Dell, a Monster of Innovation

I'm not going to deny that Dell makes some horrible products from subpar parts on a very often kind of basis.  I'm not going to deny that at times Dell has been the consummate boring consumer tech company.  I'm not even going to try to convince you to like Dell.

What does grind my gears though, is that nobody in tech journalism seems to be giving credit where credit is due to good old Dell on their aggressive tablet moves.  Apple dropped the bomb, I know, I was there on 59th Street that fateful morning in April.  I've seen the iPads rise out of nothingness and begin attempting ubiquity (in places Manhattan and San Francisco at least).

While the iPad is just a beast of entertainment,  a great form factor, a beautiful machine, a long lasting battery, a heaven for gamers and a wonderful e-reader (contrary to what random women sporting Kindles poolside at beach resorts are going to tell you) you've got to really appreciate Dell for even showing up to the battle.

This year I've heard big things about the Cisco Cius,  BlackPad (can anybody say Ewww? [by the way all you banksters and old folks out there, in case you didn't know, young people hate the Crapberry and everything it represents]), the Motorola Droid tablet, HP's stable of Android, webOS and Windows tablets that never come to fruition, the theoretical Verizon Chrome tablet and of course the mythical dual-screen Courrier.

Curiously, the only tablets I see actually hitting reality are those by Dell.  Of course it's been years now that they're shipping the Latitude XT2, a primitive Windows-based machine for the Ancient Sumerian in all of us who just can't get enough of the stylus but I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about the Dell Streak, five inches of Smartphone...er, tablet....er, maybe it is a Smartphone....or a tablet pleasure.  The Dell Streak, whatever it is, is the most massive thing on the market you can make a phone call with, access the Android Market and be the envy of everyone on the 6 train with.  I've personally been gigantically excited about this device (the idea of it being out and about in society, not actually using it, of course, I don't do Dell) since big boy Mike Dell whipped it out in the snow way back when it was called the Mini 5.

And you know what?  Since then people have moaned and groaned.  People including me.  It's a big smartphone.  It's a little tablet.  Walt Mossberg said it was like holding a waffle to your head.  Well, Walt, that is one high performance waffle.  Look, it might be ridiculous, it might be a weird form, it might even just plain suck but at the end of the day, it's been the only real iPad competition and I will take a concrete Dell slate that sucks over a million nonexistent Courriers any day of the week.

Of course that's not all.  Dell's whipping out this netbook/tablet Win7 flipper, part of the Inspiron family, by year's end.  Dual Core Atom Processor means you can write your C++ applications in PC form and then flip it around for some sick accelerometer tablet racecar action.  This thing is sleak, slick and in keeping with the rest of the pretty-ass Inspiron family.

Dell may not be a mecca of innovation and Michael Dell might not be Steve Jobs, but I've sweated and I've dreamed and I've hoped for a tablet revolution all year and the only people executing my most fervent wish are Apple, and that's right, out of Round Rock, Texas, Dell Computers.

Get a Dell dude!!!!!!!