The tablet has taken the PC world by storm, but despite the myriad potential uses, the form factor hasn’t gained the same prominence among business users. One of the few business-focused tablet lines is Dell’s Venue lineup, which gets its newest member, the Venue 11 Pro 7000 Series (7140) ($934.99 as tested). This system offers all of Dell’s business-support features and a work-ready design in a portable, feature-filled 11-inch tablet. And it’s good enough to unseat the Venue 11 Pro (7139)($295.22 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) as our Editors’ Choice for business tablets.

Design
The Venue 11 Pro (7140)($295.22 at Amazon)(Opens in a new window) is an 11-inch slate model that brings the mobility of the tablet design to business users. It measures 7 by 11 by 0.42 inches (HWD) and weighs just 1.6 pounds. The design mixes plastic and aluminum construction for a lightweight, sturdy chassis that’s not too heavy to carry and use on the go. It’s also slim and quiet, with a fanless design, thanks to the Intel Core M CPU.

The 10.8-inch display has a 1,920-by-1,080
resolution and support for both 10-point touch and a digitizer for the included pen. The screen features In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology, which makes for wide viewing angles and distortion-free clarity in any orientation. The bezels around the display are a little wide, measuring 0.75 inches on the sides, top, and bottom, but it’s nothing too egregious.

Matching the quality of the display are two built-in stereo speakers, with Waves MaxxAudio software enhancement. The speakers themselves aren’t bad, but the placement isn’t great, with each speaker pointing outward from the sides of the tablet (when held in Landscape orientation). The positioning means that the sound isn’t directed toward the user, and if you grip the tablet the wrong way, you’ll muffle the speakers.

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The tablet comes with a digitizer pen, which looks a lot like a regular pen. The pen has a pretty good feel when drawing or writing on the glass-covered display. A two-button rocker switch on the grip of the pen lets you right click with a tap or erase when writing and drawing. The tablet has no slot for stowing the pen when not in use, but that’s become increasingly common as tablets shift away from compact stylus designs to digitizer pens that more closely resemble their ink-and-paper counterparts.

Features
The tablet has a fairly standard selection
of ports, with one 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 a built-in Smart Card Reader, but the Venue 11 Pro (7140) lacks the integrated fingerprint reader and a NFC reader offered in the previous iteration. For wireless connectivity, the tablet is outfitted with 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, with support for wireless video streaming via WiDi and Miracast.

There are two cameras on the system: a front-facing, 2-megapixel webcam and a rear-facing, 8-megapixel camera for snapping photos and shooting video. The cameras are pretty good, with solid image quality, though the rear-facing camera did seem to have some difficulty dealing with bright lights 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 LiveSafe security software, it’s largely free of preinstalled software. Dell covers the Venue 11 Pro (7140) with a one-year warranty with mail-in service.

Accessories
The Venue 11 Pro (7140) sells as a standalone slate PC, but Dell also offers two excellent optional accessories for the system, which convert the simple tablet into a pretty effective laptop or desktop PC.

The first is the Dell Tablet Keyboard – Mobile ($159.99). This docking keyboard attaches to the bottom of the tablet for provide a laptop-like experience, with a full-size, chiclet-style keyboard and a 3.5-by-1.75-inch touchpad. An internal battery provides extra juice for the tablet, and while there are no additional ports on the keyboard, the tablet’s ports are all still accessible. Though it has no backlight, the well-made keyboard latches securely to the tablet, and between the metal construction and a secondary battery in the keyboard, there’s enough heft to eliminate any of the top-heavy balance issues often seen on tablet/keyboard combinations. The docking keyboard is a must-buy for the owner who wants to expand the productive capabilities of the tablet to include more traditional laptop-style uses.

The other accessory is the Dell Tablet
Dock ($139.99), a desktop dock and stand that lets you shift between portable and desktop use. The desktop dock provides connectivity for external monitors (via a full-size HDMI port and DisplayPort) and desktop keyboard and mouse (with three USB 3.0 ports), as well as wired network connectivity—a necessity in some offices. Plus, the dock charges the tablet during use, so there’s no worry about grabbing the tablet off the dock and taking it on the go. Unlike the docking keyboard, whether or not you want the desktop dock will largely depend upon what circumstances you use the system in. If the Venue 11 Pro (7140) is your sole PC, the desktop dock makes a lot of sense, expanding the little system to include everything you need for use at a desk. If not, however, you might want to pass.

Performance
The Venue 11 Pro (7140) uses a 1.2GHz Intel Core M-5Y71 processor paired with 8GB of RAM. The Core M processor line falls in between the low-powered, energy-efficient Intel Atom line and the higher-performance Intel Core i3 and Core i5 processors generally found in notebook PCs. The Core M delivers better performance than an Atom CPU, better battery life than a Core i3 or i5, and has a smaller thermal envelope that eliminates the need for cooling fans, making it perfect for use in tablets. In performance tests, the Venue 11 Pro (7140) performed quite well, earning top marks across the board when compared with Atom-based systems and older Core M competitors. It also topped the previous Dell Venue 11 Pro (7139), which has an Intel Core i5 processor that is actually a low-powered variant called the Y-Series, which is something of a precursor to the Core M line.

In PCMark 8 Work Conventional, the tablet scored 2,586 points, easily outpacing the Atom-powered Lenovo ThinkPad 10 Tablet (1,517 points) and the HP ElitePad 1000 G2 (1,557 points), but also edging ahead of both the Dell Venue 11 Pro (7139) (2,407 points) and the Core M-equipped Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro($949.99 at Lenovo)(Opens in a new window) (2,094 points). It only fell behind the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 (2,704 points), which has an ultrabook processor. The Dell Venue 11 Pro also rocketed to the lead in timed tests like Handbrake and Photoshop CS6, completing Handbrake in 4 minutes 26 seconds and Photoshop in 4:40, both well ahead of most competing systems.

See How We Test Tablets

The Core M processor relies on Intel’s HD Graphics 5300—an integrated solution—for rendering visuals and graphics. 3DMark scores in Cloud Gate (3,732 points) and Fire Strike Extreme (230 points) are again well ahead of competitors, but there are limits to this capability. While the graphics processing will do quite well for streaming media, loading up graphics-heavy websites, or working with images, it’s not really meant for gaming. Even at lower resolution and detail settings, the tablet couldn’t do better than 10 or 11 frames per second in our Heaven and Valley gaming tests, leaving them looking like slideshows.

The one area where the Venue 11 Pro (7140) truly excels is battery life. The tablet alone lasted 9 hours 41 minutes on our battery rundown test, which is longer than the Dell Venue 11 Pro (7139) (6:29), the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro (8:19), the HP ElitePad 1000 G2 (7:35), and even the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 (8:55). Only the Lenovo ThinkPad 10 did better (12:03). The nearly-10-hour battery life is more than enough to take you through a full work day. However, the Dell Venue 11 Pro is also available with the docking keyboard, which includes its own battery and boosts usable life by hours—15:58 in our tests. That extra six hours and change will make a huge difference when you’re on the go, whether you’re working through an international flight or finding yourself without a charger at the end of a long day.

Conclusion
The Dell Venue 11 Pro 7000 Series (7140) checks off all the boxes for the qualities we want in a business tablet: strong performance, long battery life, and a healthy selection of ports and security features. Throw in some very good accessories, like the included digitizer pen, or the optional docking keyboard or desktop dock, and you’ve got a full-fledged business PC in a light and mobile design. It’s good enough earn our Editors’ Choice nod for business tablets.