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86 of 90 people found the following review helpful.
New firmware saves the day
By Gaz Rendar
The Dell Venue Pro is emotionally difficult to review. This phone looked like a game changer--the prophesized device to rally the masses to the Windows Phone platform. Unfortunately, there have been previous issues with the phone that have caused it to just miss the mark. However, a recent Dell firmware update has restored my faith in the device. This review is based on using the phone for 7 months, and using it with the new firmware update for 1 month.HARDWAREFrom a purely visual standpoint, I'd say the DVP is....flat out cool. The 4.1" display is covered with slightly curved gorilla glass that both looks and feels great. The sides of the phone have a chrome metallic look (it's still plastic) and the back has a texture rich plastic cover with a repeating cut diamond pattern. The top and bottom are beveled with a rubberized coating. Plenty of thought went into the accents, color, and shape of this phone. I have to commend Dell here; they sure know how to design the exterior of a mobile device. Given its professional looks and general rarity among the common public, every time I pull my DVP out in a crowd I always get surprised and wondrous comments and questions. There is also a micro-USB jack on the bottom, a 3.5" headphone jack up top, a decent volume rocker on the right side, a dedicated camera button on the bottom right, power button up top and speaker and mic cut outs on the rubberized bottom. Keeping the speaker and mic off the back of the phone helps when using the speakerphone options, but the power button is a little more difficult to hit than I'd like. I've gotten used to it over time, but it still could be more accessible.The outside of the phone might win beauty pageants, but the internals were a big question mark. All WP7 devices to date have a mandatory 1GHz processor, so it is not a surprise to find that here. But the amount of RAM in the device was a mystery until recently. Dell originally listed the Venue Pro has having 512MB of RAM on its website, but it removed that spec. Third party apps reported the device as only having 256MB of RAM. Posts in forums suggest that the 3rd party apps might not be able to recognize all of the RAM. But with the new firmware update there is a correct reporting of 512MB of RAM. This is a huge relief since Microsoft will be releasing a software update soon that incorporates more RAM-intensive multitasking capabilities.The keyboard on the device is high quality, especially if you prefer the portrait format. Each button has a satisfying click and travel distance, although I still slightly prefer the feel of jelly-like buttons on Palm portrait keyboards. The slider mechanism feels solid and has a good snap to it. Since the home screens and many of the native apps within WP7 are either exclusively portrait, or favored towards a portrait format, the DVP's keyboard can be considered more useful than the LG Quantum or HTC Arrive. The complication is the heft of the phone. This thing feels like a brick in your hand, usually in a good way, but when the keyboard is open it does require larger sized hands to be able to comfortably hold the device, type on the keyboard and reach up to the tap the screen. An open DVP in small hands is a disastrous fumble waiting to happen.SCREENThe screen is AMOLED technology sporting the standard WP7 resolution of 800 x 480. Only the Samsung Focus's Super AMOLED screen is better among WP7 devices. The DVP has deep blacks and fast response during gameplay and video playback. Images are sharp and crisp. The only real downside is that it washes out in direct sunlight easily.PHONE/RADIOSThe call quality on the phone is a notch above average. I haven't experienced any significant call drops. The earpiece provides good voice quality and people have said that the DVP's mic is clear. The volume is sufficient for 95% of environments, but there have been select times outside where I wish I could bump the volume up an additional 10-15%.While I haven't had many problems using WiFi, I do know that it has been widely reported that some devices freeze up when using WiFi and browsing the Marketplace. It seems like this is more likely to occur in the 16GB models and could have been the result of a faulty micro SD card (the DVP has a micro SD card that is buried under the SIM slot not meant to be tampered with). However, the firmware update seems to have fixed this problem. I haven't had a single Marketplace WiFi crash with it yet.The Bluetooth EDR 2.1 pairs and works with my Plantronics headsets, and my car. However, I have come across a curious circumstance that if I connect to my car, turn off my car and leave the DVP's Bluetooth on and come back to my car the next day, it would only automatically pair with my car half the time. The other half of the time I had to go into the DVP settings and turn the Bluetooth off and back on. With the firmware update, that is a problem of the past. Bluetooth pairing with my car now works like it should.CAMERAThe firmware update has improved the camera, but it was, and remains the most disappointing aspect of the phone. I have low expectations for cameras on phones, but the camera on the DVP now barely meets my minimal requirements. In sunlight it is possible to shoot quality 5MP images and 720p video. But as soon as the lighting drops to average indoor lighting, the camera's quality seems to drop exponentially. The flash provides little help, only provides benefit with 3 feet, and can cause color wash out. The firmware update shifted the camera performance from abysmal to very average. So if high camera quality is one of your top 2 or 3 requirements for a phone, then I'd probably go with the Focus or Quantum if you want to stick with a WP7 device.PERFORMANCEEven before the update my Venue Pro performed most WP7 tasks smoothly. From a speed and responsiveness standpoint, first party apps are generally flawless and a pleasure to scroll through. Third party apps can sometimes be hit or miss, but this feels like a WP7 problem and not a problem stemming from the hardware. The only time I worried about the performance from the phone is the occasion Xbox LIVE game. A game that has a rich, always moving 3D environment, such as Glyder, previously suffered from slowdown hiccups. The slowdown can partially be remedied by resetting the phone and directly returning back into the Xbox LIVE hub. The slowdowns seen in some games have been improved upon the addition of the new firmware update.SUMMARYWhile there were negative aspects and question marks pertaining to the DVP, overall, I still really like the device. The Copy & Paste NoDo update made mobile Office an outstanding piece of software. It is, well--powerful to be able to use real Power Point on the phone. I can download a .pptx file from my SkyDrive, practice the presentation with working, accurate animations, make quick edits, and email it off to where it needs to go. Quick Office or Docs To Go do not work as smoothly with .pptx files as WP7 does. I'm also an Xbox LIVE addict, so I recognize that earning achievement points on the go carries more weight with me. And I've been a long-time Zune Pass subscriber and being able to download pretty much any song, at any time, directly to my phone is a huge perk.Combined with the efficient portrait keyboard, curved AMOLED display and gorgeous body the DVP is a great choice for anyone looking for something besides iOS and Android. The DVP used to come up just short. The firmware issues and a botched initial release killed the tremendous momentum that the DVP had leading up to the WP7 launch. But hey, better to fulfill the prophecy late than never, right?When initially released, the DVP could have been docked a star or two, but I hope discussing how the firmware bumped the phone up to 5 stars was helpful to people on the market for a new smartphone.EXTRA UPDATE - MANGO WP7.5I originally wrote this review about a month before the Mango update rolled out. I've been using this phone for a year total now, and have received the NoDo update, the aforementioned firmware update, and have now had the Mango WP7.5 software update for about 3 months. With the firmware update and Mango this phone is highly competitive in the current smartphone scene. I know you can find plenty of Mango reviews out there, but the stability improvements on the DVP are noticeable. Since updating to Mango I've probably had to reset my phone a total of 5-6 times, and only once did I have to pull the battery out in three months for a hard reset. My Android-using friends typically have to reset their phones once every two days.You want completely free, turn-by-turn GPS directions with voice prompts and traffic warnings? It's here on the Mango DVP now. While you can talk to Siri on an iPhone with casual voice commands, please be aware that you can essentially do all of the same things on a Mango Windows Phone. Just say, "Open Weather," and my DVP shows me the forecast. Say, "Open Minesweeper" and the game starts, say "Chinese Food," and you're presented with a list of Chinese restaurants and recipes. I can also conveniently and easily dictate text messages in the car with Speech-to-Text. Simply hit the search button at the bottom of the phone, then the eyeball icon and the camera turns on and I can scan bar codes and Qcodes in real time to find the best prices on merchandise. The camera app has been improved so that it saves custom settings now. Twitter and Facebook are even more tightly integrated. I use the DVP as a remote to navigate my Xbox 360's menus on the HDTV. I can choose to group only 3 out of my 5 email inboxes together into 1 Live Tile, effectively keeping my work email inboxes separate from my grouped personal email inboxes. The WP app marketplace has over 50,000 apps as of this review update. Can you follow your favorite obscure band with an app that is available for iPhone? Maybe not. But can you check your flight status with a Delta app, or your prescription with a Walgreens app, or showtimes with a Flixster app, or stream a movie with a Netflix app, or do anything else that is associated with a remotely popular/mainstream app on WP? Absolutely. All in all, this is a highly competitive and complete phone. You don't have to limit yourself to a 3.5" screened iPhone or an Android phone that may never receive an OS update if you don't want to. You really do have a choice now. iPhones and Android devices might still be the best pick for some people, but you really can consider a WP device as a legit 3rd player before you make a purchase. And if you want a 4.1" screen WP phone with a beautiful display and a Palm or Blackberry-ish portrait keyboard, the Dell Venue Pro still holds up well today, 1 year after it's release.
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
Incredible fit and finish
By J. Emmanuelli
I got this phone about a month ago and I could not be more pleased. I moved from the dismal 6.5 version of Windows Mobile to this new WP7 Dell device and it is like going from an old VW beetle to a brand new Porsche. I would say this is arguable the best looking device of all Windows 7 phones. The pullout keyboard is nice for when you need to type longer emails. A few obervations:Battery life: very good considering the device. Lasts easilly all day with browsing and calling. Only strange thing is if you completely drain the battery to the point the phone shuts itself down, if you plug it back in, the phone won't power up at all for about 5 minutes! so not good if you run out of battery and need to make a call immediately.Screen: extremely bright, clear and sharp. Scratch resistantQuality of construction: Very solid device. The sliding motion feels really good and solid. Shiny metal on the edges makes it stand out.Camera: Lame. Only works well on bright daylight.Voice quality: Very good. Easy to put on speaker phone. Buttons are very big and very easy to enter digits during calls for when using automated IVRsStability of device: I installed a bunch of junk on it when it was new and the phone was hanging pretty frequently. I eventually wiped it all out to start from scratch and have been careful with what I install and hav enot had a single hang in 2 weeks.OS: Windows 7 is super nice on this phone. There are some very basic customizations that are missing but this makes the OS mroe simple so great for your wife or hubby if they are not good with this type of technology.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
A Fantastic Phone (post firmware update)
By GoldenArms
This phone is excellent. I purchased this phone in early February of this year and immediately fell in love. Firstly, Windows Phone 7 software is amazing. It works just like the iphone in terms of amazing simplicity, but the presentation is much better. The facebook/contact integration is great and looks great. Zune is on par with itunes, but looks better. Everything looks better on this phone compared to Droid and Iphone, you just have to try it. Live tiles rock and will even get better with the Mango update coming in September.Call quality is great. This phone has very good speakers, games are fun to play on the screen as it has the 2nd biggest screen on a Windows Phone, but is not too big.The battery life last about 1 day, but a litte less with heavy usage, so have a charger at work and one at home.The phone is a little heavy, but somehow it helps you from dropping it. It's true, I have not dropped this phone once. Probably because I obsesses about scratches.The amoled high resolution screen gives great color output. The corning gorilla glass still has no scratches on it after 8 months. Any other phone I have ever owned, the glass was totally jacked by now.Before the firmware update, my phone froze alot, especially connecting to wifi or surfing the marketplace for apps. The phone crashed maybe 8 times a day. EVEN with the crashing, this phone is so remarkable I found myself suffering through it and enjoying the phone when it worked.Since the firmware update the phone works great! No freezing, not even once. This bar none is the definitive windows phone 7 experience, because of the slide out keyboard. The only other two phones which are also good are the HTC HD7 and the Samsung Focus. The focus has had all sorts of problems gettin updates, but it has has the biggest screen, but the contrast is not as crisp as the Dell Venue PRO.You will enjoy this phone, it looks good and works great. It is an elite windows phone and I highly recommend it.
See all 64 customer reviews...
GOOD phone, that has the potential to be GREAT!!!
Great, Almost Excellent
