Dell Venue Officially Released

[Droid800]

Today Dell put their much awaited Venue Android handset up for sale. At the moment it isn't subsidized, and I doubt that it will ever be.

For $499 you get an unlocked GSM handset with either AT&T or T-mobile 3G bands, a 4.1'' AMOLED screen, 1 GB onboard storage, 512 mb RAM, a 1GHZ snapdragon (QSD 8250, unfortunately), and a 16GB microSD card.

Dell Venue Smartphone Details | Dell

All in all, not a terrible handset, especially with that AMOLED display covered with a convex piece of gorilla glass. Dell has left Android mostly untouched, with the most major mods being the inclusion of the Stage UI. One curious thing is that, despite hardware that's pretty good, the Venue scored a measly 800 or so on Quadrant. Dell must have taken a cue from Samsung with some oddball file system or something else in order to score that low. It isn't a big deal since there's no cumbersome UI layer to deal with, but its still odd. (then there's the omnipresent OS upgrade question, because Stage IS a UI layer, and would need time to port)

Anyone thinking of getting one? I know Dell is still a child when it comes to handsets (and the Venue's cousin the Venue Pro suffered greatly due to missteps), but this is a pretty great first major effort. The hardware's solid, the design is great, and Stage (while still a UI layer) shouldn't cause any major issues. I also have a feeling that we could be seeing a Dell Nexus sometime in the future, since they're going after the mobile market in a big way.

I'm half tempted to get one to see what its like. The reviews have been pretty great, and its a unique enough device that you wouldn't see many out and about. That, and I'm a sucker for a unique design like the Venue's.

 

[scaots]

I might consider it if it had a front camera. At least they dropped the proprietary connector that was on the streak; I would have bought that if it had regular micro usb.

 

[Droid800]

I might consider it if it had a front camera. At least they dropped the proprietary connector that was on the streak; I would have bought that if it had regular micro usb.

For me personally, I've got an iPod Touch, so a FFC isn't a big deal. Only thing that would hold me back would be Dell's unknown track record as far as updates go.

 

[blopez24]

For me personally, I've got an iPod Touch, so a FFC isn't a big deal. Only thing that would hold me back would be Dell's unknown track record as far as updates go.

Dell has updated their unlocked devices. Its the ones locked to a carrier contract that tend to suffer.

 

[Droid800]

Dell has updated their unlocked devices. Its the ones locked to a carrier contract that tend to suffer.

Ahh. See, that's good to know. Dell's still pretty new to the mobile space (the Streak doesn't count), so its not exactly easy to figure out what they'll do.