Dell Venue 7 Series 3000
MSRP $14,999.00
“Dell’s Venue 7 is an attractive tablet with good battery life, a loud speaker, and a clean, up-to-date version of Android. But performance issues and its 1GB of RAM make it difficult to recommend—especially for those who want to play games.”
Avg
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Light and comfortable to hold
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Standard Android 4.4
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Good battery life
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microSD card slot
Against
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Only 1 GB of RAM allows slow multitasking
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Serious performance issues
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Weird arrangement of buttons and ports
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One speaker
Editor’s Note: The Dell Venue 7 and 8 3000 series differ only in screen resolution and processor speed, as described below. Unless otherwise stated, the impressions of the Dell Venue 7 described in the review also apply to the Venue 8.
Everyone seems to be making cheap Android tablets these days. But with most screens below 1080p and the same mediocre processors, it’s unlikely that any of them will really stand out.
Dell’s Venue 7, currently selling for around $160 online, doesn’t buck that trend. But it offers a pleasingly clean and up-to-date version of Android (4.4.4) in a light (0.64 pounds) package that’s quite thin (0.35 inches). It’s also comfortable to hold with one hand, thanks to rounded corners and a circular textured back similar to the company’s other recent tablets, like the Venue 8 Pro with Windows.
It’s not an eye-catching design, but this is one of the most comfortable tablets we’ve had in a long time.
The tablet also has a MicroSD card slot for additional storage and comes standard with 16GB of internal space, unlike the $130 Acer Iconia One 7, which ships with a paltry 8GB. Sound output from the Venue 7 is also quite loud, even though there is only one speaker.
If you need a bigger screen and mostly better specs, Dell also sells the similar Venue 8, which may be worth paying extra for. The $200 Venue 8 ups the screen resolution to 1920 x 1200, and comes with a faster processor—a 2.1GHz Intel Atom, up from the Venue 7’s 1.6GHz Atom.
The main drawback of both tablets is that they are burdened with only 1 GB of RAM. In our tests with the Venue 7, Android performed well performing basic tasks. But performance seemed sluggish when apps were being downloaded or updated in the background. While the larger Venue 8 felt a bit faster, it suffered from the same occasional slowdowns. And as you’ll find out, both tablets disappointed us woefully on the gaming front.
Familiar aesthetics, but strange placement of buttons and ports
The Venue 7 Pro looks quite similar to the company’s Venue Pro Windows tablets, with a rounded back and corners and circular grooves cut into the black plastic back. It’s not an eye-catching design, but this is one of the most comfortable tablets we’ve had in a long time. And it’s light enough that we had no problem holding it with one hand for long periods of time.
However, the placement of the Venue 7’s buttons and ports takes some getting used to. The power button is on the top right (holds the tablet in portrait orientation), and the headphone jack is on the top left — both good. But the volume rocker and micro USB charging port are located near the top corner of the tablet left edge, not the right.
This makes more sense when you rotate the tablet into landscape orientation, which puts the volume controls within easy reach of your right index finger. But when you hold the tablet this way, one speaker, which gets surprisingly loud, lands on the left edge and it’s easy to accidentally cover it with the edge of your palm. In portrait orientation, the placement of the speakers on the bottom makes more sense, but we’d still prefer two speakers to one.
When holding the tablet vertically, the MicroSD card slot is hidden behind the door on the right edge.
Cameras aren’t crap
In a surprising turn of events for a budget tablet, the Venue 7’s cameras aren’t actually terrible—at least by budget tablet standards, which are admittedly pretty low. Outdoors or indoors in good lighting, the 5-megapixel rear camera captures images that can be displayed on both tablet screens and larger monitors. Colors aren’t overly vibrant, but low-light shots, while noisy, actually capture a decent amount of detail. You can still get better results with most modern smartphone cameras. But you won’t hate the photos taken with the Venue 7, which is more than we can say for the photos we took with Acer’s Iconia One 7.
The 1-megapixel front-facing camera is functional for video calls and the occasional selfie, but produces images that are darker than we’d like, with lots of noise.
Bright IPS screen
The Venue 7’s 1280 x 800 screen resolution isn’t very impressive, but it’s an IPS panel, so viewing angles aren’t an issue. The display also gets quite bright, although the tablet can lower the brightness during gaming to prevent overheating, as detailed in our performance tests below. Also, while images on the screen look good, colors were noticeably more saturated on the 2013 Nexus 7’s screen.
Very good battery life
Battery life is another area where the Venue 7 does well for a budget tablet. After 14 hours of occasional but regular use, downloading and installing several apps and games, running benchmarks, checking Facebook, taking photos, and playing several levels of Plants Vs. Zombies, the battery meter was still showing 36 percent remaining. That’s a lot better than Acer’s Iconia One 7, which begged to be recharged after just six hours of use.
Performance
Overall, Venue 7’s performance was a mixed bag. It usually felt responsive and stable, but as previously noted, things occasionally got slower when the tablet was trying to do more than one thing at once (say, trying to play a game while apps were updating). Recent Anomaly games have refused to launch, while other titles such as The Walking Dead, season two and Archangel it worked quite well (although the latter was set to low graphics settings).
When we played the game with the screen at maximum brightness, we repeatedly got the message “Brightness dimming due to thermal event”.
We’re not sure that adding an extra gigabyte of RAM would allow for more gaming, but it would at least help the tablet run more smoothly when multitasking. We’d like to see Dell (and all tablet makers, really) stick with 2GB of RAM, or at least offer a slightly more expensive option with more memory.
We don’t pay much attention to Android benchmarks, as many companies have admitted to tweaking their devices to boost scores. But just for context, the Dell Venue 7 scored a healthy 10,284 on the Quadrant benchmark, which measures overall performance. That’s a lot better than the 5125 that Acer’s Iconia One 7 scored on the same test, thanks to the latest-generation Intel Clover Trail processor. But the top-of-the-line Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 scored a much better 19,900 on the same benchmark.
While playing Plants vs Zombies 2 worked pretty well on the Venue 7, when we played a game with the screen at max brightness we kept getting the message “Brightness dimming due to thermal event”. We couldn’t reproduce the same problem with the Venue 8, but after playing a few levels of the same game on a larger tablet, the app started crashing when trying to start the levels.
And while most apps and games worked just fine, and tablets are otherwise pretty stable, 11 Bit Studios Anomaly 2 and Anomaly defenders crashed every time we tried to launch them, refusing to get past the splash screens and videos.
Oddly, The Venue 7 managed a score of 11,051 on 3DMark’s Ice Storm Unlimited gaming performance test, again well ahead of the Acer tablet’s 6,065, and not too far behind the Samsung Tab S’ score of 13,350. But while Dell’s tablet may impress in terms of benchmarks, the fact that it got hot enough to reduce screen brightness in a game with Plants vs Zombies 2game with cartoonish graphics, makes it a poor choice for a gaming tablet.
We measured as much as 110 degrees on the back of the Venue 7 just seconds after seeing the throttling message on the screen. The areas around the edge of the tablet where we held it weren’t warm, but this is the first time we’ve seen an Android tablet visibly shut down due to heat. Clearly, Dell should have done a better job keeping the tablet’s Atom chip cool.
Conclusion
For a budget tablet, the Dell Venue 7 looks, feels, and sounds pretty good—and the rear camera can also produce attractive photos, something many budget models can’t. We also appreciate the MicroSD card slot and the fact that the tablet runs a modern version of Android that’s mostly free of bloat or annoying OS tweaks.
But the tablet’s 1GB of RAM keeps it from performing as well as we’d like, especially when you’re multitasking. And some games simply refused to launch. These issues, combined with the fact that our review unit seemed to have a persistent overheating problem even after applying an OS update, make the Venue 7 difficult to recommend when there are so many other affordable tablets available.
If you can spend a little more, we’d suggest stepping up to Google’s Nexus 7. If your budget is around $150, LG’s G Pad 7 is a better choice, though it too only has 1GB of RAM. If at all possible, we recommend paying extra for a 2GB tablet.
Tall
- Light and comfortable to hold
- Standard Android 4.4
- Good battery life
- microSD card slot
Falls
- Only 1 GB of RAM allows slow multitasking
- Serious performance issues
- Weird arrangement of buttons and ports
- One speaker
Editor’s recommendations
Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn