



Hardware

It's hard to deny that Dell's come a long way with the styling of its mobile devices, evolving from the cheap-looking Axim Windows Mobile PDAs (although the X50 series received much love from the community) to the now eye-catching Venue duo. Like the Streak, we've had people inquiring us about or at least eyeing at our Venue -- we're guessing it's mostly to do with the rounded chrome sides contrasting the black body, and the vibrant 4.1-inch AMOLED screen certainly helps as well despite its low visibility under strong daylight. Upon closer inspection, you'll also notice the subtly curved "Shear Design" Gorilla Glass -- which is also featured on the Venue Pro -- that covers practically the entire face of the phone, thus contributing towards the Venue's premium look no matter what angle you look at it from. Funnily enough, Dell didn't place much emphasis on the Shear Design's ergonomic benefits, but some of us feel that the curvature makes our thumb-swiping gesture slightly more comfortable. Maybe it's just us.On a related note, the Venue's rounded sides and curved back also provide better grip, although there have been a few occasions when our naughty fingertips slipped around the back far enough to interfere with our touch input, especially when we're lying in bed. Looking back at our other phones for a sanity check, we realised that their sharper edges along the screen are actually pretty effective at stopping our fingertips from accidentally touching the screen; whereas the Venue lacks such "feature" to warn our fingers. Ah well, guess we have to sacrifice a little for the looks.Going back to the glass: despite our careful handling and short ownership so far, our Venue's screen has somehow managed to accumulate a couple of light scratches. It sure was a surprise given the Gorilla Glass' impressive performance in our previous torture test -- perhaps our travel through the different climates of Hong Kong, Las Vegas and London made the material more vulnerable. We've written to Corning to see whether this is a possibility, so watch this space for an update.Also noticeable at a close distance is the uneven finish on the chrome sides -- slowly tilt them lengthwise under a spot of light and you'll see small ripples running along them. That said, these are hardly noticeable from everyday usage, but we have a feeling that certain design houses like Apple and Nokia would frown upon this seemingly minor flaw. Regardless, we shouldn't complain too much -- HK$3,999 (US$514) isn't bad for a Froyo HSDPA smartphone that packs a 1GHz Snapdragon, 1GB ROM, 512MB RAM, a good quality 8 megapixel camera (we'll come to that later), and a 1400mAh battery that keeps us connected and entertained for a full day (with mainly 3G connection, some WiFi time, Twitter notifications, plenty of camera usage, some Internet browsing, and some music on the go). Speaking of which, we spotted an annoying bug when it comes to charging: we've never managed to charge the phone from zero percent using the wall outlet, even after leaving it plugged in overnight; yet plugging it into the computer gets it charging again, and about an hour later -- yes, just one hour -- we get full juice again regardless of the charging method. Coincidentally, we've also seen the same charging issue on the Venue Pro and the Streak as well, so here's hoping that Dell's engineers are reading this review.