Apple iPad vs Dell Streak

“Tablets” are the talk of the town; the “iPad” in particular. While the iPad is still in the limelight, other manufacturers are readying their own tablets. The 5-inch screen Dell Streak, or Dell Mini 5, as it was known earlier, is an example. How will these tablets fare against the revolutionary iPad? Here’s something for starters…

Size Matters

One might say, the Dell Streak is just a 5-inch touchscreen device, more like a smartphone. Whereas the Apple iPad is much larger, with a 9.7-inch screen, and is closer to the netbooks. Then how can the 2 tablets be compared. One thing to note here is that, the size brings about an important aspect of comparison between the 2 gadgets – Ergonomics.

It somehow seems to be easier to use the Dell Streak for long hours than the iPad. Why? You can hold the Dell tablet, either in portrait or landscape orientation and work with your thumbs easily. You can relax your hands on your lap while doing so. Or you can hold the tablet with one hand, and still work with the index finger and thumb of the other hand, with both hands still resting on your lap. You can as well relax your hands on a table when working with the Dell Streak. Then again, you can still use one hand to hold it and scroll down pages, or flip through photographs, while maybe you’re holding your coffee mug in the other. On the other hand, when holding the iPad, your thumbs alone can’t cover the whole screen. You’ll have to frequently keep lifting your hand to touch something on the top of the screen. Working for long hours might get uncomfortable. And forget about using the iPad with one hand.

However, when it comes to watching movies and videos, or reading books, the Apple iPad with its larger, higher resolution (and hence clarity) screen, wins hands-down.

Winners:-

Ergonomics – Dell Streak

Movie/Video watching experience, reading books – Apple iPad

Operating System

The Dell Streak vs Apple iPad is also a battle between Google Android and Apple iPhone OS. The Streak is supposed to be running Android 1.6 out of the box, but will allow upgrading to the latest Android version – 2.2 (Froyo) later on this year. The iPad runs the iPhone OS. Some Android 2.2 vs iPhone OS points here.

Winner:- Both OSes have their own pros and cons.

Stab the Dell Streak and it will survive… Stab the iPad and you might end up paying for repairs….

The Dell Streak screen has been constructed with gorilla glass, which is really tough. Watch this YouTube video of how the Dell Streak gets stabbed hard with a pen, and yet emerges without a crack or scratch.

Try this with the Apple iPad, and you might end up with a cracked screen and a big hole in  your pocket, paying for the repairs.

Winner:– Dell Streak

Tethering

The Dell Streak supports microSD cards, a USB to 30 pin connector and Bluetooth for easy tethering with other gadgets. On the other hand, the iPad only supports Bluetooth.

Winner:– Dell Streak

Certain things that work in favour of the iPad

• One of the biggest advantages that the iPad has is the family wealth – the humongous and ever growing App Store. These apps were designed for the iPhones. However, they are being customised to suit the iPad. While the Android has its own Market with plenty of apps, and which is still growing, it is almost impossible for it to beat the number of apps that the App Store has.
• Even the iTunes is an added bonus.
• The Apple tablet as well has a dedicated e-book store, called iBook, which is currently getting updated with plenty of books.

Something that Dell Streak presents, which Apple iPad absents

• The Dell tablet is a multi-tasker, which the Apple iPad is not.
• The former supports Adobe Flash which is necessary for playing many online videos. The latter does not support Flash. There’s news that Dell Streak will also be offering an update to Adobe Flash 10.1 later on.
• The 5″ tablet has an integrated 5MP camera and a front facing VGA camera for video calls. On the other hand the 9.7″ tablet lacks even a basic camera. You need to buy an explicit web-camera and connect it via a special dock to the iPad in case you want video calls.
• The Streak offers a microSD card slot for cards of up to 32GB capacity. The iPad does not have memory expansion slots, but comes with internal memories of either 16GB, 32GB or 64GB.
• Dell’s gadget has a user removable battery, while Apple’s gadget does not.
• The Streak also has provision for a SIM card. It thus does not tie one up with any particular network provider. You will be able to make phone calls as well as surf the internet. The iPad on the other hand is compatible with only micro-SIM cards, which is available only with select network providers. Currently, you cannot make phone calls on the iPad directly. You’ll need some explicit software for this.

Some common ground

Both tablets use 1GHz processors. They offer multi-touch capability. Either tablets are being marketed as gadgets for web browsing, watching videos, movies, listening to music etc. They support WiFi and 3G (only the iPad WiFi+3G models). They both support GPS too (again the iPad 3G models only).

Both tablets are being offered on O2. The iPad has already gone on sale in the UK and mobile broadband deals are being offered on Vodafone, Orange and 3 Mobile apart from O2. The Dell Streak is mentioned to be exclusive to O2 and will come in early June 2010; though pricing details are not available at the moment.

Airis Praxis Slim Air Notebook – Not A MacBook Air Clone Really!

The Airis Praxis Slim Air Ultraslim Notebook does seem like an Apple MacBook Air look-alike. But check out its offerings and you might actually prefer buying the Airis Praxis Laptop. This mobile computer sports a 12” screen, which is slightly smaller than the 13.3” display of the MacBook Air. The former offers a higher resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels when compared to the 1280 x 800 pixels of the latter.

On the CPU front, the Apple notebook has a faster Intel Core 2 Duo 1.86GHz processor; while the Airis Praxis notebook comes with an Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor. The MacBook has a 2GB RAM. On the other hand the Airis Praxis notebook has just a 1GB RAM. Therefore processing speed-wise, the Apple MacBook definitely wins hands down. The operating system for the Airis Praxis device can be one of Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Linux. The model comes with Vista pre-installed. The MacBook Air ships with the Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. An nVidia graphics processor has been employed in the MacBook Air, but there has been no mention of what graphics processor is incorporated in the Airis Praxis Notebook.

The hard drive of the Airis Praxis laptop is 160GB capacious. The MacBook Air has a smaller 120GB hard drive. The interfaces present in the Airis Praxis Slim Air include 2 USB ports and an HDMI output; while the MacBook Air includes only a single USB port and a Mini DisplayPort. This Mini DisplayPort can support DVI, VGA, and dual-link DVI for which you’ll need to buy adapters separately. Both laptops have web cameras integrated into them.

Either of the mobile computers support WiFi for internet connectivity. The MacBook Air promises a life of 5 hours for wireless productivity. Hence video playback will get a lesser runtime life. The Airis Praxis notebook claims to deliver a life of 3 hours. Perhaps the MacBook Air might deliver a longer battery life, but, the battery comes integrated and is not removable. On the other hand, the Airis Praxis laptop has a removable battery, which can be replaced after it wears out.

The Airis Praxis Slim Air 12” Notebook weighs 1.2kg, slightly less than the 1.36kg weight of the Apple MacBook Air Notebook. An important aspect to be noted is that the MacBook Air gives the option of including a faster 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a 128GB solid state drive. At present nothing has been said about opting for a faster processor or an SSD for the Airis Praxis laptop. However, the most interesting part of comparing these slim, stylish and similar looking portable PCs is their prices. The Apple MacBook Air laptop offers cost £1149 and the Airis Praxis laptop deals cost just €399 [~ GBP 372].

Apple Macbook Air Versus MSI Wind X-Slim X340

Apple was holding the title of making the slimmest notebook in the market all this while, with the Apple MacBook Air Notebook. MSI seems all set now, to share this title, with their new MSI Wind X-Slim X340 Notebook. Both 0.7” thick notebooks have been blessed with a good specification set. They are both ultralight, weighing just 1.3kg each. They come with a whole world of adjectives with the prefix ‘ultra’ – ultra-mobile, ultra-portable, ultra-slim, ultra-stylish and so on…

Apple MacBook Air employs the Intel dual core processor, while the MSI Wind X-Slim X340 employs the Intel single core processor. Hence it is obvious that Apple MacBook Air is a faster notebook than the MSI X-Slim X340. However, there is an important aspect that we need to consider here – power consumption. The MSI notebook would definitely get a higher rating in power saving.

Either of the laptops have a little over 13” displays. However, the MSI Wind Notebook offers a slightly higher resolution (1366 x 768 pixels) when compared to Apple’s notebook (1280 x 800 pixels).

The auxiliary memory of both notebooks vary too. While the MSI X340 has a 320GB hard disk drive, the Apple MacBook Air has a 128GB Solid State Drive. Though the storage capacity of the latter is lesser, the SSD offers a higher speed than HDD.

On the graphics front, the MSI X-Slim X340 has an Intel GMA4500 GPU. The Apple MacBook Air has an Nvidia GeForce 9400M graphics card. The Nvidia graphics is expected to be a better choice for gaming.

OS-wise, the Apple MacBook Air ships with the  Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. On the other hand, the MSI Wind X-Slim X340 comes with the Microsoft Windows Vista OS. While Windows Vista is a better performer and a more feature-rich OS, the Mac OS offers more security.

Another important difference is the external interfacing offered by both ultra-slim mobile PCs. Apple MacBook Air has a USB port, a headphone jack and a display port on board. The MSI Wind X340 has 3 USB ports, an HDMI link and a headphone jack. Thus MSI X340 is a better notebook in terms of connections and ports.

The MSI Notebook is expected to have a better battery life than the Apple Notebook. However, when it comes to ergonomics, the Apple MacBook Air wins hands down.

The most interesting difference is the price of these attractive looking laptops. The cost of the Apple MacBook Air Notebook crosses a grand (about £1053) while the MSI Wind X-Slim X340 UMPC ships with a lower price tag (about £850).