Dell Venue 10 7000 Review: Good Tablet, Great 2-in-1 Android Laptop

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The Dell Venue 10 7000 is the big brother to the Venue 8 -- with similar specs. Standout features include the detachable tablet's gorgeous OLED 10.5-inch display that delivers vibrant colors and pitch-black blacks. The tablet also features Dell's first-ever barrel-edge design that houses the tablet's front-firing stereo speakers. That cylindrical edge, similar to Lenovo's Yoga 2 tablet, has the added benefit of making the tablet extremely easy to handle.

The Venue 7000 features Intel's Atom quad-core Z3580 processor clocked at 2.3GHz. The tablet also has 2 GB of DDR3 RAM, a micro-USB port and a MicroSD card slot supporting up to 512 GB of storage expansion.

The Dell Venue 10 7000 base model with 16 GB storage has a price tag of $500. A 32-GB version runs $550. Add the optional keyboard for $130 and you have a pricey, yet compelling, Android-based laptop that can give any similar-sized Chromebook a run for its money.

To help strengthen the Venue 10's appeal to the enterprise, Dell has preconfigured the OS with Android for Work. For those unfamiliar with Android for Work, this is Google's recently released containerization platform that lets IT administrators create separate profiles for corporate and personal use on Android smartphones and tablets. This Venue 10 runs Android version 5.0, known as Lollipop, that natively supports Android for Work.

Another boon for mobile productivity is the optional backlit keyboard that features a multitouch track pad. This keyboard was rock-solid and had a satisfying bounce when typing.

A strong selling point for the Venue 10 7000 is Dell's attention to detail -- from the sturdy, magnetic hinges and great sounding speakers. With a keyboard, the Venue can be used in laptop mode, presentation mode, tent mode or as a slate.

Pricing the 32-GB model out with the $130 keyboard will run you $680. Besides a steep price tag, the battery performance was not impressive. It averaged between 4 to 7 hours -- Dell rates it at 7 hours. And as easy as it was touch typing with this sturdy keyboard, the multi-touch track pad was sometimes difficult to use.

The Dell Venue 10 7000 is a really nice tablet with a unique design. Pair this tablet with Dell’s optional keyboard and what you get is a top-notch 2-in-1 Android-based laptop that can go toe-to-toe with any like-sized Chromebook on the market.

PUBLISHED JUNE 16, 2015