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.
