Sunday, May 22, 2011

Google Android 3.1 comes to the Dell Streak 7 (unofficially)

The Dell Streak 7 features a dual core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, just like pretty much every tablet shipping with Google Android 3.x Honeycomb. But the Streak 7 comes with Android 2.2 which is looking a bit dated. Last month we saw that a hacker had figured out how to install custom ROMs with Android 3.0 Honeycomb, and now he’s back with Android 3.1 for the Streak 7.

Hacker DJ_Steve is still fine tuning the software so it’s not available to the public yet. For instance, you can’t wake the tablet from sleep unless it’s plugged in. But you can check out the first demo video after the break which shows the 7 inch tablet running Android 3.1.

The biggest problem, of course, is that the Dell Streak 7 has an 800 x 480 pixel display. While there are some software hacks that can let you cram a little more information on the screen, it won’t look as sharp as a screen with a higher native resolution.

Interestingly as part of the development process, hackers discovered that if you adjust the pixel density on a tablet running Honeycomb, you’ll end up seeing the Google Android 2.3 Gingerbread user interface. What’s odd is that using the lower pixel density shows you the Android 3.1 user interface on the Dell Streak 7, while a pixel density of 170ppi or higher shows you the Gingerbreaa UI. I would have thought it would be the other way around.

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