Dell Kills 7-inch Streak Tablet
by Andrew Cunningham on December 5, 2011 9:00 PM ESTDell has discontinued its 7" Streak tablet in the United States, the bigger brother of the 5" Streak that it discontinued earlier this year - the official product page for the Honeycomb-powered tablet now says that the product is no longer available online. Dell will continue to sell the Streak in China and other markets.
Dell's decision to take the Streak off the market comes after middling reviews, slow sales, and competition not just from full-featured 7" tablets like the Galaxy Tab, but also low-cost specialized devices like Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet and Amazon's Kindle Fire. At this point, Dell appears to be pulling out of the Android tablet business in the US, perhaps waiting to see how Windows 8 behaves on such devices before jumping back into the market.
The Streak 7 is still available on some retail sites (like Staples, where it goes for $279 without a contract), but expect those listings to disappear as inventories dry up. Dell hasn't issued an update for the 5" Streak since discontinuing it, so if you get a good deal on its bigger brother in the next few weeks you can probably expect a similar lack of official software updates in the future.
Source: Dell
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Vinny DePaul - Tuesday, December 6, 2011 - link
I don't even know they WERE selling them. I thought they had discontinued them long time ago. Those Dell tablets were horrible. I won't even use it if it is free.Dell phone? It is a joke. Dell should focus on multimedia and family friendly PC to compete with Apple.
Spivonious - Tuesday, December 6, 2011 - link
From everything I've read, the Dell Venue Pro smartphone (WP7) was very good. Why should Dell stick to computers when it's obvious that the market is moving towards phones and tablets?retrospooty - Tuesday, December 6, 2011 - link
it was a really bad day ;)anactoraaron - Tuesday, December 6, 2011 - link
Especially after best buy was selling the wifi only models as a doorbuster. only things that make it as doorbusters are discontinued and 2 year old devices.I own one of these and it's a very decent device. I have owned it for almost a year and let my (now) 3 year old play angry birds on it from time to time. Still haven't found a way to put a scratch on this device (without just getting out a straight edge-even then the screen would likely still be safe). It is actually well made quality device if you can look past the low display res. DJ Steve is in the process now of making ICS for the streak 7 too. If he's successful (and it's only a matter of time) this device will be a great bargain to pick up.
melgross - Tuesday, December 6, 2011 - link
I think the only 7" tablets to survive will be the Fire and the Nook Tablet. They are already driving other small tablets out.But Dell's tablets have been terrible. They don't deserve to do well. Just like their old music player. I think it it was called the Ditty, or something like that.
Andrew.a.cunningham - Tuesday, December 6, 2011 - link
Yeah, they're definitely "cheap" tablets from before B&N/Amazon redefined the general build quality/user experience you could expect in the $200-$300 price range (Not that I think that's necessarily a good thing - now everyone but Apple is going to be in a full-on race to the bottom just like in the PC market, which means we can expect a vast array of samey, cheap, plasticky tablets coming out in the next year or two).steven75 - Tuesday, December 6, 2011 - link
And nothing of value was lost.