Dell Venue 11 Pro review – A flexible slate tablet built for business
Although the Microsoft Surface has become the poster child for business tablets that double as laptops, the Dell Venue 11 Pro is more practical in some ways. Its keyboard dock makes this 2-in-1 feel more laptoplike, and its built-in battery helps the system last more than 13 hours on a charge. The Venue 11 Pro starts at $699, but our pricey $1,259 configuration offers solid specs in addition to an active stylus and keyboard. You get Intel’s new Core M processor, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB hard drive and a 10.8-inch full-HD display. If you don’t mind that its screen is smaller than that on the Surface Pro 3, the Venue 11 Pro is a very good choice. Let’s find out the detail in Dell Venue 11 Pro review with Lifetravell!
Contents
Design of Dell Venue 11 Pro
Ah, soft-touch finish, oh how we love thee. The 11 Pro’s matte black rear panel is virtually smudge-proof and has a soft, luxurious texture that creates a firm hold. The black magnesium alloy border offsets the rubberized panel, creating a stately look. The 8-megapixel camera is located at the top of the tablet, encased in the border. Logos for Dell and Intel sit directly below, with an NFC logo positioned in the top left corner. (We could do without the Intel logo.)
Up front, there’s a 2-MP camera in the top bezel with the Home button occupying the center of the bottom bezel.
Compared to most tablets, the 11 Pro has a fair number of slots and ports. That includes a microSD card reader, micro HDMI and a Noble lock profile slot. The microSD card reader is nice, but it’s annoying that you need a paper clip to pop the port cover open.
Click to EnlargeThe left side holds a full USB 3.0 port, microUSB, a combination headphone/microphone jack and a silver volume rocker. The tablet’s power button resides on the top right corner. Along the device’s bottom lies a pair of locking slots, a magnetic connector and a proprietary port for the optional keyboard and dock. The tablet also features a single speaker on either side.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The Venue Pro has an optional keyboard dock, which helps you unlock the device’s productivity potential. The full-sized, island-style keyboard ($139) has a 3.5 x 1.75-inch touchpad. The bottom of the keyboard has the same soft-touch finish as the tablet’s rear panel, creating an elegant ultraportable notebook when connected to the display. The top of the keyboard and the touchpad have a thin chrome lining that adds to the Venue’s appeal.
Attaching and detaching the tablet to the keyboard dock called for more force than we’d like. When we began typing, that chic-looking chrome lining dug into the fleshy part of our wrists.
The keys themselves are well spaced, but they don’t provide the best feedback. On the Ten Thumbs Typing Test, we scored 50 words per minute, compared to our usual 55 wpm. Combine that slow typing speed with a puny palm rest, and we wouldn’t recommend using the keyboard attachment for long stretches of time.
The touchpad was better in terms of feedback. The bottom corners of the device delivered a firm, clicky response, and it performed the usual Windows 8 gestures without incident. However, we were disappointed to discover that aside from pinch-zoom, we couldn’t perform multitouch gestures such as two-finger swipe or rotate.
Dell also offers a slim version of the keyboard dock for $129. Taking a cue from the Microsoft Surface 2’s Touch Cover 2 keyboard, the keys are flat and cloth-like.
Audio
In this case, loud doesn’t necessarily mean good. The Venue 11 Pro’s side-mounted speakers filled our small test space with sound, but they produced tinny audio.
On the Laptop Audio Test, the 11 Pro scored 81 decibels, beating the tablet category average. However, that was enough to trounce the Surface 2 and iPad Air, which registered 71dB and 67dB, respectively.
Battery Life
With a business-centric tablet, you expect a battery that can last at least as long as the workday. During the Laptop Battery Test (continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi), the Venue 11 Pro lasted an even 8 hours, topping the 7:38 tablet average. That time jumped to a whopping 15:40 when attached to the keyboard dock.
The Microsoft Surface 2 lasted 9:19 on our battery test, while the Apple iPad Air posted 10:47 over 4G LTE and 11:51 over Wi-Fi. The ASUS Transformer Book T100 notched a very impressive runtime of 12:28 (it’s dock doesn’t house a battery).
