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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duriel - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
The GPU comparison looks a bit strange, since Core M does quite a bit better at 3DMark than at GfxBench. Both Manhattan and IceStorm run for a couple of minutes, so I don't buy the argument that GfxBench is slower because it runs longer (although that might be true for actual games like Dota). Perhaps it is a driver / application optimization issue. I wonder if GfxBench uses OpenGL or DirectX on Windows. Intel is generally known to have better DX drivers than OGL. Too bad we don't have more cross platform graphics benchmarks.lilmoe - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
I've seen other reviews around too, and I don't base my judgements on benchmarks alone. It really seams that the GPU is not up to task. How much could they mess up the driver? This isn't Intel's first attempt at iGPUs...thunng8 - Friday, April 17, 2015 - link
Ice Storm is a fair bit shorter than gfxBench benchmarks and IMO gfxBench graphically looks much better especially ManhattanShadowmaster625 - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
I hope they keep pushing these thigns out. When we go into the next recession these things will be all over slickdeals for $400 maybe even $300. At around $400 this is a very compelling product.chizow - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
I was part of the validation process for these Venue Pros and other tablet/2-in-1s for work and we decided not to use these in favor of the Surface Pro 3 mixed in with some Yoga Pros and Transformer T300s (for users who wanted more of a 2-in-1 experience).There were a number of major problems with the Venue Pro that we ran into compared to the competitors and really only one positive.
Pros: Take care of this easy one first, it has a built-in SC Reader. It works poorly, but it is there. This is an important feature for any Enterprise that does business with the Government or has the highest security standards.
Cons:
-1080p 16:9 aspect ratio is terrible for tablet portrait usage. Works OK on a smartphone because that's all we've ever known, but for web content and even most documents, 16:9 just doesn't work and often forces you to scroll LR on a page, especially if there is a menu/banner on either side.
-Heavy and thick. Just feels really heavy. Maybe its due to the stocky dimensions, but it just feels heavy in the hand and it is considerably thicker than the SP3. It feels even worst as a tablet than the original Surface Pro and Pro 2.
-Dock. Price and overall build quality on the dock is good, but attaching it is not as easy as the SP3 dock and you also can't attach the keyboard while docked like you can with the SP3's dock. Also not as many connectivity options but overall the dock is good especially for the price.
-Folio Keyboard. This thing is awful, can't even be compared to the SP3's dock and it is also unnecessarily thick due to the multiple manifolds required for its stand-up folio action. The keyboard itself feels awful, almost no key travel it is more like the touchpads that also double as buttons for your entire keyboard. Also, in "laptop" mode it just doesn't work well because the tablet is SO much heavier than the keyboard and the only support you have is the flexible folio back kickstand. If you want a 2-in-1 spring for the new rigid typepad/battery accessory or look at the Asus Transformer T300 or Yoga Pro 3.
-Probably no longer an issue with this Core M variant, but the i5 unit I had the fan would ramp up and it would get LOUD.
So yeah, would definitely check this one out in person before you buy, from my testing and time spent validating multiple of these options, I would spend a bit more and go with a Surface Pro 3 i5 variant with 4GB/128GB or 8GB/256GB or one of the higher-end Surface 3 (non-Pro). Surface Pro line is probably due for an update soon anyways, I would expect to see a Core M variant replacing the low-end i3.
Brett Howse - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
So just to clarify, your experience is with the older model then? Obviously this one is quiet since it is passively cooled. It's great to hear from people who have a lot of experience with these devices.chizow - Friday, April 17, 2015 - link
Yeah it was the older i5 model but I figured Core M would quiet it down which is great to hear. I did also go back and read the parts of the review on the dimensions and it does look like they addressed the thickness and weight concerns somewhat, but I am not sure they've done enough to address the 2-in-1 and screen size/aspect ratio concerns.In any case I do laud Dell for taking a chance on this segment but like the Surface Pro line, I think more iterations and improvements are needed for this product to do well.
DigitalFreak - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
We bought a bunch of these @ work. Absolute junk. Do yourself a favor and look at the Lenovo Helix.lilmoe - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
Mind sharing your experience? Was it performance or overall quality?Azurael - Thursday, April 16, 2015 - link
Was that the previous 7130 model? They launched with a shedload of issues after receiving numerous positive reviews. The screen would freeze frequently unless panel self refresh was disabled, the touch screens would register double taps constantly, the stylus was basically useless and the SSDs got laggy over time. After several BIOS updates and firmware updates for almost every component I could imagine having updateable firmware (and not just the touch controller, but the LCD panel itself) it works great. I think Dell really dropped the ball, I assume businesses had already given up on them by that point which is good for me, because refurbs are numerous and cheap :)