Dell Venue 11 Pro 7000 Series (7140)

Tablet PC has taken the world by storm, but despite countless potential uses, the form factor has not gained the same popularity among business users. One of the few tablet-focused business lines are Dell Venue lineup, which gets its newest member, the Venue Pro 7000 Series 11 (7140) ($ 934.99 as tested). Offers this system all the business features Dell-support and a design work-ready in a portable, feature-loaded 11-inch tablet. And it is good enough to unseat the Venue Pro 11 (7139) as our Editors Choice 'for the tablet business.

The Venue Pro 11 (7140) is a 11-inch model slate brings the mobility of the design tablet with business users. It measures 7 by 11 by 0.42 inches (HWD) and weighs only 1.6 pounds. The design mixes plastic and aluminum construction for a lightweight, robust chassis that is not too heavy to carry and use on the go. It's also thin and quiet, with a fanless design, thanks to Intel Core M CPU.

The 10.8-inch display has a 1920-by-1080 resolution and support for both 10-point touch and a digitizer for pen included. The screen features In-Plane Switching technology (IPS), which makes for wide viewing angle and distortion-free clarity in any orientation. The bezels around the display is a little wide, measuring 0.75 inches on the sides, top, and bottom, but it's nothing too noticeable.

Matching quality of the display are two built-in stereo speakers with Waves MaxxAudio enhancement software. The speakers themselves are not bad, but the placement is not great, every speaker pointing outwards from the sides of the tablet (when held in landscape orientation). Positioning means that the sound is not directed toward the user, and if you grip the tablet in the wrong way, you'll muffle the speakers.

Tablet comes with a digitizer pen, which looks a lot like a regular pen. The pen has a pretty good feeling when drawing or writing on the glass-covered display. A two-button rocker switch on the grip of the pen lets you right-click a tap or delete when writing and drawing. This tablet is no space for stowing the pen when not in use, but that has become increasingly common as a move away from the compact tablet design digitizer stylus pen to more closely resemble their counterparts ink and paper.

There is a fairly standard selection of ports tablet, with a full-size USB 3.0 port, a micro HDMI-out port, microSD card slot, and a micro USB port for charging. Security features include Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0, and built-in Smart Card Reader, but the Venue Pro 11 (7140) lacks the integrated fingerprint reader and a NFC reader offered in the previous iteration. For wireless connectivity, the tablet using 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, with support for wireless video streaming through widi and Miracast.

There are two cameras in the system: a front-facing 2-megapixel webcam and a rear-facing 8-megapixel camera for snapping photos and shooting video. The camera is pretty good, with strong image quality, even the rear-facing camera does not seem to have some difficulty in dealing with bright light and dark shadows.

For storage, the tablet has a 128GB solid-state drive (SSD), but aside from Windows 8.1 Pro (64-bit) and a free 12-month trial of McAfee security software LiveSafe, it's over All are free of preinstalled software. Taking Dell Venue Pro 11 (7140) with a one-year warranty with mail-in service.