03/10/2010 at 11:30 am
If the Mini 5 can play Amazon Video, preferably locally not streamed, I’ll order one the day it is released.
Any ideas on cost?