The Dell Venue 11 Pro 7000 Review
by Brett Howse on April 16, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Dell
- Windows 8.1
- Core M
Camera
The Venue 11 Pro has two cameras. The front camera is a 2 MP unit and the rear camera is an 8 MP sensor. Neither are particularly impressive cameras unfortunately. Either would be ok for a video conference or something like that, but the camera quality is pretty low.
Here are some sample pictures.
Venue 11 Pro Front Camera Sample
Venue 11 Pro Rear Camera Sample
It seems to be the thing to do to include cameras in tablets. If you needed to do a video chat, they would suffice, but they are not very good for imaging.
Wi-Fi
The Venue 11 Pro comes with the Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 wireless adapter, which is a 2x2:2 802.11ac model. We have seen it in quite a few devices since it was released late last year, superseding the 7260 model. It has a maximum connection speed of 866 Mbps.
The Venue 11 Pro did not have the best network performance. Even with the latest driver, the maximum connection speed that it would achieve was 780 Mbps, so right away there is a bit of an issue with the reception since it is not achieving the maximum speed of the adapter even with it being the only wireless device connected to the router. During use, the maximum transfer speed was only 420 Mbps though, which is an average result for this model, however it would not consistently deliver these speeds, with it sometimes dropping to the mid 200 Mbps range.
The tablet dock does allow for a wired connection, however the dock is only a 10/100 Mbps Ethernet port.
Speakers
Dell has two speakers which, like their XPS 13, are mounted on the sides of the device. This gives a good bit of stereo separation as well as helps with directing sound towards your ears, as opposed to devices where the speakers fire towards the rear. Like many devices these days, they are tuned with Waves MaxxAudio.
The speakers were surprisingly loud, with a measured SPL of 76 dB (A Weighted) when playing music. Looking at the frequency response, there is actually reasonable response at the lower end of the graph which is always difficult for smaller speaker drivers to achieve. However there is a big dip around 4500 Hz which spoils the otherwise decent results.
Software
The Venue Pro 11 is of course a Windows based tablet, and as such is restricted somewhat when used as a tablet by the Windows Store, which, several years in, still does not have a fully fleshed out app store, but it has improved quite a bit. On the productivity and business side, Microsoft has made some headway here with partnerships with companies such as Dropbox and Salesforce.
On the tablet side only, there is certainly a gap with the lack of Microsoft Office, although that has been previewed as part of the Windows 10 update coming later this year. Buying the device today though means that you are missing out on the touch version.
OneNote is available as a touch version though, and with the inclusion of an active stylus, the Venue 11 Pro can be a formidable device for taking notes. I attempted to write something for a screenshot, but my handwriting is so poor that I felt it would be best to not embarrass myself. Instead I fired up Fresh Paint and did a bit of coloring with the stylus. It is very accurate and works well for this. People that have tablets that include a stylus seem to swear by them, and it seems to be for good reason.
I only colored some of this fish...
As an enterprise device, the Dell offers many of the features that an Information Technology department would look for, including Intel vPro on the 5Y71 version, and Dell Client Command Suite to streamline system deployment, monitoring, and updating.
The 10.8 inch display also does a good job with desktop use, especially when paired with some of the optional accessories like the stylus or keyboards. The Core M processor also performs better than any other tablet CPU which is fanless, which means that typical office tasks are no problem. Certainly the smaller display size can be an issue on desktop use compared to a much larger display, but those that are used to smaller notebooks will not find the Venue 11 Pro much more cramped. It would realy benefit here from a less wide aspect ratio though, as 16:9 is really not ideal for office use.
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NeatOman - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
I'm sorry, that thing is hideous... the border is from a crappy tablet from 2-3 years ago. I deployed Yogo Pro 2/3 and Surface Pro 3 (I'll try a Surface 3 once there out) but i know that no one will want that despite its functionality. Sorry Dell :-/Azurael - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
I think I'm glad I have a 7130 (Haswell-Y, active cooling) rather than the Core M 7140. The fan doesn't generally come on unless it's pretty heavily loaded, battery life is great, and even my base i3 model seems to outperform this one under sustained load. I hate the 16:9 aspect ratio and the way the capacitive Windows key wakes it (I think this is an MS requirement though?) - and Windows is still a poor tablet OS, but I do love this device. It runs Android really well, too :)Replaceable batteries, SSDs and Wireless cards are a boon (in fact, I had to replace the Dell Atheros card that came in mine with an AC-7265 for Android compatibility) and unheard-of in the tablet world,I hope they continued that...
I've got one of the silver active styluses too, I had an A01 black model, which was terrible - almost unusable since it would lose tracking mid-stroke but Dell sent me the silver one FOC and it's been great. Much better battery life, too (who thought AAAA batteries were a good idea?!) It's nice to use in Photoshop, but I'm not much good at drawing so I can't say how it compares to the Wacom digitiser on the Surface Pros...
awall13 - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
Regarding the port placement, I wanted to comment that I wish our Surface Pro 3 had its display and USB ports located lower... I rarely hold the tablet while it is plugged in to something; a more common use case is having it sitting on a desk plugged in, where lower ports seem advantageous so that there is less torque on the port from a hanging cable, and it is less cluttered. So I wouldn't take issue with Dell's choice of port placement, personally.metayoshi - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
Good to know that I probably would have made a good decision had I decided to go with this instead of the Surface 3. As much as Core M excites me, it really was the price range that pushed me to drop money on a Surface 3 instead of this. Sure, I lost Core M for Atom performance, but had I had that extra $200 in my budget, I would have jumped on the Dell Venue 11 Pro as soon as the 5Y71 version was released. I don't think I'll regret my decision for now, but something with that kind of power in a 4.5W TDP device is really enticing.eanazag - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
I think the battery measurements need to be reported with and without the mobile keyboard. We have no idea what the tablet does on its own in battery life.The dock with 10/100 is a regression. The WiFi is better than that. The dock does not support 3 monitors with integrated graphics.
I think Microsoft has a better polished solution in the Surface series.
Hulk - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
Don't know about this tablet but Imperial Walkers are very cool.And what are the little guys called again? Also very cool.
J_Hyde - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
The LTE version has been mentioned from the day this tablet was introduced, but it's not on Dell's website. It is mentioned in the user manual. I've chat'd with Dell Sales support and they are not aware of when it will be released.I suppose a WiFi hotspot, or a USB based LTE modem would work, but was really looking forward for a Windows tablet with LTE... At the moment, I'm still waiting
(By the way, the documentation on the site on whether there is an LTE modem is remarkably inconsistent)
lewisl9029 - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
I'd like to see a review of the HP Elite x2 1011, which has a similar form factor as this and offers similar accessories, except it has fans for active cooling, which I think might mean we can see the true performance potential of these M-5Y71 chips.Morawka - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
Last years model had a removable battery. are you sure this doesn't have one? It has the removable back just like last years, so one would think they would keep the removable battery, especially if this product is aimed at the enterprise market.JumpingJack - Friday, April 17, 2015 - link
"At 10.8 inches in screen diameter"Diameter is a term which describes an attribute associated to a circle. You mean "At 10.8 inches measured at the diagonal for the screen"