Microsoft requires handset manufacturers to ship their WP7 phones with a 5-megapixel camera or better. The Venue Pro sports a 5-megapixel camera with a dual-LED flash. All WP7 phones also must have a dedicated camera key, which I always appreciate. The camera/shutter key wakes up the phone and brings you straight into camera mode, a nice touch.

The Windows Phone 7 camera interface takes some getting used to, though. The on-screen touch controls are a bit too small for my liking, and I had some trouble adjusting them while snapping a picture. You get a few basic camera controls such as scene settings (auto, portrait, landscape, sports, beach, and so on) and effects (grayscale, negative, solarize), as well as metering and resolution controls.

Image quality was pretty good, both indoors and outdoors on a sunny day. Details in a few of my indoor shots seemed blown out (see the test photos to the left), but images were decent overall. My outdoor shots looked a lot better, with bright, natural colors and crisp details.

The Dell Venue Pro unfortunately does not support T-Mobile's HSPA+ network; it supports HSPA 7.2-mbps download speeds. Although HSPA+ is still in the early stages of gaining countrywide coverage, it is disappointing--and odd--that Microsoft hasn't jumped on the "4G" train. I was unable to test the Venue Pro's upload and download speeds, as no Windows Phone 7 Ookla app (for measuring network speeds) is available yet.