Along with the Android-powered Streak 7 and Venue, we got some hands on time with the Venue Pro – the first Windows Phone 7 phone from Dell at Mobile World Congress.
Like the HTC 7 Pro, the Dell Venue Pro comes with a slide-out Qwerty pad. This one however slides out from the bottom with the keys laid out portrait style.
The Venue Pro is well balanced, so that when you’ve got the pad open and you’re typing away it’s not top heavy. The pad also locks securely in to position when open, so the screen won’t slide down on your fingers, guillotine style.
Of course you’ve always got the option of typing on that gorgeous touchscreen. The Dell Venue Pro’s screen is a 4.1-inch capacitive AMOLED that supports multitouch. We had a quick go flipping back and forth between menus and web pages as well as messing around on Bing Maps – everything was smooth as silk on the Venue Pro’s big screen.
Announced last year along with the first generation of Windows Phone 7 handsets, the Dell Venue Pro has been a while coming. But with the first batch of Win Pho 7 updates just around the corner, it should arrive when things like cut and paste start getting pushed out by Microsoft. So it’s more a case of being ‘fashionably late’, turning up to the WP7 party just as things start getting interesting.
Click through here on the right to have a look at the Dell Venue Pro from all angles, and get a better idea for the look and feel of the phone.
The back of the Dell Venue Pro, with the slider open. We liked that the textured diamond that’s present on the back is repeated on the back of the screen when you’ve got it slid open. Ok, so you won’t spend a lot of time looking at it yourself. But it’s still nice to know that when you’re sitting on the train, texting away, other people can admire the pattern uniformity of your Dell Venue Pro from a distance.
A closer look at the Dell Venue Pro’s 5-megapixel camera lens and LED flash. Note the all important power button up and on the left, with a 3.5mm jack on the right.
And a nice close-up of the Dell Venue Pro’s Qwerty keypad. The keys have a nice cobbled feel which make it easy to distinguish individual keys when typing. Didn’t stop us from making loads of typos, but then again we only had a few minutes worth of time with the phone.
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