Tablet War: Dell Streak 10 Pro Vs. Apple iPad 2

Computer maker Dell Inc. entered the 10.1-inch tablet race by releasing its Android Honeycomb tablet, Dell Streak 10 Pro specially for the Chinese market. However, the tablet has to deal with the iconic Apple Inc.'s iPad 2, as the benchmark for design and performance has been set by the Cupertino giant.

Dell Streak Pro 10 features a 10.1-inch LCD display with 1280x800 screen resolution. It is powered by an NVIDIA 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 chipset and offers 1GB RAM and 16GB internal memory.

It sports a 5MP rear-facing and 2MP front-facing cameras. The Wi-Fi only Dell Streak Pro 10 optimizes Google Inc.'s Android 3.1 or Honeycomb. It also offers 1080p video playback capability.

The tablet weighs 1.6 pounds and is 0.51-inch thick. With these dimensions, it is no match for the Apple iPad 2, which weighs 1.3 pounds and is 0.34-inch thick.

Price-wise, Dell Streak 10 Pro carries a price tag in China of 2,999 Chinese yuan ($465) for the 16 GB version. This is lower than what the iPad 2 costs: 3,688 Chinese yuan ($572) for the 16 GB version.

The Streak 10 Pro is designed for people who want to "work" and "play" on one tablet. Dell explains that the application "Dell Divide" assures that users' personal and professional information are kept safe, secure and separate from one another.

The Dell Divide will offer the ultimate yin and yang: the software offers a separate, secure desktop with work apps, widgets, & shortcuts, it provides secure, managed connections to work whenever and wherever, and it provides communication & productivity tools to enhance work-life balance.

In February, a leaked Dell roadmap for 2011 revealed it has four tablets lined up for this year. The roadmap stated Dell will release an Android Honeycomb tablet Gallo in the second quarter and another Honeycomb tablet called Sterling in the fourth quarter.

Dell Streak 7 is due for an update in the third quarter. In the first quarter of 2012, Dell will launch two more Android 3.0-based tablets Opus One and Silver Oak.

However, Apple is not the only competitor that Dell will face in China. It will also meet Samsung's ultra-thin tablet, the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which is expected to be launched in China next month. Dell may have to slim down its 10.1-inch offering to meet these svelte beauties from Apple and Samsung.

Here is a look at how Dell Streak 10 Pro features fare with compared to Apple iPad 2:

Size: The Dell Streak 10 Pro has a dimension of 262.3 x 178 x 12.95 mm and weighs 727 g, while Apple iPad 2 has 241.2 x 185.7 x 8.8 mm and weighs 607 g.

Display: Dell Streak's tablet has a 10-inch 1280 x 800 pixels LCD capacitive touchscreen display with Corning's Gorilla glass whereas the iPad 2 features 9.7-inch 1024 x 768 pixels LED-backlit IPS TFT capacitive touchscreen display.

Input features: The input features in Dell Streak 10 Pro are accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, Dell Stage 2.0 UI, multi-touch input method, Dell Divide app, touch-sensitive controls with rotating icons, proximity sensor for auto turn-off and Gyro sensor. Moreover, Apple iPad 2 has Fingerprint scratch resistant oleophobic surface, multi-touch input method, accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate and three-axis gyro sensor.

Memory: The memory found in the Dell tablet is 1 GB DDR2 RAM and 16 GB storage capacity with a microSD card slot giving up to 32 GB support, while the iPad 2 has 512 MB RAM with 16 GB, 32 GB and 64 GB internal storage support. The Apple iPad 2 doesn't have an external storage space.

Operating system: Apple’s tablet has an iOS 4 operating system compared to Dell, which features the Android OS 3.1 (Honeycomb) with a layer of the latest Stage 2.0 UI and Dell Divide on top of it. This makes using the Streak 10 Pro more like using a Dell Latitude laptop, since Honeycomb is finely-tuned.

Processor: The Dell Streak 10 Pro tablet has NVIDIA 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 T20 chipset compared to iPad 2’s 900 MHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU Apple A5 chipset processor.

WLAN/Bluetooth/USB: The Streak 10 Pro and Apple iPad 2 has Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n and USB version 2.0. The Dell tablet has 2.1 version of Bluetooth with EDR while iPad 2 features version 2.1 with A2DP and EDR.

Camera: The camera in Dell tablet is a 5-megapixel 2592?1944 pixels with flash and autofocus features. But iPad 2 only has 0.7-megapixel camera with geo-tagging feature. There is a secondary VGA camera in iPad 2, while Streak 10 Pro has 2-megapixel 1600x1200 pixels camera. Apple iPad 2 is capable of video playback at 720p, while Dell Streak 10 Pro offers 1080p video playback capability.

Battery: When it comes to battery, Dell Streak 10 Pro has Li-Ion 24.1 Wh that is expected to give 12 hours of battery life on video playback, whereas the iPad 2 features Li-Po 25 Wh which gives 10 hours.

Pricing: In China, Dell Streak 10 Pro is priced at 2,999 Chinese yuan ($465) for the 16 GB version. This is lower than what the iPad 2 costs: 3,688 Chinese yuan ($572) for the 16 GB version.

Other Features: Apple iPad 2 has features like Email, Push Email, IM, HTML Safari browser, downloadable, incl. motion-based games, A-GPS support, digital compass, MP4/MP3/WAV/AAC player, movie playback, iBooks PDF reader, Google Maps, TV-out, audio and video player.

Dell Streak 10 Pro has features like HTML, Flash, WAP 2.0, Web kit Browser, SMS, MMS, IM, Email, Data only - modular modem, turn-by-turn navigation, voice navigation, Adobe 10.1 Flash compatibility, Android Market, G-mail, Google Maps, G-Talk, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Picasa, Accuweather, Swype, Quickoffice, Radiotime, and Digital Compass.

Here is the comparison table: