The Dell Venue 11 Pro 7000 Review

Final Words

In my time with the Venue 11 Pro, what has defined the tablet is not the hardware itself, but the accessories. Dell offers such a range of options that the tablet can be anything from a desktop PC, to a clamshell laptop, to a very portable mobile device. They really have hit all of the options which gives the customers a lot of choice in what they want to do with this device.

Starting with the dock, Dell has crafted a sturdy, solid, easy to use dock which offers plenty of ports. USB, Ethernet, headphones, HDMI, and DisplayPort are all on tap, so the Venue 11 Pro can easily be plugged in and used as a desktop replacement. The finish and materials of the dock are top notch, and amazingly it only sells for $79.99, which is much less than the Surface Dock that Microsoft sells. It is not perfect due to the 10/100 Mbps Ethernet, but for many offices, the addition of any wired networking is a big improvement over wireless anyway, and is sometimes necessary.

The Stylus is also excellent. It is powered by a single AAA battery, which if it does ever die, is easy to obtain and replace. The point is very smooth, and glides effortlessly over the tablet’s glass. Accuracy was also excellent on this new version of the Synaptics stylus, and the only time I had issues was at the very edges of the display. It is great for writing, and it makes a big difference when navigating the desktop as well.

The Mobile keyboard dock is not everything I hoped it would be, and is the one accessory that really let me down. The included battery can make a big difference in overall run time, which is excellent, but it adds a lot of thickness and a lot of mass to the device. Not only that, but the keyboard and trackpad are sub-par, and were frustrating to use. They are both passable, but I have used other Dell devices which offer a much better experience, so Dell needs to step up here especially with the price. The tablet does latch into the keyboard very well though, which makes it a much better laptop experience than a device which may have a non-connected or Bluetooth keyboard attachment.

Dell did not ship me the slim keyboard, so I will not make any comments on the use of that particular accessory. It will obviously provide a keyboard when needed, without all of the added bulk of the mobile version, but without the laptop hinge and battery which is part of the mobile version.

The Dell Venue 11 Pro tablet, when considered as a pure tablet, has some shortcomings due to the very nature of what makes it an excellent hybrid device. At 10.8 inches in screen size, it never felt too big to use as a tablet, but the extra thickness and mass of it make it hard to compete against some of the pure tablets out there. It does use the extra size to great effect though, with the Venue 11 Pro packing a full personal computer into its chassis. These are not tablet parts inside, with a Core processor, 8 GB of memory, and a Solid State Drive at the heart of this device. The performance is quite a bit better than pretty much all other fanless tablets around.

We have evaluated Core M in detail, and the Venue 11 Pro really pushes Core M to the limit of what it is capable of, but that does not take away from the performance that is there. Compared to a Bay Trail Atom powered tablet, there really is no competition. The performance delta between Bay Trail and Broadwell, even in similar power envelopes, is massive. For what it was meant to do, Core M delivers outstanding performance in a fanless tablet. Once you start comparing it to higher TDP Core parts, it can fall down a bit, but none of them can be used in a fanless device like this one. It will be curious to see how it compares to the Cherry Trail based Atom cores that have just started to appear in devices such as the Microsoft Surface 3.

Using the Venue 11 Pro on a day to day basis never really felt like it was a tablet. The combination of plenty of memory, a SSD, and Core M, really made it feel like a proper ultrabook. Battery life was also quite good considering the compact size and relatively small battery inside. Adding the mobile keyboard dock increases battery life to great levels.

Really, there is not a lot of competition for the Venue 11 Pro right now. If you are looking for a business class tablet with a Core processor and proper accessories like a dock, there is the Dell Venue 11 Pro and the Microsoft Surface Pro 3. Both feature Ultrabook class components inside, but have different trade-offs, with the Surface Pro 3 having better performance and active cooling. That puts the Venue 11 Pro into a class of its own, with the fanless design of a Core M tablet. The starting price of just $699 undercuts the Surface Pro 3 Core i3 version by $150, which is not insignificant.