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Even though convertible tablets like the Asus Transformer Book T100, Lenovo Yoga Pro 2 and Lenovo Switch 11 are enjoying increasing popularity, the saturated tablet market remains noteworthy, because people still tend to gravitate towards powerful tablets like the Dell Venue 11 or Amazon’s Kindle Fire HDX. Tablets are becoming an integrated part of our lives, almost as much as smartphones, because most of them are already capable of offering performance similar to laptops.
Tablets are being made suitable for all kinds of customers, from students to business managers, teachers to engineers, journalists to analysts. Because tablets are essentially more portable laptops which you can use for many office and multimedia tasks, there is a constant search for the best tablet fit for a certain niche. We’ve already reviewed and compared the iPad, the Asus Transformer Book T100, Microsoft Surface Pro 2 and iPad Mini 2. Now it’s time to see what the Dell Venue 11 Pro and Amazon Kindle Fire HDX offer.
Both the Dell Venu 11 Pro and Amazon Kindle Fire HDX are among the best tablets you can find on the market at the time, although many are saying that the upcoming iPad Air 2 will bring something entirely new to the table and we hope to see more of an improvement compared to the previous generation iPad than what Apple did with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus compare to the iPhone 5S. Nonetheless, the Dell Venue 11 Pro and Amazon Kindle Fire HDX are powerful tablets with many people praising all their features.
First off, we need to mention that the iPad Air and Asus Transformer Book T100 are considered to be better devices than these two, according to most reviewers, and whilst the iPad Air does cost a fair $500, the Transformer Book T100 will only set you back $300. The Dell Venue 11 Pro currently retails for $430, for the 32 GB configuration, $460 for the 64 GB one, $500 for the 64 GB Full HD version and $800 for the 128 GB Full HD version. The Amazon Kindle Fire HDX retails for $350 for the 16 GB Wi-Fi only version, $450 for the 16 GB 4G LTE version, $400 for the 32 GB Wi-Fi only version and $450 for the 64 GB version.
Both tablets, as you can see, offer a lot of choice to the consumer and each of us can decide what suits us best in our defined price ranges. It’s a pity that Amazon only offers the Kindle Fire HDX with 4G for the 16 GB version, and the tablet doesn’t have a microSD card slot, which is a shame. The Dell Venue 11 Pro has a 10.8 inch IPS display with 1080*1920 resolution and 204 ppi. The Amazon Kindle Fire HDX has an 8.9 inch IPS display with 2560*1600 resolution and 339 ppi. Even though the Dell Venue 11 Pro has a larger screen, the resolution and pixel density aren’t that remarkable compared to the display on the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX.
One of the most appreciated features of the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX is that it is extremely light and maneuverable, weighing only 374 grams, which is less than the current gen iPad Air. The iPad Air does have a larger, 9.7 inch Retina screen, though. The Kindle Fire HDX is 7.8 mm thick, whilst the Dell Venue 11 Pro is 10 mm thick. Between the Dell Venue 11 Pro and Kindle Fire HDX, the Kindle wins with its high-res display and lightweight body, trumping the larger, yet less beautiful screen and thicker body of the Dell Venue 11 Pro. The Dell Venue 11 Pro is also considerably heavier, its weight being double that of the Kindle Fire, at 700 grams.
We can safely say, already, that if you are looking for a tablet that is similar to the iPad Air and fits in your bag without you even noticing it’s there, the Kindle Fire HDX is a better choice than the Dell Venue 11 Pro. Nonetheless, the Dell Venu 11 Pro is slimmer and lighter than many of its similar counterparts like the Microsoft Surface Pro 2. The Dell Venue 11 Pro is so thick and heavy compared to the Kindle Fire HDX because it’s actually a convertible laptop. That means that it packs laptop-like specs, including an Intel Atom Bay Trail CPU or an i3 or i5 CPU and runs on Windows 8.1 with full desktop application support.
The Dell Venue 11 Pro has received many good reviews, with users appreciating the Full HD screen quality and pretty fast processing power, which lets you play Steam games like Left 4 Dead smoothly and at acceptable frame rates. Overall, according to most user reviews, the Dell Venue 11 Pro ranks among the best convertibles on the market at the moment, the only disappointing part being that you will have to acquire accessories like the keyboard and the stylus separately, which will add another $300 to your total investment in the Dell Venue 11 Pro. Note that much like the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 and upcoming Surface Pro 3, the Dell Venue 11 Pro is more business oriented than consumer oriented, because it does offer the full desktop experience. That’s why the device is a little bit pricier than other convertibles like the Asus Transformer Book T100.
As for specs, you can get the Dell Venue 11 Pro with the quad-core Intel Atom Bay Trail CPU clocked at maximum 2.4 GHz or with an Intel Core i3 CPU clocked at 1.3 GHz. The Atom Dell Venue 11 Pro model comes with 2 GB RAM, whilst the i3 model comes with 4 GB RAM. The Intel i3 version is also available with the FHD display. The basic model comes with an HD IPS screen with a 1366*768 resolution. All versions of the Dell Venue 11 Pro come with 8 MP rear cams and 2 MP front shooters. NFC, HDMI and USB 3.0 are also found on the Dell Venue 11 Pro, alongside stereo speakers on the sides.
The Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 sports a quad core Snapdragon 800 CPU clocked at 2.2 GHz, Adreno 330 CPU and 2 GB of RAM for all storage configurations. It runs on Android 4.2, with Amazon’s own Fire OS 3.0 Mojito on top, which is certainly oriented towards Amazon promotion, leaving you without a Google Play store. Nonetheless, the Amazon app store offers most of the latest apps you would find on the Play store, so that’s not necessarily a downside. It has the same 8 MP rear camera and a 720p front camera. One of the neat things Amazon did with this tablet is put an LED flash next to the rear camera. Dual speakers on the back of the device offer pretty high quality sound many appreciate on the Kindle Fire HDX. These speakers are among the best you can find on a tablet, many saying it actually beats the speakers on the iPad Air, too. Neat.
The Dell Venue 11 Pro, combined with its keyboard from Dell, makes for an excellent travel package because it does have a removable 36Wh battery and the keyboard has its own 28 Wh battery which is the first one the device uses up when the two gadgets are connected. That’s a really smart design on the part of Dell, because even when charging the devices, you can charge both the tablet and the keyboard at once, or separately, because both have microUSB ports designated for charging. I really love that feature on the Dell Venue 11 Pro. The device, with the connected keyboard is able to last for a full 12 hour day at 40% brightness, which is an excellent performance. The Kindle Fire HDX has a similar battery life, lasting up to a full day with mixed use.
Both the Kindle Fire HDX and Dell Venue 11 Pro are excellent tablets, but they do cater to different niches, with the Dell Venue 11 Pro targeting mostly business users with its removable battery that you can swap out and its full desktop experience, whilst the Kindle does target more casual users, even though it packs great processing power. I would rather sacrifice the beautiful screen on the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX to benefit from the desktop integration of the Dell Venue 11 Pro, which you would you pick and why?
