Since I’m using the HTC Evo 4G at the moment, I spend a lot of time on this site. I’m always impressed by bloggers who create device-specific communities almost before the devices are announced.

Many moons ago I reviewed a little product called the Archos 5 Internet Tablet, one of the first Android devices I’d ever played with for any length of time. It was a bit like an Android phone except without the phone part, and it was great for watching video and reading books, webpages, etc. Essentially it was a PDA, but that’s an old-fashioned term that went out with the 90s! These days such things are called tablets. Or iPod touch.

Anyway, I quite liked the Archos 5, though it was early days with Android tablets and it was hard to make out what real use it would be. I think we got a bit caught up in how it wasn’t a phone instead of thinking of it as an updated and awesome PDA-like thing. That’s how I came to think of it, and that’s why I liked it.

But, alas, the tablet had to go back and I sought solace in other Android devices. I’m a fan of the Motorola Droid and I’m really starting to dig the HTC Evo 4G. But in all honesty, the phone I really want is an Archos 5 Internet Tablet you can make calls from. So imagine my excitement when we heard about the Dell Streak at CES this year. And now it’s finally got a release date (end of July) and a price ($499).

I did not get to touch the Streak myself, alas, but I know its roughly the same size as the Archos 5 as it has a 5-inch screen and looks pretty thin. 5 inches seems huge for a phone, I know, but honestly what I want is a small tablet that happens to make calls. The Evo 4G is a pretty massive phone, and that mans I can view web pages, read my RSS feeds, and watch video on a reasonably-sized screen. The Streak will hopefully give me all that and more.

You can’t see, but I’m bouncing up and down right now just thinking about it.

The price is a bit steep, yes. $499 is about what the least expensive iPad costs. But that iPad doesn’t have 3G. Plus, that’s only for the unlocked version of the device. Through the carrier (AT&T) it will be less, we just don’t know how much less yet. Still, I’ll be buying the unlocked one, anyway, since I have no intention of switching to AT&T.

Hopefully we’ll get the Streak in for review well before the launch date. Then guess who’s going to lobby to do the review?

A few nights ago I was watching The Closer — one of my very favorite shows — and during a crucial scene in which the Major Crimes squad is closing in on tracking down two suspects, one officer after another comes into the Chief’s office to deliver a new piece of information. One member of the squad, Lt. Tao, is the tech geek of the group. His bit of information was that he’d located the address of the suspects and had a picture of the location on his phone.

On your PHONE? Someone asked with far, far too much emphasis.

Yes, on his phone. Tao proceeds to flip the screen up and, oh, look at that, a T-Mobile G1. If I wasn’t aware that this phone was called a G1, a shot of the back of it revealed G1 in huge white letters on the back of the screen. (I don’t think that exists in actual, real-life models of said phone. I could be wrong.)

There is some more waving the phone around. Chief Johnson wants to see this picture of the address (provided by Google Maps/Google Street View) for herself. She grabs at the phone, but Tao says, “Let me e-mail it to you.”

I think at this point someone actually exclaimed, again far too emphatically: E-MAIL!?

Yes, show, we get it. The G1 is a marvel. You can see maps on it and it can send e-mail. Woo.

I don’t usually mind product placement. I don’t know if most people even register the model of the laptops and other computer equipment TV people use. I do, usually because I find it funny or I’m scoffing. But man, this was a bit beyond.

So anyway, just so you know, the fake LAPD Major Crimes Squad prefers the T-Mobile G1 for finding pictures of suspects’ houses. And E-MAIL!?