Explosive Dell Venue

Explosive Dell Venue - It's the Dell Venue, and no, you still can't buy one outside Hong Kong or South Korea just yet. All we can speculate is that this Android phone is facing the same manufacturing issues as its WP7 cousin, but hopefully we're wrong. Anyhow, what matters is that we've finally gotten our hands on a retail unit of the Snapdragon-packing Venue. So is it worth the wait for Androiders distanced from the Far East? And will this handset be the answer for our love-hate relationship with the Streak? Head on right past the break to find out.

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.