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Dell Venue – Android Amoled Monster – Full Review + Video and Sample Shots

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Android, Android and more Android! Are you already sick of it? We sure are not!

The latest flagship Android smartphone from Dell’s stable is less of a shocker. Check out our Review

The Build Quality

For the Dell Venue , we have two independent views when it comes to build. The front of the device is this shiny, rugged and curved gorilla glass. The chrome trim and good tactile buttons make it an added bonus. But, the poorly designed back cover and cheap plastic utilization suddenly turns our view around.

The overall construction of the device is pretty solid and delivers where most leave off squeaking and rattling. The Dell Venue seems really bulky in the hand and not as refined as the Desire HD when you hold it in your hand.

Hardware Specs

The Dell Venue like others in this price range comes with a whole set of Top notch hardware, But in this age of technology, what was top notch yesterday is a poor mans tale today.

Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 1 GHz processor
(We are already discussing dual core hybrids now)
512 MB RAM, 1 GB ROM (is it enough?)
8 MP, 3264×2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash (Bah!)
4.1 inches, 480 x 800 pixels, AMOLED, 16M Colors capacitive touchcreen.
(Now this is wow! resolution still a tad low if you ask us)
Android 2.2 (why not 2.3, why, why ?)

Those are the only specs worth talking about the rest comes down to the usual WiFi, BLuetooth, MicroUSB, MicroSd- upto 32Gb.

Overall hardware is good and the performance of the device is also good. But, the Quadrant Score shows a whole new story, averaging from 600-700 on the scorecard. The result is simply pathetic!

Multimedia and Camera

Now this is where the Dell Venue raked up on the Points. The Amoled screen is simply superb! The Blacks are so deep that you don’t see the difference between the screen and the surrounding bezel.

The video performance is extraordinary thanks to the display, and possibly the curved glass front. The display makes video on this almost lifelike –

Now, if only we could stretch the display (rolls eyes)

The Loudspeaker is best in class period, Dell has somehow managed to stuff their Android lineup with superior quality speakers. Surprisingly, no one seems to talk about them, But, how could they not? These Phones have possible the best in device speaker we have heard ever. The bass is so good it makes you want to play he song over and over again. The speaker delivers quality sound with high volume, great bass and mid, trebles can be tweaked.

Camera on the Dell Venue is an 8 Megapixel snapper which has autofocus, touch to focus, macro mode and the works when it comes to effects/ brightness settings and timer etc. Images look not so great on the device but great on a computer screen. This may be due to a mis-calibration between the Amoled screen (which displays colors differently) and the Camera, who knows? This however didnt bother us much, and we were happy as long as the images were the way they should be.

Video on the device is also good and smooth – 720p HD video with a whole flurry of effects and settings makes the video mode a lot of fun to use. The 1Ghz chip allows for fast processing and you can download several apps from the marketplace and do your editing right on the device.

Phone and Messaging

We always stress that a smart phone should at first be a smart – PHONE. The Dell venue was a bit of a let down in performing that, we got frequent signal drops and connection failures. It even failed to get a proper signal at times. The “no service” signal bothered us for quite some time, a couple of reboots and it was gone.

3G Connectivity was (the best word for it ) a “Bi$%h” we couldn’t get the damn thing to connect to 3G.

Messaging on the other hand was a breeze the onboard keyboard comes with swype and a bunch of other input options, The reponsiveness of the touchscreen along with clear letters makes typing fairly simple and quick. This makes emailing and sms on the Dell Venue a fun exercise.

Gaming and Internet

We never talk about gaming in our reviews, But, this time we just had to make an exception. The Screen (have we mentioned before how much we love it) makes gaming so much fun with the deep colors, it almost makes you never want to stop, become game playing zombies tilting the device and driving your car, shooting the other zombies or blowing up those crazy “egg stealin” Pigs.

Uhhhhh. Brains!!!!

Internet browsing is a breeze, kinetic scrolling, accelerometer, pinch to zoom and slide to scroll work brilliantly without showing any form of LAG. Did we mention the greatness of the Amoled display? makes browsing and reading on websites atleast 4x better. The Venue comes preloaded with flash for the browser so seamless internet for all the folks.

Battery Life

The Venue had a phenomenal battery life in our tests.

Phone Calls : 5.5 hours
Web browsing 8 – 9 hours

We couldn’t test web browsing over 3G because well the damn device wouldn’t get a connection. piff!

Video Review

Conclusion

A strong device from Dell, in terms of build and hardware capability, Beautiful screen, great battery life.

But it all boils down to poor connectivity and phone call ability and that has let us down a lot. Unless phone calls is not your main criteria for buying a “Phone”,

The device is priced at INR 28,000/-

Our Recommendation = ” LET IT PASS”

[xrr rating=2.75/5 label=”We Rate it” imageset=shiny_yellow_star display_as=fraction_stars]