[Streak 5 General] TheManii:
Official Dell Press Release

The Streak Pro (D43) (codename "Millenium") has launched in China today. It features the Baidu Yi platform as it's OS.

Facts:

The SPro is NOT the "Opus One", that title can be reserved for the Lenovo LePad S2005

The specs have been bumped slightly since the initial rumors. It was originally announced with 512mb ram and 1gb nand and launched with 1gb ram and 8gb nand. It also officially supports FM Radio, a first for any dell mobile device.

The associated carrier in China is China Unicom, which hosts the largest HSPA 900/2100mhz network in China. While Softbank does have presense in China and India it is NOT the associated carrier in China for the SPro.

It is not branded as a 4g device as China has no 4g networks of any kind. The Snapdragon S4 MSM8260 supports HSPA+ (which was renamed to be a 4g technology) is the heart of the SPro, but it requires the carrier to also support HSPA+ to take advantage of it. If it were released with the same hardware in the US, it would be branded as a 4g phone.

If/when the SPro launched in Japan it will be launched as the Streak Pro 101DL and is a different varient of the Streak Pro D43 as it will be expected to have Android 2.3.x installed instead of Yi.

Background:

The Streak 5 and 10 launched earlier in the summer without any GApps integration, the S5 launched with 2.2.2 and the S7 launched with 3.1. Their GApps were replaced by their Baidu equivilents.

Unlike the SPro, the S5/10 both had Dell Stage installed with a limited widget set.

The Streak Pro would be more approporately labeled as the sucessor to the Venue. The venue is a 4.1" AMOLED device, while the SPro is a 4.3" SAMOLED device. Both devices target mainstream audiences unlike the S5 which targets a specific segment. The naming may be due to the fact the Streak brand is the strongest of the 3 Dell mobile brands (Mini 3/Streak/Venue). The S5 was originally slated to be launched as the Mini 5, but possibly was changed to avoid the bad press surrounding the entire Mini 3 series [See the Dell Aero, it is the most prominent member of the Mini 3 family]

About Yi:

Yi is a derivative of android, as in it's primarly android but with all the google services removed and replaced by Baidu equivilents.

Dell had previously announced that the Streak 5 would recieve Yi as a varient model, apparently this has transformed into China recieving the SPro before Japan and with Yi instead of android.

It is unknown if Yi is compatable with android, any android device that does not have the android market is techincally not running android, as being labeled "Android" means that the manufacturer has been given the go-ahead from Google after running some automated tests to check for compatability compliance.

As it is counterproductive to differentiate your platform and require app makers to learn yet another platform, the likelyhood of Yi being compatable with android apps is high.

Speculation:

The SPro's asthetics hints that the Spro may be manufactured also by PEGATRON instead of Qisda.

Devices manufactured by Qisda:

Streak 5/7, Venue /Venue Pro

Devices manufactured by PEGATRON:

Streak 10

As the Lenovo LePad S2005 is also manufactured by Qisda for Lenovo and not Dell, it may be due to Dell's dissastifaction with their support cycle. Qisda designs both the software and hardware for the devices they support. As they are a ODM there is nothing stopping them from selling their designed to other prospective companies. If the S2005 had a Dell logo it would be the "Opus One"

If the S10 is any indication, the SPro will have it's price drop signifigantly by the beginning of 2012. The S10 launched at ¥2999 and is currently available in the ¥1900-2000 range. This is not as much due to the popularity of the device as much as the way the market system works in China. Due to it's price the S10 is extremely agressively priced compared to contempory 10.1" tabs in China, being as much at 30% cheaper (also due to it being one of the few 10.1" android tabs officially available/not needing import.) The S10 is not available direct from the Dell website, but it is widely available on Taobao, the Chinese equivilent of Amazon or Ebay.

As an owner of the three previous Streaks I can say the S10 has the best battery life by far in comparison to the s5/s7, even taking into account the size of it's battery. The S5/7 share the same codebase and are known to have moderate to serious battery drain issues.

My S10 is currently going on 637 hours of uptime, 196 hours since last recharge with 52% battery used with very light use.

Even though the battery is roughly the same size as the one in the S5, if it is anything like the S10 you can expect at least double or triple the battery life of the S5 (depending on use/state of battery drain bugs)

If the SPro were launched worldwide, it could possibly compete as a flagship phone. The most similar device to it is the HTC Sensation/XE

Conclusion:

If it were not for the display size, the SPro could be easily seen as a fitting sucessor to the S5. The matter of it not running android is irrelevent as Yi would likely not be included on any device except those in China.

If the SPro is priced just as agressively then Dell may be serious about building it's mobile brand in China.