Dell Venue 8 Pro 5000 Series 32 GB Windows 8.1 Tablet

I am gonna start off and say that the Dell Venue 8 Pro is probably the most portable and most functional tablet computer I have ever owned and at the price I got it, it is practically unbeatable spec wise. With the full windows 8.1 OS, my use for this is practically limitless and its portable enough I can hold it in its keyboard case in one hand with ease. Without a case or with a slim case the tablet is light and easy to grip the back is non slip and you don't have the feeling that its just going to slide out of your hands. I bought this to replace my over sized ASUS laptop which was just awkward to carry and required a large computer bag to transport and boy this puts it to shame in terms of portability and ease of use. First thing I do when I take the tablet out of the box is apply a screen protector (boy was that a pain...but that's another review), I was not about to trust the scratch resistance and strength of glass which for the price of the tablet is probably not as strong as its $500+ dollar counterparts. Then because its a windows computer, after setting up my user profile I started the first round of major updates, the second, and finally a few less important ones. Then I went into the my dell application and ran system check to verify everything was checking OK with windows, after all the tests passed I went to the dell update page to update device drivers. This is the part that most people don't seem to understand fully, this is not your average tablet, its not an android. You have to update it and maintenance windows constantly, that's the cost of having the convenience and functionality of windows (some people will disagree with me on that part). I installed the latest WiFi drivers, updated the dell software, and updated the bios to A08 (originally A04). The my dell application is very useful with its own checkup (cpu, ram, emmc, battery, etc), link to drivers, backup manger, and links to windows settings to help the user better set the look and feel that works best for them. Now for use, I recommend using IE11 (i know) as your primary web browser because it has the the windows 8 touch interface, it is the easiest to use on the touch screen unless you are going to be using a mouse or stylus more. The quad core atom processor inside provides more power than you would expect from a 200 dollar tablet, at 1.8 ghz. It is also a true quad core, not a dual core with multi threading. The 2 gb of ddr3 memory is enough for multitasking and windows 8 being much less demanding than win7 is plenty for office work and web browsing. Opening applications on this is quick and and there is enough free ram that can be used to open multiple applications simultaneously, even running the split screen I didn't experience any lag. I can have 10 tabs open in IE and quickly swap applications and it remains fluid. Now when it runs clocked at 1.8 ghz for an extended period of time you will notice one corner of the device start to get pretty warm (being fanless) but it is able to keep its temperature within a reasonable level. Gaming on this tablet will probably be limited to light flash games and low demand games off the app store or steam but I didn't get it for gaming. Now for a con, I'm sure everyone knows this and probably knows when ordering but when you receive the tablet, with the OS, updates, and office you are left with only 10-11 gigs of free space. Most (non app store) applications you install will need to be manually pointed to the micro SD for installation and storage. I bought a sandisk extreme plus micro SDHC with an 80 mb/sec read/write so that the tablet will be able to more quickly load applications. Link below. Another con is the overly erratic auto brightness adjustments, I had to disable that (I'll get a desktop widget or icon to quickly adjust the brightness manually). They could have picked a better location for the windows button too rather than at the top of the device but I'll get used to it. The touch screen at times can be touchy and a few times it has registered one touch as two. The battery has a decent amount of stamina, probably average for a tablet this size, while just browsing the web and general use of the tablet. Charging it on the other hand is very very slow, probably takes a few hours to go from 20% to 90%. I have noticed some battery drain because sometimes the audio driver prevents the tablet from going into standby, muting it fixes this, hopefully they have a patch soon. The dual a/b micro usb port too feels very fragile, I am terrified because the latches on the micro usb connectors are all WAY too tight. I am afraid I will accidentally break the port, pins or the little plastic piece holding the pins, even though its inconvenient, verify that you are connecting it properly and do not yank the cable out of the device. Also, there's only one port so you cant charge and use a usb peripheral unless you buy a special expensive adapter, link below. Also the port only supports usb OTG (on the go) cables. I highly recommend buying a case for this tablet, it does not boast being drop or shock proof, it may survive a few on its own but not many, also its less than 200 dollars. The tablet itself feels sturdy in your hand and its light weight design makes it comfortable to hold. For a case I bought the Finite Keyboard Case with the magnetic Bluetooth keyboard, opened up this tablet looks like a miniature laptop that's more difficult to use in the lap but doable and its up to 60% smaller than a full sized laptop. All in all, the Dell Venue 8 Pro is an all around fully functional Windows 8 tablet PC and at its low price their are few that can compete with its specs. This is directed at Amazon, I am slightly frustrated that I bought this when it went on sale for $230 only to discover that the day I receive it (2 days later) the price dropped to $199. UPDATE (8/2/2014): I have been using the tablet for about a week now, still getting used to the size of the UI and the tiny keyboard that came with the case. Currently trying to figure out a battery leak that occurs during standby, its not a hardware issue with the tablet I just hope dell releases a patch for it so I do end up doing all the work. I have not broken the USB port yet, thankfully, I figure as long as I'm careful and don't try to force it in the wrong way I shouldn't have anything to worry about. If you feel like you may have issues plugging it in properly, mark the side that faces the screen with whiteout so you see it when plugging it in. The micro USB port is rated for 10,000 disconnects and reconnects and I realized that my kindle fire has the same port (and I used to plug and unplug that like 3 times a day). The port is kind of tight still, I hope it loosens up with use. Pros: *8" Capacitive 10 point touch screen *Functionality of windows 8 *quad core intel atom processor w/ 1.8 ghz boost *Bluetooth 4.0 for multiple peripheral connectivity *lightweight *long lasting battery *front and back facing cameras *Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013 included Cons: (most of these can be ignored for the price) *Inconvenient windows button location *Still some bugs to work out *Fragile and tight micro usb port *charging speed *only 1280 x 800 res display *after the OS, office and updates only 10 gigs of storage space remain Device Specs: *Dell Venue 8 Pro *Dim - 8.5 x 5.1 x 0.35 inches (216 x 130 x 9 mm) *Windows 8.1 32 bit *Intel Atom quad core CPU w/ 1.8 ghz boost *2 GB of DDR3 RAM *32/64 GB of integrated eMMC storage *8 inch IPS HD 1280 x 800 res, 189 ppi LCD (LED lit) display; 10 point capacitive touch screen *Long lasting battery, 8-10 hours *0.87 lbs *wifi b/g/n dual band WiFi w/ Bluetooth 4.0 capability *micro usb a+b port (doubles as charging port) *volume up/down buttons *Micro SD expansion slot *built in speaker and microphone *5 mp rear camera/ 1.2 mp front facing camera *Accelerometer for orientation, Compass, and AGPS (WiFi assisted GPS) Useful Accessories: Fintie Blade X1 Dell Venue 8 Pro (Windows 8.1) Keyboard Case - Ultra Slim Shell Stand Cover with Magnetically Detachable Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard (Only Fit DELL Venue 8 Pro Windows 8.1 tablet) - Black SanDisk Extreme Plus 32GB MicroSDHC UHS-I Memory Card Speed Up To 80MB/s With Adapter, Frustration-Free Packaging- SDSDQX-032G-AFFP-A SanDisk Extreme Plus 64GB MicroSDXC UHS-I Memory Card Speed Up To 80MB/s With Adapter, Frustration-Free Packaging- SDSDQX-064G-AFFP-A EEEKit Office 3-in-1 Kit for Dell Venue 8 Inch Pro ASUS Transformer Book T100TA-C1-GR Windows 8.1 Tablet, Micro USB B 5Pin Male to USB A Female with Angle Adapter Host Mode OTG Cable + 3 Port USB Hub + 2.4G Wireless Mouse Black +Port: USB + Power at the same time for mobile devices (solution for the inability to charge and use the USB port at the same time)(I have not purchased this yet)

True iPad killer is here if you don't really enjoy Apple ecosystem. I stream movies and musics as files from my own server, without any DLNA or AirPlay in between, that so I get the full strength of everything. This is something only a Windows tablet could do. Pros: - Powerful. It is a x86 CPU with two cores, with a decent graphic engine. I play COD 6 on it and it is smooth. - Light weight. Lighter than iPad, but more powerful. Heavier than some same sized Android pads, but a similarly powerful one never existed. - Good screen. The screen is of course not as decent as Retina. But for its size and general use on it, the resolution is high enough. Also the color is very good, bright and vivid. I've seen better on professional displays, but this is only a tablet. Except resolution, the screen is pretty much up to 1st Gen iPad Mini. - Long lasting. Unless you get to run a bunch of close-relative-of-computer-virus software on it, its battery lasts longer than 6 hours. That's 6 hours of time you have it turned on. I carry it with me all day and use it occasionally, and it lasts 2 days for me. - Full strength of Windows 8.1. Although haters are going to hate Windows, but for an average user, it means everything familiar is runnable on it. Productivity stuff like PowerPoint and Excel runs smoothly. Photoshop is running OK on it, only that the limited RAM size cause it to panic time to time. - Don't forget it is fundamentally a PC. You can wipe the system and install Ubuntu. Or Android. It can virtualize an Android for sure. When did you see a tablet run another OS inside its own OS? You can connect a lot of things to it, like an printer. You'll need a USB HOST cable to connect your old non-wireless printer that comes with a proprietary driver. No other kind of tablet else can, like a twice expensive iPad. Also, although not for everyone, you can install Computrace (Computer LoJack) on it and worry less if you lost it. And more to it, it is Dell, that means your Computrace is not possibly be wiped out. Alright enough with all the sweet talking. Cons: - Battery. Though this applies to every tablet. If you play a game on it you get much less battery life, like about less than 2. But it is the bottom line. - No MHL. You need an USB Video card to connect to external display, or a Mira supported wireless display adapter. None of them is cheap and decent at the same time. - Sound. The speaker is not too good. It is quite reasonable to expect no bass, because of its size. But there is popping sound and trembling when volume is high. It is better than most Android pad, but clearly no match with an iPad. - Cannot charge at the same time using USB OTG. Weird design, I wonder if it is fixable by BIOS update or driver update. However this only applies to you guys with a Y-cable which is physically possible to do so. - Stupid placement of physical start button and power button. Power button is too close to volume rocker, I make wrong moves all the time. Very annoying. And you don't get a delay trigger kind of power button (like on an ThinkPad, you press and hold for a very short while to trigger the button action), so it is quite easy to interrupt whatever you are doing when you try to move it. It is okay if you are doing Office. It is very not okay if you are skypeing with your friends. Start button is too isolated to everything. It is on top side (as the orientation is designed to be, because that side could be any side if you turn it around). I usually cannot find it at once without looking. Windows 8.1 is easy enough to perform such actions, why not just add some functionality buttons? - Structure design minor flaw. If you press the bottom side (again, the supposed to be bottom side) seam, it squeaks a little bit. I owned three of this (2 being gifts to my parents and friend), all three of them does this. Wrap up: If you are more comfortable with Windows, this is the smallest and yet decent thing running Windows 8.1. It is affordable but comes with amazing power. It runs smoothly just like your desktop. I could not be more strongly recommending this tablet to you. If you are looking for a laptop / desktop replacement, you'd better go with Venue 11 Pro or Surface Pro (1 and 2). It's lack of expansions will make your life harder. If you are an Android / iPad lover, consider this: I play COD6 on this tablet. If you don't like to use mouse, you could play Civilization. I play it too. If you are swinging between this, Lenovo Miix 2, and Acer Iconia W3, here's my opinion (based on very limited knowledge): Miix 2 sucks in screen, Iconia W3 sucks in overall build quality. Thank you for reading this.

Update 2: Short comparison between Asus T100 and Dell Venue 8 Pro So I also bought an Asus T100 for a close member of my family and I can use it any time I want. I know many people are cross-shopping these two tablets. Build quality is significantly higher on the Dell Venue 8 Pro, but the Asus T100 feels very good too, especially for the price. The T100 screen glass feels like plastic instead of glass initially, the screen surface feels hard to glide figers on. But it becomes useable after some time, after some finger grease settles on it. I think it is missing some special coating specific to high-quality touch screens. The T100 has some significant shortcomings (besides its obvious advantages): battery drains much faster at idle/sleep, even after flashing the latest 220 BIOS and the latest Windows and Asus updates. This happens especially when docked to the keyboard. While the Dell Venue 8 Pro can stay in connected stand-by for like 5-7 days, the Asus T100 drains in 24 hours if docked or ~2 days if removed from dock. It also drains much faster with usage. Something is wrong with the T100 battery life at this time, hopefully it's fixable via some updates, but I am afraid it may have something to do with hardware too. The charging time is quite slow too, making you keep the laptop with the charger connected most of the time. Keyboard on the T100 feels very good, keys are a tiny bit smaller than on the previous "netbooks" but insigificantly so. You get used to them and become productive in 1-2 days. Much better than a touch screen keyboard. Trackpad is as good as any notebook trackpad but only after you uninstall the Asus SmartGestures software and flash the 220 BIOS. The Asus T100 docking mechanism is very good and stable, with one shortcoming of a too narrow maximum screen tilting angle. Sometimes you wish you could tilt the screen more. All in all, if the T100 fixes its battery and stand-by problems it's a near perfect convertible tablet/laptop. But right now I cannot fully recommend it, and instead I would recommend the Venue 8 Pro with the official wireless keyboard case (unless you absolutely need a larger screen). Update 1: the official Dell keyboard case for Venue 8 Pro can finally be ordered from Dell, and it looks quite good with a polycarbonate case that also includes a stand (like the Microsoft Surface models). However, the price is quite steep at $99. Although on the tablet page the keyboard is listed as "coming soon", just search Dell web site for either "Dell Wireless Keyboard" or "460-BBHL" which is the product code for the keyboard case. Can't wait to receive mine :) Now the original review: To get you an idea of how much I wanted this tablet: I am from Europe, but Dell Venue 8 Pro is not available in my country (it will probably be available in 3-5 months at 1.5-2x the US price, as usual). So I used a package forwarding company and bought the tablet directly from Amazon US. Nevertheless, the tablet was in my hand in 3 days, thanks to Amazon Prime (trial) and a very fast service from the package forwarding company. I am a software developer at core. Even if today I have a higher position in hierarchy, I am still passionate about writing software. Since a very long time ago I secretly wanted a tablet that runs full Windows and can (when no other solution available) be used to develop/fix software and even deliver it to customers. I always thought that Windows has the power to be a 2-in-1 operating system (power both desktops and tablets), and Windows 8.1 achieves this seemingly impossible goal. I just hate how the Android and iOS tablets are really crippled when it comes to doing actual work. You can browse the web, read some books, watch movies with them, but that's about it. For many economy areas, the web technology is still quite slow and underdeveloped to allow you to really be productive "in the cloud". The 28 years of Windows productivity just can't be replaced by 6 years of (Android/iOS) OS development centered around generating advertising revenue from content consumption. Ok, so now back to the Dell Venue 8 Pro. Build quality is impressive. Tablet feels very solid and non-flexible. What could be improved is the bezel around the LCD screen. It has a couple of extra plastic edges which somewhat lower the high-quality feel of the tablet. The screen of the tablet is a bit warm color-wise upon first start, but quite bright if you disable the automatic brightness adjustment. The whites have a yellowish tint, which usually happens due to either intentional color calibration, or the glue bonding the TFT layers which will dry and whiten in a few days of use. This also happened on some iPhones and some Nexus devices some time ago, generating quite a lot of buzz. However, my Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 remained with the yellow-ish tint even after some use, so I am not expecting the Dell to gain really white whites but it may just be. I find the screen size absolutely perfect for tablet use. However regular desktop-mode use requires a larger screen, but it can absolutely be used without problems when needed. The resolution of 1280x800 is sufficient, but pixels can easily be seen. A full-HD resolution would really benefit this tablet. But we have to think about the price, which is really low for such functionality. And also, Windows 8.1 is not ready for such high pixel densities, some work still needs to be done. The storage system (which uses a cost-efficient eMMC interface) is faster than a traditional mechanical hard-disk especially at seeking (random accessing) times, but significantly slower than a full-blown SSD. However it is very well matched to the rest of the hardware, everything loads quite quickly. Software installation does suffer in speed compared to a SSD, basically software installs 2+ times slower than a SSD. Processor speed is quite adequate for this tablet, about 3 times faster than previous netbooks, but also 2.5 times slower than the slowest Haswell Celeron desktop processor. Web pages load quickly enough and most web sites are very fluid, but the graphical system plays a role here as well. In fact, web browsing is faster than any Android or iPad tablet I have owned (up to iPad 3). The installed 2GB of RAM memory is quite adequate and about perfect for productivity tasks (less for games). However when I tried to process a RAW picture from my camera in Adobe Lightroom and then export it, I got an "out of memory" error and could only export the picture without applying a final amount of sharpening. I do think that 2GB should be enough this can be remedied, maybe the paged file (extra memory that Windows allocates on disk when the 2GB are full) is disabled by default, I will have to investigate more. But the simple fact that I can run Lightroom on this tablet is amazing :) (update: problem solved on its own after a reboot). About the connectivity: the presence of only one USB port is crippling, but I immediately bought an OTG cable and a USB+SD card reader hub which works perfectly albeit with the added cable clumsiness. The only thing I wish was that the tablet could charge and use the USB hub at the same time. Due to some conflicting specifications on USB chargers vs. USB devices, you cannot charge and use the USB as a data port at the same time, even via a hub (there are some nasty tricks to do this but it's not simple). The Micro-SD port is great and I will probably use it with a 64GB card, however almost all current microSD 32GB+ cards fail rather quickly (months) probably due to not mature enough miniaturization technology, and cannot be trusted with data that is not also replicated in the cloud via SkyDrive. Luckily, there is SkyDrive installed. So make sure that if you use a microSD card, the data on it is also synchronized in the clould. Battery life is very good, impressive for a full-Windows device. It lasts 8-10 hours with (my) normal use. About the software: to be honest, I like the Metro (touch) portion of the software more than the Android and iOS. It's just easier to browse, navigate, switch between apps, spell-check works better than any other OS. On almost all Android tablets and phones that I have owned there is a short but annoying delay from when I begin to swipe the finger on the screen until the page begins to scroll. That delay is absent here and this makes a tremendous difference. The only thing I miss is a Google Gmail application with push-email support. But this will probably never happen. In summary, this is a great productivity tablet, the kind of tablet that you can take on a business or pleasure trip and never miss your laptop. Intel and Microsoft have a huge role in this, but I think Intel missed a few good years in which they could have done this new Atom processor and not keep people waiting so much on a power-efficient, full-Windows capable hardware. My prediction is that this combination of touch + desktop in a tablet will quickly lead to the decline of iPad / Android tablet sales in the next few years. We play, we socialize, but we must also work for a living and it's just easier and more productive to have one device for everything. Unless, of course, Apple follows suit and unifies OS X with iOS some years from now. Google is forced to keep developing web-based technologies, but the data transmission speed (speed of light) will always be a problem in making cloud-based applications as responsive as desktop applications.

I'll preface this by saying outright that the tablet is not for everyone. If you want the best tablets for gaming, absolutely pick an iPad. If you want the cheapest tablets that are no muss no fuss for your family, definitely get a Kindle Fire. If you want the cheapest tablets and know how to deal with a slightly less secure ecosystem and a bit more complexity, go with a Nexus 7 or something similar. BUT - if you want an extremely fast, extremely capable tablet that can do everything an Android tablet can, and then some, as long as you put a little bit of work into it contorting it into something it might not have meant to be, this tablet is absolutely excellent. --Build quality and such-- This tablet feels great, has an excellent textured back. It's definitely plastic and feels a little cheap at times, but it also gives me confidence that it'll last for a long time without issues. The only problem is that it gets a bit hot when playing games, but only in one part of the back which you generally don't touch when holding it. Hopefully it doesn't prove to be a reliability problem over time, I'll update this review if it does. The tablet is also light enough to hold with one hand in portrait orientation for an extended period of time. Even in landscape you can, but maybe not for a long time. The screen is a disappointing lower resolution, especially since I know the chip in this thing can push higher resolutions with ease, but it's still better than last year's iPad Mini and the quality is gorgeous outside of resolution. The DPI is high enough to comfortably allow reading in either orientation. Battery life is hit and miss. It lasts long enough for me, and this review is just my own opinion, I'm not trying to presume opinions of others. I get around 6-8 hours of battery life with the brightness turned pretty far up. The biggest problem is standby battery life, where it lasts only around 5-7 days when not using it. I expect better out of tablets these days. --Speed-- I've extensively used the brand new Surface 2, and this tablet is noticeably faster than it at most tasks. Navigating email using the Mail app is a breeze, web pages load very quickly, side-by-side multitasking doesn't slow it down at all. Games perform "fast enough", but the graphics capabilities are definitely slower than the Surface 2 here. The device is a sheer pleasure to use on the bus or the couch to just catch up on my news feeds, go through my email, and other basic tasks. --The Windows Store-- I've actually been pleasantly surprised with how the Store has progressed. I feel like most reviewers were just left with an impression from its paltry state last year and didn't bother to check to see what's new. There's a huge host of news reader apps, and that was recently improved substantially with the inclusion of Flipboard. Feedly apps, Twitter apps, and more - I've never really found it lacking. There are plenty of great games too. For games, I've recently discovered Zombie HQ, Asphalt 8, SoulCraft, and a bunch of others that are much higher-quality than I would have expected. Those are of course alongside the Microsoft games like Solitaire, Minesweeper, Taptiles, and others which have been there for about a year now. I've used iPhones and iPod Touches for years and years and know what a mature app ecosystem looks. If you want the latest and greatest games, iOS devices are absolutely unquestionably the way to go. It's not even a question. But if you just want a tablet that has plenty of games to choose from, even if they might not be the latest and best, the Windows Store has plenty to choose from with more arriving every day. --"Contortion"-- While the Windows Store is improving, you're of course not limited to it on this device. You can do what I call "contort" the device to do pretty much anything with a little bit of patience and work. Want to plug in a 360 controller? Go right ahead! Use every Bluetooth peripheral ever made? It's a regular PC, millions of devices work without issue, and you can install literally any drivers you want. Go for it. I've installed Steam and have been digging around for good touch-supported games. There aren't that many yet unfortunately, but a few like Papers Please, Little Inferno, and Puzzle Agent are great fits. There's even a utility called GestureWorks which uses crowd-sourced button input layouts to turn non-touch games into touch-friendly games. It's still a work in progress, and will only be good for slower/turn-based games, but it shows a lot of promise. So if you want a tablet purely for gaming, while iOS devices are the obvious choice, you can do pretty much anything with this device if you add some peripherals and utilities to get it done. There are YouTube videos online showing gaming performance if you want to get an idea of how games run - it's surprisingly good. One other thing - the storage is limited at only 14GB left out of box on the 32GB version, but you can use an SD card for everything you want, and also move the recovery partition to a USB stick to free up an extra 5-6GB of space. So I give this tablet a 5/5, because for me, it does what I want it to do, better than I expected, and can do so much more with a little bit of work. But that's a 5/5 with caveats since others' interests and patience might differ substantially.

It is difficult to review the Dell Venue 8 Pro tablet without getting into a debate of the merits versus the detriments of the Windows 8 Operating System. Not since Windows Vista has an OS from Microsoft caused this much controversy, and with good reason. Windows 8 is different. So different that it appears to have left users in one of 2 camps. Either you love Windows 8 or you loathe it. Understanding the reasons behind the divisiveness of users' opinions towards Windows 8 is pivotal in understanding how this tablet from Dell is either perfect for you or one that you should stay away from. Surely, I could review this tablet based entirely on the merits of its hardware alone, but that would be deceptive to the potential customers interested in purchasing it. As such, I will attempt to review this device taking into consideration the entire experience. Upon first handling the Dell Venue 8 Pro from the box, one notices the solid yet pleasingly lightweight feel of the device. Unlike some other small tablets that eschew metals for light weight plastics, this device doesn't feel cheaply constructed like some of them do. The subtle yet noticeable texture of concentric circles on the back of the device is a welcome touch. The back feels like it is coated in rubber and that slight feeling of friction evokes confidence when holding the unit. The weight of the unit, at 0.87lbs, feels just right in the hand and easily allows for extended periods of use. The device is also very slim at 0.35" which adds to its allure. Overall I found the build quality to be on par with a premium Tablet product like the iPad Mini. Although it is still made from plastic and glass, there are no creaks to be heard on this device. There is nothing revolutionary about the ports that come standard on the device. You get 1 x Micro USB port for charging, 1 x Micro SD Card slot hiding under a small plastic tab, and one combo Headphone/Microphone port. Note that Dell also sells a model with a SIM card slot compatible with ATT cellular networks. A nice addition, since many small tablets fail to offer cellular solutions even though In my opinion they are a perfect form factor for use on cellular networks. The model I'm reviewing did not have this feature. Besides these ports, the tablet has a standard volume rocker and a power button on the right hand side when held vertically; on the top when held in landscape. One curious addition to the buttons on the tablet is a dedicated Windows button located on the top when held vertically or the left when held in landscape. Pressing this button brings the user back to the Windows home screen. More on this feature later. The ports included on the device are fine although I would have preferred a full sized USB port instead of the Micro one, however one can purchase an adapter that will allow you to connect standard sized USB devices such as a wired USB gamepad. I tested an Xbox 360 wired controller on the device with this adapter and it worked just fine. Finally, there is both a forward facing 1.2MP camera as well as 5MP shooter on the rear. The cameras are decent enough shooters for those that need to use Skype, and/or take the occasional snapshot. I’m not much of a photo bug and as such don’t feel qualified to judge the merits of these cameras. To be honest, I’m in the camp of people that uses a cell phone cam for all picture taking and cant understand the need to have cameras on Tablets, but hey, to each their own. In the end, Tablets are portable computing devices with all the components contained within the display. As such, the display is the main point of interaction with the end user and a fair amount of attention should go into the engineering of said displays. As obvious as this may seem to most, trust me when I say that not all companies consider this when manufacturing their tablets. (I’m looking at you Archos Gamepad) With the Dell Venue 8 Pro, you have an 8" IPS display with a resolution of 1280 x 800. On paper this may appear to be low in comparison to other small tablets with higher displays such as the iPad mini with Retina (2048 x 1536) and the Nexus 7 (1920 x 1200) before it, and you would be right. However in real world use, I have found that a tablet at this size, (7"-8") with a higher resolution, may be more of a negative than a positive. Watching HD videos seemed just as crisp on this device as on those other devices. Since a majority of people cannot tell the difference between 720p and 1080p, the point becomes mute. If one is to look to the near future however, we will one day soon be consuming media at much higher resolutions (4K anyone?) and wonder how it was that we "got by" watching content on such low resolutions. A valid point for 2016 maybe but right now, I do not see a need to prepare for content that is at least a couple of years away from being as ubiquitous as HD is today. One point of contention I do have is that the brightness in this display did not seem to be on par with the competition and the Dell Venue 8 Pro screen always seemed to be a bit dimmer than it should be. Part of this is probably related to the need to offset the power consumption for better battery life, a concern that many have had with the initial crop of Windows tablets and one that has seemed to have been addressed in the current Haswell and Baytrail versions. Overall the display is very nice and responsive to the touch and the primary colors of the “live tiles” from Windows 8 seem to pop from the screen nicely enough all things considered. The Venue 8 Pro comes with 2GB of RAM which seems just fine with normal usage. It is easy to forget however that even though this is a tablet, it is also a full fledged Windows computer. Unlike most lightweight tablet apps that run on Apple’s IOS and Google’s Android, one could potentially run desktop applications that could ultimately cause a slowdown in performance. Even though the newer Baytrail processor has been optimized to perform better, it is still based on the same Atom CPU’s used previously in Netbooks, so don’t expect to break any performance records. Overall for casual computing, the tablet performs very well and I have few complaints about its performance. I have noticed that it can get a little warm during graphics intensive operations but not uncomfortably so. Storage wise, the Dell Venue 8 Pro comes in either 32GB or 64GB internally. I chose the 64GB as again, we are dealing with a full version of Windows here so demands on resources are high. With an optional 64GB SD card, you can get up to 128GB of storage for the around $350. Not bad when you compare a similarly spec’d iPad mini to run closer to $900. The price to performance ratio on this device is probably reason enough for many people to choose it over some of its competitors. That and the freedom this device offers over the iPads and Android devices that it competes with. When I use the word freedom, I mean to say that the Venue 8 Pro does not have a locked down ecosystem like an iPad. Nor does it have an Operating System that is incompatible with the majority of desktop software that you currently use, as is the average Android tablet. The major benefit to a Windows 8 tablet is that it is a fully functional Windows 8 computer. Where most tablets have been optimized for the tablet experience only, the Dell Venue 8 Pro as well as other Windows 8 tablets, are meant to allow the user to install full blown Windows applications. This is both a blessing and a curse and the reason why I ultimately cannot recommend this device for most tablet users. Although many people first think of companies like Apple and Samsung when it comes to tablets, I remember back in 2002, when Microsoft attempted to define the category of the Tablet PC. They ultimately failed but it had more to do with the technical limitations of the day and less with the overall concept. The Tablets in 2002 were thick and heavy and only lasted for a couple of hours at best. These limitations coupled with the fact that Microsoft was essentially “shoe-horning” Windows XP into a tablet interface, led to their early demise. Microsoft has come a long way since then and with a strong list of hardware partners in addition to some great in house engineering efforts of their own, are now offering a much better user experience than back in 2002. But have they really changed that much? Windows 8 presents itself as a tablet Operating System. With big bright tiles on the start screen, the OS is tailor made for the touch experience….almost. The problem is that Windows 8 tries to be a tablet OS but also wants to be a traditional Desktop OS. Many of its features still require the desktop mode that resembles and behaves like the desktop on Windows 7, only more obfuscated. Many features that customers of the previous versions of Windows were accustomed to are now hidden and require a search to find; one of the most popular of which being the Start Menu. In what appears to be back peddling, Microsoft has promised to bring back the Start Menu via an update to be released shortly. I believe, however, that this fails to address the real problem. The real problem is that Windows 8 is attempting to be too many things and not doing any of them particularly well. Oh sure, the Windows live tiles are great for getting updated information quickly, but not all apps are written in this new Metro interface so you’ll find more often than not, you’ll be going right back to the desktop mode for operation. It’s not that desktop mode is such a bad thing. It does allow you to run all of the Windows applications that you do on your desktop\laptop as you normally could. As nice as this sounds, many Windows apps (including Microsoft Office) just aren’t meant to run on a touch screen; especially not one only 8” across diagonally. The resulting effect is an exercise in frustration as you attempt and fail to activate on screen controls and buttons that are way too small to make contact with correctly. This often leads to nothing happening or worse, the wrong thing happening at the wrong time. When Steve Jobs was alive and was commenting on how he would never produce a smaller tablet, he was quoted as saying that “they would have to include sandpaper to file down human fingers to a quarter of their size.” I now understand what he meant, and even though the iPad mini was eventually released, IOS does a great job of keeping most of the on screen controls big enough to be used comfortably. Windows 8, not so much. Ultimately the Dell Venue 8 Pro and probably all of the existing and upcoming Windows 8 tablets will fail to find a sure footing with the modern tablet user. With a more simplified interface and thousands of more apps, both IOS and Android tablets provide a more “frustration free” experience. The nice hardware build by Dell, in this case becomes meaningless, when the ultimate user experience isn’t all that great.

IMPORTANT: IF YOU WANT THE INCLUDED OFFICE 2013 SOFTWARE, MAKE SURE YOUR SELLER IS GIVING YOU THE PRODUCT KEY WITH YOUR USED/REFURBISHED PURCHASE. "PREINSTALLED" doesn't mean anything. Ask your seller. It seems that the majority of sellers on the web who carry the Venue 8 Pro will buy the tablet, take out the Office product key, and then resell the tablet (at a little under retail price) and the Office key SEPARATELY either to try to make more or because they took the key and activated Office for themselves. Think about it - you buy the tablet for $249, take out the Office key, resell the tablet for $200 (not informing the customer you've removed the key), and sell the Office key for $100... instant $50 profit from NOTHING! For whatever reason, to my dismay, it seems that this is "common practice" and something to be expected from merchants selling used Venue 8 Pros and similar products, whereas I see it as utterly immoral and misleading. The Amazon product description leads you to believe that the tablet has Office 2013 preinstalled and that upon receiving a used, reset tablet, you can just launch Word and start using it. You must know that Office 2013 is "preinstalled" on the tablet as an "INSTALL MICROSOFT OFFICE" app, which upon opening prompts the customer to enter a Office 2013 product key. Without the product key, "preinstalled" or not, the software is USELESS. This is not the Surface RT, which runs on an operating system with Office literally built in, this has full x86 Windows 8.1 and Office needs to be installed and activated just like it does on any other Windows machine. Now, to my review: Products like this are difficult to review because it is difficult to pinpoint their category. It is a $200 budget widescreen tablet, so it is a Nexus 7 competitor? Yet, it is also a full quad-core Windows machine running an x86 operating system. I still scratch my head at the thought: a full Windows machine for $200?!? It's hard to say what the Venue 8 pro is, and the onboard Windows 8.1 in my opinion doesn't help with its dual user interfaces, fuzzing the line between tablet and computer even further. But I do know one thing about this tablet: I love it. For $200, it's a geek toy and in a way should be treated as such, but it is so much more capable than a toy tablet. I admit - when I owned an iPad mini I told myself that it could do this and do that with my shiny little tablet, and always ended up just watching YouTube videos and reading email. But the Venue 8 Pro can actually go beyond that. When I have it on the go or around my house, yes, it immediately becomes a consumption device. Watching videos, viewing photos/basic editing, basically becoming an iPad mini or Nexus 7 but with fewer touch-friendly apps. But as soon as I dock it in with a keyboard and mouse, it's a computer and I am writing Word documents, reports, and running statistics software. Speaking of a keyboard and mouse, the "docking" factor is also the Venue 8 Pro's biggest weakness - while it is a fully capable quad-core Windows machine on the inside, one simply cannot make use of all its power without desktop accessories. The Windows on-screen keyboard is good, and for some reason I type better with it than I do with KitKat's stock keyboard, but typing anything long is just a massive waste of time no matter how fast you are with a touch keyboard. It supports Synaptics active pen input, and while that solves the problem of the lack of accurate pointing device, it doesn't address the lack of a keyboard as standard. That's one thing the Surface RT did right, for instance, as many compromises as that device had - Microsoft (eventually) bundled it with the keyboard case because it was an integral part of the Windows working experience. The moral of the story: if you get the Venue 8 Pro, get some USB accessories like a keyboard and mouse - you won't regret it. Using accessories with the Venue 8 Pro is a bit sketchy. It has one microUSB port that doubles as the charging port, so while USB OTG adapters allow you to plug in your USB peripherals, it cancels your device's ability to simultaneously charge. There are ways around this (Google to see what I mean) that feel hacky and not a fluid experience, involving multiple cables, fooling the tablet into thinking it's plugged into one thing when it's not using switches, etc. There are third party Kickstarter projects that aim to address this problem specifically for this tablet and others with similar issues, but if you're interested in making this tablet a true, low-power desktop replacement, make sure you do your research and know what you're doing with that one microUSB port. When you do figure it out, however, the tablet works great. I'm not even going to deduct a star because I really have no complaints in doing a tiny bit of hacking with the $165 price I paid. Note that the tablet DOES NOT come with a USB OTG adapter included - you'll have to get your own, but they're only about a dollar on Amazon. As for the hardware itself, I found the Venue 8 Pro to be the most physically attractive in the small-form-factor x86 Windows 8 tablet range. It has a very clean front panel, shiny metal buttons that actually feel like they're metal (not sure if they really are), and the back of the device, where so many other consumer electronics just stop caring about aesthetics, looks really good with its concentric, rubberized grooves. This gives you a great grip on the tablet, which is important as it is just a tad too heavy to be used with one hand for long periods of time. The display is absolutely lovely - 1280x800 doesn't sound like much but on an 8-inch screen with Windows ClearType font smoothing, it looks real good. and very crisp. I have had no gripes with pixel density, and while I often cringe when switching from my gorgeous iPad air's 2048x1536 to anything else, I don't find the Dell's display to be fuzzy or pixely at all. The colors also help - color saturation is wonderful, and viewing angles are amazing as expected from an IPS panel. It's just a great display, really good for watching videos. I still wouldn't edit photos on it just yet (~70% sRGB), but for consumption it has one of the better displays I have seen. I really wish that the tablet came with more onboard storage, but who can I blame but myself?! I bought the 32GB version and my only regret was not bumping it up to 64GB because upon a clean Windows reset, I had about 11GB of free space on the onboard storage. Upon installing Office and some other basic apps, I am down to about 4GB. This makes the microSD slot on the Venue 8 Pro absolutely priceless. I have installed games to it, stored most of my files on it now, and this almost completely solves the issue of low storage capacity (except for the fact that it takes a hack to install Windows Store Modern UI apps to external storage). If you're worried about storage, I strongly recommend getting the 64GB model. Battery life is amazing from this little Windows machine. For the amount I use it, it lasts a whole day, sometimes overnight without charging. Windows hibernates very well and it appears that the Bay Trail Atom CPU is very power-efficient. Speaking of the CPU, the back of the device can get really hot when doing something intensive like playing a game. Playing a racing game while holding the tablet can make you really feel the burn on your fingertips, and when running an actual game like Command and Conquer 3 or Half-Life 2 (games like this run surprisingly well at lower settings with playable frame rates!)? Yeah, it gets really hot. It feels like it wants a fan, but of course the design doesn't allow for it. I haven't noticed the CPU throttling at all, however, which is good as performance feels consistent. Apps open snappily for the most part and perform quite well. Way more than enough speed for something basic like Office or web browsing, you can try and push the limits by playing some games on it or running Photoshop! There ARE, however, times when I feel like Windows wants more RAM and can't get any. The onboard 2GB just isn't enough to multitask like you would on a desktop machine, but again, for maybe 4-5 apps open at once with a few browser tabs, you're fine. I've found this table GREAT for using Steam's in-home streaming feature: with my Xbox 360 controller, it effectively turns the tablet into a makeshift Nvidia Shield if you know what that is :) As was true of the iPad mini when it came out, Windows touchscreen apps scale beautifully to the smaller form factor. Even the desktop mode feels good, which was my largest concern considering how small buttons would get. However, with my massive pianist fingertips I could resize windows, manipulate text, and do just about anything I could with a mouse with ease. That's not even with a stylus. I won't talk about the stylus as I believe that should be part of a separate review for the stylus itself (especially because it doesn't come bundled but instead is a separate accessory) but it has mixed results. The one area of the touch experience that I find detracting from a great experience is screen rotation - The device is small enough that it is comfortable to use in portrait mode, even as a widescreen tablet (I usually prefer Apple's 4:3 aspect ratio style for portrait/landscape switching), but Windows makes it REALLY SLOW to switch orientations. Tilt your device, and it actually takes upward of 1 or 2 seconds for the device to recognize its new orientation and adapt its contents to your liking. This is terrible if you're someone like me who carries their tablet everywhere, on planes, into bed, and if you accidentally tilt it too far in one direction, you think your tablet freezes for a few seconds as it struggles to catch up with the new orientation. I've found this true of Windows tablets in general, not necessarily for the Venue 8 Pro alone. I often find myself just disabling screen rotation when I'm on the go so I don't have to deal with this. The speaker is super loud on the Venue 8 Pro, making it great for Skype calling and casual video watching, but not great for long-term film watching or gaming. It is on the tinny side for speakers, only has one channel, and distorts at high volumes. This cannot compete with Amazon's Kindle Fire lineup when it comes to audio quality, nor even with Apple's iPad lineup. With headphones, the onboard DAC is just okay. It's a tad better than average for tablets in its size class (lightyears better than some of the terrible, cheap Android tablets I've played with), but not something I would use for long-term music listening. Listening to iTunes while doing some work? Sure, why not, it's good enough. The cameras are nothing special. Both are terrible for taking still shots or even videos, but more than decent for making video calls. The fact that it has both a front-facing and back-facing camera for the price is just an added bonus. As you can tell, I really enjoy the tablet, and having only paid $165 for a refurbished one here on Amazon, I really can't complain. Microsoft Office 2013 Home and Student alone costs some $90-140, so if you look at it that way, you're paying some $30-40 for a fully functioning quad-core Windows 8 tablet. I say if you want one, go get one, because there's so little room for regret here. Even if a few features are lacking, it'll likely make up for it for you because it's just so feature-packed.

[EDIT: after using this tablet for a few more weeks. I just find out more and more annoying issues. I am really tempted to give this tablet one star. First issue, the issue that I mention below regarding 'the screen goes black after login' return again. Second issue, the wifi has to be turn on and off everytime I restart the device or else it won't work. Third issue, just now, the device turn off by itself (actually I'm not sure if it goes to sleep or turn off, but the screen goes black.) I press power button, nothing happen. I wait a while, press power button, still nothing happen. I hold the power button for a few seconds, press the windows button, press all the buttons on the device, still nothing happen. The device is fully charged, so I know it's not low battery issue. I plug in the charger, wait a while and press the power button and hold it for like almost 20 seconds, and finally, the device turn on again. I'm not sure what is the problem. Now I started to regret in buying this device.] This is overall a good tablet. It meets much of my expectation. First I'll talk about the good stuffs. The screen looks good, just remember to turn off auto brightness. The device is not heavy. It's considered fast for an atom processor, I don't have any problem browsing the web with several tabs open, and I can browse pages with flash. Haven't tested the tablet with many games. So far, it runs well with League of Legends, Terraria, Gemini Rue and Portal, although I'm not running it at the highest setting. I saw someone was able to play Starcraft 2 on it on youtube. I would say the tablet would be able to play plenty of PC games if not set at the highest setting. However, I wouldn't recommend to buy this tablet just for gaming (see the issues below). The battery lasts about 6 hours while browsing the web. Pretty decent I would say, and it takes about 4.5 hours to fully charge it. Now let's talk about the issues. On the first week when I received it, every time I turn on the device, the screen will goes black after I typed in my login password. I need to wait a few seconds, then press the on/off button again in order to enter windows. I still had that problem after I updated all the firmware. This is not a big issue for me, more like an annoyance, though now I don't have that problem anymore, not sure what went wrong (or what went right). The sound from the tablet is OK, but it is located at the bottom of the tablet. So if you are viewing video, the sound seems like coming from one side of the tablet only. Again, this is annoying, but you can always use an earphone. If you are plugging a device into the micro-usb, you won't be able to charge the tablet. Seems like there's a solution for this by using a Y-cable usb otg cable, though I haven't tested it out, and I think Dell should at least provided a usb otg cable which they don't. Now for the issue that almost cause me to give 3 star. The device gets pretty hot when you are running heavy programs or games. That alone is not the problem. The problem is, after it gets hot to a certain extent, the whole tablet will shut down. This happens to me while I was playing Terraria in a room temperature environment. I'm not sure if this issue only apply to me or to all of the Dell venue 8 pro tablet.

First, let me say to everyone who has difficulties operating in Desktop mode because of large fingers that everything can be made a lot bigger: Right click on the Desktop (touch and hold before releasing) and touch on “Screen resolution”. You’ll have the option to “Change the appearance of your display”. At the bottom of that page touch on “Make text and other items larger or smaller”. Next, touch on “Custom sizing options” and select whatever fits you. I elected 150%. Notice that the screen resolution won’t be affected. In Internet Explorer you can zoom by pinching or double tapping. Double tapping automatically tries to make columns fit the width of the display. Therefore, I don’t really need the stylus for basic operation of the tablet, although it’s nice to have it. After a long wait, since December, Dell sent me a replacement stylus by Next Day FedEx (at Dell’s expense), which arrived two days ago. It works beautifully! The active stylus is both a writing or drawing instrument and a mouse substitute. The problems with the old stylus were: 1) It clicked from about ¾” above the tablet, which made it impossible to control, and didn’t stop writing when lifted, so that it would draw tails after everything. 2) The battery would get exhausted after one or a few days in the stylus. Dell released a firmware update on January 2, 2014, which didn’t fix my old stylus but probably helps the new one. The new stylus highlights the icon, word, or menu item on which it will land when it’s about ½” above it, but doesn’t click until you touch. It only writes when it’s touching the tablet. Control and accuracy are nearly perfect. It has a switch on the side. If you press the bottom half of the switch before touching the tablet, a circle will appear on the tablet as the stylus approaches and, when you touch, it will be interpreted as a right click. So, left click is touch and right click is touch with the bottom of the switch pressed. In each case you can know in advance where you are going to touch, which helps you guide the stylus. On OneNote, Excel and other programs putting more or less pressure on the stylus results in a thicker or thinner line. You can almost do calligraphy, as if you were writing with a quill! I measured the voltage of the battery and after over a day in the stylus and frequent use it didn’t change by even one millivolt. Therefore, the fast discharge problem is probably solved. (In the old stylus the battery would lose about half a volt in a day.) As I explained before, as the stylus approaches the tablet, the tablet senses it and items are highlighted. But it you wait slightly less than a minute, the stylus turns itself off and the tablet won’t sense it at a distance any longer. That’s what allows the battery to be saved. And clearly it wasn’t working in the old stylus. To turn the stylus on again, you just need to touch the tablet with it. After using the tablet for over a month and the new stylus for about two days, I’m extremely happy with it. For basic tasks it’s as powerful as many laptops, but small and light. At this price point, for anyone that wants a hand held full Windows 8.1 PC, this is an obvious choice. I would also suggest that some of the problems encountered by other reviewers might be caused by lack of familiarity with Windows 8, Windows in general, or by not having downloaded the firmware and drivers from Dell’s website and updated them.