Dell Streak ROM review: StreakDroid 2.3
This guest review was written by Jonathon Jones.
If you're a Dell Streak 5 user , then you know by now that our beloved device has been given its official EOL status from Dell. The news may have left you with a sense of loss for our 5-inch hero, but never fear.
Thanks to the hard work of famed Streak devs DJ_Steve and fards, we on the verge of a fresh Gingerbread build to help breathe some new life into our pocket tablets. While still in its early stages, StreakDroid 2.3 shows dramatic improvements in stability, especially in graphics acceleration and overall performance over the first GingerStreak (as the ROM is often called). It's a 2.3.3 build based on Dell's alpha kernel code, so some things aren't working . . . yet. It seems as though DJ_Steve has passed the StreakDroid torch off to Fards for this and all future Gingerbread builds. Judging by what I have seen so far, we should feel mighty comfortable with this changing of the guard.
It brings in some much needed speed and stability, as I mentioned, and the overall response seems quick and snappy, even after two full days of use.
Quadrant scores after a quick flash and factory reset come in at about 1250.
The kernel is overclocked by default to 1190; however, it seems to be rather unstable at these speeds. Reigning things back in to 1152 completely saved me from lockup issues.
This build comes un-themed and with VTL. Launcher as the default launcher. The default governor is "Smoothass" (I don't use governors, personally, so I haven't had the time to give it a proper rundown). Also thrown in is a collection of free apps like Volume Plus, Clocksync (to help with timedrift), and Hackers Keyboard.
StreakDroid 2.3 is still very much a work in progress and is therefore not without its share of problems. Here is a quick rundown of known issues from the release post:
- Light and proximity sensors don't work
- Compass/rotation sensors sometimes dies
- Mic doesn't work on first outgoing calls (it works in every other situation)
- Power drain is quite high
- Headset doesn't recognize non Dell headsets
- Jpegs can get eaten
- There’s some timedrift
Now don't go flashing this ROM, typing up a list of bugs, and running off to inform the world. The issues in this build are well known and this is not an official release. You will get no sympathy from anyone, including fards, who has made it clear that this is only for those willing to apply their own workarounds and who can live without their Streaks.
Battery life has seen a definite improvement in this build, but still seems to leave something to be desired. With no task manger installed I'm getting around 7+ hours on average while using the Streak for Facebook, Gmail, YouTube, and as a replacement for my work phone. While I expect a task manger would help to improve battery life, I still wouldn't go wandering too far from my charger or spare battery.
At the end of the day, StreakDroid 2.3 is more of a vision of the great things to come than a replacement for something like a stock ROM or DJ_Steve's 1.9.1.
There are still a lot of bugs that need to be worked out, and hopefully we will see those fixes come together into an official release. Fards is putting together something worthwhile, and it's important to let him know you appreciate all of his hard work and effort; send him a tweet (@fardsmobile) or swing by PayPal if you're feeling mighty generous.
Without our developer community, we are going nowhere fast. The Streak will only ever be EOL when the community abandons it, so support your devs and Happy Streaking!
[xda-developers]This guest review was written by Jonathon Jones.
actually still its not for everyday use…and i guess better to use 2.2.2 roms. its just for testing. but again very big thanx to developer who dare to build 2.3 whn official dell just kick us out in the street with a shiny dell.
Who cares. The Galaxy Note is coming. You’ve had it Dell.
Ditto…
+1 on that one. My dream phone is dual core processor 1gb of ram 5′ screen hd display runs on Lte. Looks like samsung has made my dream come true on this one. Can’t wait.
just checked out the galaxy note and have to say that it is all that i wanted from my dell streak and then some. i do believe in loyalty but have a suspicion that dell do not so i’m off to get a samsung as soon as they are available.
dell could have had it all – i honestly believe that smartphone/tablets are the way forward – but they blew it.
Like this dell loose the customer, 3 from 5 planing to move samsung. why??? bcuase samsung care customer, samsung knows what user wants and samsung knows after sells service. Dell should fired all of thr streak marketing ppls who just failed to make famous thr one of the best piece.
I love how the Note is already getting slammed by Gizmodo for being “too big.”
The Streak didn’t fail because of its size. It failed because Dell, put it out with Donut, then seemed to abandon it no sooner than they released it. Those of us on this site know what a great thing having all that screen size is. I will support Samsung (or any other manufacturer) that doesn’t insult my intelligence and the faith I place in their products.
Jenn, will you have a Galaxy Note News blog?
The King is dead. Long live the King.
For me Dell streak has never had a stable ROM. From december of last year until now, i had flashed this phone at least 100 times just to find a better/stable ROM but NO. thanks to DJsteve for his work but i think the rom that he cooked are better than official but still not good enough. i have had samsung captivate and the only problem i had with it was the GPS and that was it. now i am using streak as my secondary phone and HTC sensation as my primary and it is one of the best Android phone i have ever used, HTC Sense is Awesome. Streak has a good hardware but the OS needs aloooooooooooooot of work to get as good as other android phones in the market. That’s why they killed it.
Guess I’m in the minority here…but I still like my Streak and don’t really care that Dell EOL’d it….my Streak still works great after a year of use and with DJ_Steve’s 1.9.1…..
So, I look forward to fards’s good work on 2.3!
No, I won’t. There may be some coverage of the Note here in terms of Streak competitors, but that’s about it. If anything, we will cover it more fully on Pocketables.net (one of our sister sites).
wow, the galaxy note is pretty sweet looking. I will be sticking with my streak until it’s dead though, I am totally pleased with DJ Steve’s 1.9.1 and the hardware just feels good in my hands.
If Dell wants to keep us around as customers, they need to announce something, and now. The Streak is EOL, so there are no sales of the old model to protect. I suspect there will never be an Opus One, but if there is, now would be the time to let us know. I might even stick around despite all of the Streak’s problems if it had at least a qHD screen, Tegra2 or DC Snapdragon/Adreno 220, and Gingerbread.
I suspect based on the very tepid “launch” of the 10″ Streak though that Dell is too frightened to take it to Samsung, HTC, and Motorola. This type of attitude goes all the way back to their PDAs and MP3 players which Dell made for something like 20 minutes.
They dip their little toe in the water, get scared, and leave, and customers are the ones who suffer.
I will also stick with my streak until his death but surely it will be my last dell product.
Ditto
Ditto
it is just plain abandonment, i was thinking of keeping it as a memory to show to my grandchildren and to use the upgraded dell streak 5D???? which i was hoping to be released by now or a couple of months later but Dell people just , politely, said goodbye to us, and just because of this shortsightedness of Dell people a good and a worth product doomed. still my grandchildren will see it
AS
Dell Streak -5 was love at first sight, ….and i never felt the same till now……….sticking to it like hell.
I just love my Dell Streak , I use it to run my taxi business and the amount of people who comment when I use it as a meeting board is unbelievable . dell made a serious mistake in that for the business user it is perfect just the software that is naff … on dj steve now and it is turning into an amazing piece of kit
i just updated my streak from 2.2 to 2.3.3
all is good. BUT../.,,.
the SMS messages after 100 characters are turning into MMS
fixed with Handcet or somethin (app from market)
BUT
my co pilot and google maps are not sensing any GPS signal…
it says in co pilot settings that 7 sattelites r found… than it shows my location for 1 sec and says no GPS signal found… !!!!!!!!! WTF