Dell Venue 8 Pro: The $200 Windows 8 tablet that you should own

[TopWargamer]

I recently picked up the Dell Venue 8 Pro this past weekend, and over there's few days, I have to say, I'm extremely impressed! But of course, you're getting what you pay for, but in this case you're getting your money's worth, but the Venue 8 Pro has its problems - and they're more so Windows 8 problems. 

 

Design

 

The back is textured and picks up fingerprints all too well, the screen is glossy, and despite this, it looks great. The tablet is made out of plastic, but don't let that fool you, it feels like a quality device. it doesn't bend and is a very sturdy, well-built device. 

 

As for buttons and whatnot, the Windows home button is an actual button instead of a touch sensitive button, then there's the power on/off button, and then the volume rocker. Lower down on the device you will find the microSD card slot.

 

Pictures (3x 4160x3120)

 

Performance

 

First, let's start with the specs, but just a few of them. The Venue 8 Pro sports a quad-core Intel Atom Z3740D Bay Trail processor, 2GB of RAM (speed unspecified), 32GB of storage (64GB version available - both has microSD expansion up to 64GB), 8" 1280x800 display, and a 4,830mAh battery. 

 

To start, how about some games. 

 

Civilization V runs perfectly smooth on the tablet...if you you run it at 1280x800 on the lowest settings. I wasn't able to get the game to run unless I set it to that, so it could potentially go higher, but I wasn't able to test that. As we all know, as a game of Civ V goes on, the game gets progressively more taxing on the system, because there's more going on. The Venue 8 Pro shows no hiccups. 

(Due keep in mind that I ran the touch version of Civ 5.)

 

Halo: Spartan Assault was extremely choppy using the pre-determined settings. All I did was cut it down to 1280x800 and took off MSAA and it ran perfectly fine/smooth. Touch controls still feel funky to me though...

 

As for emulators, the only free ones that I could find in the Windows 8 app store were emulators for the GameBoy/GameBoy Color, GameBoy Advance, and SNES. There were other ones available, but I had to pay for them. The emulators that I downloaded are simple and work well, but the controls feel too high up on the screen. As for performance, emulation was flawless with no hiccups.

(Tested with Super Mario World, Final Fantasy III, and Kirby and the Amazing Mirror.) 

 

As for just moving around the OS and doing simple tasks, there were no hiccups or stuttering, which is surprising for it being a $200 Windows tablet. 

 

Battery life

 

I use my tablet so some fairly light things - mainly because I do all of the heavy lifting on my main computer. Today, for example, I used it to web browse, play Civ 5, play Super Mario World and Kirby and the Amazing Mirror. I even left en emulator running in the background for a few hours, and despite this, after 5 hours, the tablet was around 60% battery life. Again, I use it very lightly, but that's still is pretty impressive to me for a Windows tablet. 

 

There are other tests I could do, and once I do them, I will update this post. 

 

Camera

 

Before I show off samples, I want to say this - the very first I opened up the camera app, it blue screened the tablet. No joke. After that, it was perfectly fine. 

 

Anyways, the camera certainly won't win any beauty contests, especially with it only being a 5MP. The image I took was in a sort of low-lit environment, but in a low-lit environment, my phone (LG G2), for example, takes very good low-lit pictures. But then again, that's a pitting a high-end smartphone against a mid-tier tablet. 

 

Picture (1x 2560x1920)

 

Pros

 

-Runs full Windows 8.1 (albeit, 32-bit version) and not any of this RT crap

-Performs superb for the price 

-Battery life is excellent from my experience 

 

Cons

 

-No customizable/swappable on-screen keyboard, nor does it have auto-correct or prediction

-Camera is subpar 

-You cannot change default Metro UI web browsers (Internet Explorer...for life...kill me...) 

-Metro Internet Explorer forgets that I closed a tab and reopens it whenever I open the browser 

-When you first turn on the device, you're bombarded with hours worth of updates, and it updates extremely slowly (and I even have fast internet...) 

 

The Verdict

 

Should you buy it? Well, I say if you're looking for a cheap but good Windows tablet, then ya, you should probably buy it. Yes, it has its issues, but they're mostlyWindows 8 issues, so...they're Microsoft's issues. Basically Windows 8 is borky, so what's new? 

 

If you're interested, you can buy it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Dell-Venue-Pro-Tablet-Windows/dp/B00FEE7B1I/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410840367&sr=8-1&keywords=dell+venue+pro+8

[Psykomantis00]

Can you try league of legends for me pls? Specifically, if you don't mind, what fps you get on what video quality settings in aram. 

[Opcode]

I had my eye on it when it came out then lost interest in it as my use for it wouldn't be that great. Tho it's still nice to see x86 variants of tablets out on the market. I may pick one up once they become the "in" thing.

[ShadowCaptain]

I keep meaning to pick one of these up when I have some spare cash

 

Glad you like it!

[TopWargamer]

Can you try league of legends for me pls? Specifically, if you don't mind, what fps you get on what video quality settings in aram. 

Whenever I can get some storage space, I will. Right now I'm limited to the 32GB that came on the device - which is just about full. I'll be ordering a 64GB microSD card soon to hold all of my games on. I'll update my posts with results whenever I get the microSD card in.