Dell Venue Pro Assessment

One of the better parts of Windows 8 is that it supports more screen sizes, not just 13 inches, 15 inches and 17 inches from the original version of Windows, but also 8, 11, or even 12.5-and 14-inch screens that are well loaded.

Over the past year, we've found that the Windows 8 tile interface does perform well on small screens, even though applications and programs have a wide variety of experiences, especially when you use touch as a primary interaction object. We think that a 10 or 11 inch screen is the most suitable size for Windows 8, and we've seen a lot of it, whether it's a standard clamshell notebook, a tablet with an external keyboard, or a hybrid tablet.

That's why Microsoft's flagship product, Surface Pro 2, has a 10.6-inch screen, which is why we love the Asus Transformerbook T100 just launched. Dell's 8-inch flat-panel Venue 8 Pro is fine, but this factor is limited when used, so Venue Pro (actually 10.8 inches) is more impressive: it's still portable, but it's better configured.

In a sense, it is a direct competitor to Surface Pro, but with greater configuration flexibility. The model we are evaluating is a 499 dollar Intel Atom CPU version, while the core i3 and Core i5 versions are priced at a maximum of $849.

In a few days of use, Venue Pro and other similar products perform as well as some of their own unique advantages, such as a sturdy base and an additional keyboard, which makes it feel more like a notebook computer than surface. More importantly, it has a full HD 1920x1080p screen, which is still rare in this screen size.

But it's a pity that 499 dollars is a flat price, and the keyboard requires an extra 160 dollars. Although the keyboard has a separate built-in battery, 660 dollars is a bit exaggerated for a 11-inch Intel atom pc, especially when faced with a 10-inch ASUS T100, which includes keyboards for less than 400 dollars, although some other specs are saved. What's worse, although the venue-Pro keyboard feels good, it doesn't get the response we expected.

With venue Pro, you will have its excellent design and Full HD display, but if you do not need 1080p, the following figure has a more appropriate price option.

Design and function

When placed in a notebook, connected to its keyboard base, Venue Pro appears to be similar to other recent hyper-poles, as well as netbooks a few years ago. In real use, it can stay upright for most of the time, thanks to a small bracket between the screen and the keyboard.

Separately, the hinge center of the bracket has a pill-like plastic button that makes the 11-inch flat screen very secure, unlike the plastic 10, 11-inch Windows 8 tablet we experienced before. Venue Pro is able to stay upright on bumpy roads while the back soft-touch material is not susceptible to stains or scratches. One of the problems with Venue pro hinges is that when I separate the screen from the base of the keyboard, I always mistakenly touch the power button on the top edge of the plate.

When the tablet is used alone, the Venue-Pro screen typing experience is also good, and gravity sensing is not too sensitive. Flat edge of the volume control and MICRO-USB, SD card slots make Venue Pro become a very useful stand-alone equipment.

Of course, if you use it all day, most people will want to add a keyboard, touch pad or mouse to it. Dell's design is good, and a fixed keyboard base allows the system to become a traditional clamshell laptop. The base also has its own built-in battery, which, after our testing, can provide more than twice times the battery life. But its 160 dollar price is not low, plus it's 499 dollars on the tablet, it is a very small amount of spending. On the positive side, the keyboard is beautiful and strong, and the typing is excellent, and although it is small, important buttons such as shift, TAB, and enter will never make you feel Shoho. The downside is that you occasionally experience lag and miss a certain type of typing when you use the keyboard. This keyboard is connected to the tablet by itself, rather than using Bluetooth, so it's amazing, even though we've had similar problems with other mixed products in the past.

The touch pad on the keyboard is small in size, and there is little that can be done compared to touch navigation on the screen. Although it is more sensitive than the keyboard, it is difficult to scroll the Web page with two fingers, as is the time to select a string of text.

One of the reasons for Venue Pro to stand out from the small Windows tablet is that it has a full HD 1920x1080p screen, as we mentioned above. This screen is the IPs material, so from a large angle is also very good, and the screen will not be too shiny, can be used for a long time without glare or glare. Venue Pro Built-in dual speakers, the sound is a bit thin, but enough to see the video or call the Internet.

Connectivity, performance, and battery

As a lightweight and thin Tablet PC, Venue Pro tries to pack a suitable number of connection functions. It has HDMI and SD card slots, no unused adapters or receivers, so if you like, you can travel light.

Dell also sells a venue pro base, priced at $140, which looks and feels like the previous Inspiron, the tablet is embedded at a fixed angle, and then you get three USB 3.0 ports, DisplayPort connectors, HDMI, and Ethernet port. The base is equivalent to a heavy aluminum block, where it will stand firm. With a USB port, you can add a full-size keyboard and mouse and even connect to an external monitor. But before it becomes your main working computer, you need to remember its Low-power Atom processor and only 64GB SSD.

Laptops or netbooks that used the Intel Atom processor face a poor performance threat, whether it be web browsing or video playback. But today's Atom processor is completely different from a few years ago in the field of netbooks, really should change a name. For day-to-day use, the 1.46GHz Intel Atom Z3770 is very good to handle HD video playback, web browsing and office documentation. It can even deal with some basic games, such as those in the Microsoft Windows 8 App Store. These are close to cell phone or ipad games, not PC games, but such as "Halo: Spartan Assault" is still impressive in venue pro.

Of course, the core I-series CPUs provide better performance, and you can have venue Pro with the current Core i3 or i5 processor, albeit with a bit more (the Core i5 version costs $849).

When using a low-power atom chip, you will be satisfied with its long battery time. The 499 dollar venue Pro can run 6.5 hours of video playback, which is pretty good, and is still heavily used in Wi-Fi. If you add a keyboard base, the use of time will be longer, the two batteries can be combined to run 14 hours and 5 minutes, which is the flat-panel operating time more than twice times. If you don't want to be out of power on a cross-country or transatlantic flight, then one-Pro keyboard base should be enough to handle.

Summarize

Venue Pro has a rugged structure, high-resolution displays, excellent keyboards, and extremely long battery life, which makes a low-power windows tablet almost impossible to achieve. But we are worried about the price, the cost of 499 dollars to buy the tablet itself, and the price of the keyboard base has been rising since the evaluation began. I wonder how many people are willing to pay for the 160-dollar keyboard base.

Advantages: The excellent Dell Venue Pro features an excellent Full HD display, rich configuration options and an optional keyboard and cradle, and extremely good battery life.

Disadvantage: Occasional typing lag occurs on a separate sale of the keyboard base, and the trackpad is small, even the low-end configuration version is more expensive than other tablets or hybrid tablets.

It may be that the full HD 1080p display makes Dell Venue Pro at a price higher than the other atom core tablet, but the external keyboard base should make it a good laptop, but it's too expensive and occasionally frustrating when used.