Dell Venue 7

After the disappointment of the Dell Streak, the former PC specialists take another plunge into the tablet market with the Venue 7 and its slightly larger companion the Venue 8. And with just a minimum of use, tablet enthusiasts will be wondering why the big company didn’t take the plunge sooner: At a budget price, the Venue 7 operates nearly as quickly and smoothly as the Google Nexus 7 and its ilk.

The operating system is a nice start, with the Android 4.2 making the Venue 7 stand out a bit from the 7” tablet crowd. As in so many of its electronics, Intel supplies the processor, here a 2.0 GHz speedy Atom Z2560 – again above average for its size. Most apps and games run quite well on the Venue 7 thanks to the Atom, though potential owners should be advised that download times seem to run long on this device.

Memory in the Venue 7 is limited to just an okay 16 GB – average for a 7” budget tablet – but the micro SD card slot can allow adding some 64 GB more.

The downside to the Dell Venue 7? It’s gotta be the touchscreen. Apparently, having spent years behind the curve in the tablet realm, Dell has yet to master this aspect of tablet technology. The responsiveness is far from perfect in this device and resolution is a disappointing 1280 x 800 pixels.

In the end, the Dell Venue 7 is a decent tablet at an excellent price from a trusted name in electronic knowhow. And like so many other first efforts from such a name, we’ll be awaiting the second effort.