Dell has taken its 7-inch Streak Android tablet out of commission, according to its website. While some retail sites still have stock, the company no longer offers the Streak for sale from its own website and will no longer produce it. The Dell Android tablet species is officially extinct in the US.
The fadeout of the 7-inch Streak follows the disappearance of the 5-inch Streak in August, when it failed to corner (read: create) the 5-inch tablet market. The 7-inch Streak went on sale in January and was priced at $200 with a T-Mobile contract, but has failed to generate any significant interest in the last year. The only Dell tablet still in production is the 10-inch Streak, sold in China.
From here, Dell will move on to making Windows 8 tablets when the operating system launches next year. Speaking at the Dell World 2011 conference, Michael Dell, the company's CEO, said that "the Android market has not developed the expectations [Dell] would have had."
In the meantime, there are similarly priced devices like the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet that offer many of the same features at roughly similar prices, without contracts. Dell will need to rethink its tablet game, particularly the use of contracts with mobile carriers, to stay competitive. Still, we hope to see a Windows 8 device that is more well-rounded and tablet-like than the super-e-readers above when CES rolls around in January.
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