Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2011/02/15/review_smartphone_dell_venue_pro/

Dell Venue Pro WinPho 7 smartphone

Does the business?

By Alun Taylor

Posted in Personal Tech, 15th February 2011 13:00 GMT

Review When the first wave of Windows Phone 7 handsets washed up on our shores back in October one handset was noticeable by both its absence and its form factor - the Dell Venue Pro. Now however it's finally made it to Blighty if only through third-party suppliers rather than from Dell itself.

Dell Venue Pro

Boardroom coup: Dell's Venue Pro

As far as looks go, the Venue has a lot going for it as its certainly is a handsome and well made bit of kit. Dell has gone all out to make it look and feel a boardroom quality item with a gloss black body, chrome edging and stylish patterned back. The bevelled edges and slightly curved screen glass add to its aesthetic appeal.

The look and feel come at the expense of size and heft though – at 192g it's very heavy for a mobile phone and the 15.2mm thickness will further help ruin the drop of your suit.
 Like the Palm Pre and Blackberry Torch, the Venue Pro is vertical slider, a form factor with a lot going for it if you want to swap back and forth between keyboard and touch screen while still holding your phone like a phone.

The backlit four-line keyboard features 38 hard plastic keys each with a slightly domed profile. Though a cold and little lifeless to the touch the keys have a pleasant and solid action when pressed. Being fairly compact you can reach them all with your thumb if you are doing things one-handed.

Dell Venue Pro

Keyboard spacing allows one-handed use

The slide action that moves the two halves of the phone apart is nicely weighted and free of play. The opening push requires a fair amount of force but I'd rather that than something that slides open too easily.

Update wait

Under the hood you get all the modern smartphone goodies including 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, a 1GHz CPU with 512MB of Ram and a 5Mp camera. Storage is limited to 8GB but unlike the Android horde there is no DIY MicroSD expansion. The Venue's 480 x 800 screen is a cracker. At 4.1in it's the second largest available on a WinMo handset after the HTC HD7 and the AMOLED panel is bright and lustrous. It also has a robust viewing angle – only slightly hampered by the curved screen – and good daylight visibility.

Dell Venue Pro

Build quality is top notch and it shows

This is the first time I have used a Windows Phone 7 handset in anger and while it won't lure me away from Android anytime soon it's not without its good points and for anyone new to this smartphone malarkey it's certainly worth a look.
 The UI is consistently fast and very fluid and the live tile design is appealing to look at and easy to master. Web browsing is every bit as satisfying as it is on the likes of an iPhone 4 or Desire HD, helped by the very fast page rendering and excellent multi-touch reactions.

It's not all rosy though. At the time of writing WP7 still doesn't support Flash video, though rumour has it that a future update will fix this and bring copy-and-paste too. More serious failings in my eyes are the absence of USB tethering and drag'n'drop content transfer – I'd no more buy a phone that ties me to Zune than I would one that ties me to iTunes.

Dell has added nothing to the WinMo7 stew – so there is no equivalent of the HTC Hub that appears on the company’s new Windows phones – but that's not to say the Venue is short on software. The Office suite and Xbox Live gaming features alone will attract some buyers and the People Hub social network aggregation systems work well.

If you do want to add some spice there are now over 7,000 apps in the WP7 Marketplace and the number is rising fast. Agreed, that is a tiny number compared to the Android and Apple markets but the Marketplace already has many of the important bases covered – a Kindle app for the platform appeared recently. One thing the Marketplace is short on is satnav apps but as with Flash 10.1, the scuttlebutt has it that free turn-by-turn navigation is soon to be added to Bing Maps on WP7.

Dell Venue Pro

Sonic boon

Media format support is up with the smartphone best with MP3, WMA and AAC audio catered for along with WMV, H.264 and DivX/Xvid video making the Venue a fine media player. Videos looked bright, colourful and crystal clear, while music sounded punchy and energetic.

Dell Venue Pro

Conference caller

The camera can record video at 720p and comes with an LED lamp and auto-focus and, as phone cameras go, it's pretty good. Images were generally sharp and clear if sometimes looking just a little underexposed. Photography is made easier by the external camera shutter key.

Wrapping up the basics, the Venue's cellular and Wi-Fi radios demonstrated good signal reception and I've no complaints about call quality. The Venue performed even more impressively during conference calls thanks to the two excellent little speakers built into the bottom of the handset. Battery life wasn't too bad either with the 1400mAh unit easily getting me through a full working day with juice to spare.

Verdict


Big, heavy and impressive, the Dell Venue Pro is a serious phone for serious people. The screen and keyboard are both fine examples of the breed, the build quality excellent and the specification up with the best of the WP7 brigade. If the rumoured system update brings free Bing satnav, Flash 10.1 and copy/paste to the party, and the Marketplace continues to expand at its current rate, then the Venue Pro and its ilk will start to offer iOS and Android more in the way of competition. ®

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