Dell Venue Pro 8 full review

Pros

Great battery life

Comfortable and attractive design

Sharp, bright display

Cons

Requires additional OTA cable for USB support

Awkward Windows Home button placement

Keyboard not included

What is the Dell Venue Pro 8?

The Dell Venue Pro is an 8-inch, Windows 8.1 tablet that they like the Toshiba Encore, the Acer W4 and also the Lenovo MiiX2, provides you with a complete form of Microsoft’s latest operating-system so that you can make use of getting your personal computer with no extra bulk.

After our numerous issues using the Encore, i was wishing that Dell’s offering could restore some optimism that Windows within an iPad Mini 2 Retina or Nexus 7 2-sized body can really work. Fortunately, there exists a more glowing report concerning the Venue Professional 8. It’s undoubtedly probably the most impressive 8-inch Windows 8.1 tablet we have seen so far.

Dell Venue Pro 8: Design

Sat next to Apple’s 7.9-inch tablet or even the Nexus 7, the Dell Venue Pro 8 does not exactly break the look mould for any small tablet. However when you compare it with other 8-inch Windows 8.1 pills, it’s undoubtedly the very best-searching and best to carry within the hands.

The leading appears like your ordinary Android tablet having a black bezel that narrows lower the edges from the 8-inch display. Whenever you switch it over, the soft plastic back with elevated concentric circles provides it with a Nexus 7-feel and offers greater friction compared to flat smooth surfaces around the Encore and also the W4 pills. It will possess a practice of trapping fluff, but we believe this provides the Dell Venue Pro 8 something a little different in comparison with other portable Windows pills.

Just 9mm thick, it isn’t as chunky because the Encore either along with other rival 8-inch Windows 8.1 slates. It weighs in at just 395g, which makes it heavier compared to iPad Mini 2 Retina Wi-Fi (331g), but it’s greater than comfortable to make use of one-handed and provides it an account suitable to presenting in 2 hands.

From the chrome buttons towards the unibody design is well built and fills us with sufficient confidence it’s in a position to withstand the rigours of daily use. For £250, we’re pleased with what Dell has offered up here.

Searching round the tablet you’ll discover the 5-megapixel primary camera around the front and back-facing camera within the top directly on the bezel. Lower the best fringe of the you’ll discover the Sd card slot hidden with a latch. If you go searching for the 3rd generation/Wi-Fi version, the micro SIM slot may also be stashed here. Further up may be the chrome-style volume rocker as well as onOraway button.

The microUSB charging port also doubles like a USB host and means you are able to connect other peripheral devices, although you will need to purchase OTG cable. There isn’t any High-definition multimedia interface so connecting it up to and including TV needs to be achieved easily over Miracast and can obviously mean you’ll need a compatible TV.

On top edge may be the headphone/mic port and bizarrely the Windows Home button. Other pills include this at the end of tablet and whether this really is Dell’s method of attempting to differ or truly thinking that it is better situated, our numerous occasions spent striking it thinking it had been the on/off button indicates it had been a poor move.

Dell Venue Pro 8: Screen and Sound Quality

The Dell Venue Pro 8 features an 8-inch 1,280 x 800 pixel Insolvency practitioners touch screen display having a widescreen aspect ratio that effectively matches Toshiba Encore and also the original Nexus 7. As compared to the Nexus 7 2 and also the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 though, the cheaper Android pills offer more pixels and much more impressive resolution.

That’s not saying the screen is terrible. For everyday tasks like watching video and reading through webpages it’s perfectly acceptable. You do not get the entire HD treatment. even though the screen is nice sharp and colors are a little more punchy compared to Encore.

Viewing angles are great because of the Insolvency practitioners display technology, although it suffers like the majority of other pills with a few reflection in vibrant outdoors. Our main problem would be that the auto brightness as they are is placed really low, therefore we indicate jumping in to the configurations and crippling the car-brightness otherwise you will think it is a really unfulfilling experience.

When it comes to screen responsiveness, the Dell Venue Pro 8’s display supports 10-point multitouch and shows little indications of struggle signing up swipes, choosing applications or pinching and zooming the right path via a web site in which the font is a touch around the small side. Named does also support its very own digitiser stylus that Dell is looking the ‘Active’ pen. Regrettably, once more, this must be bought individually so we didn’t get one to test doodling with.

The speaker at the base from the fringe of named is unquestionably nice noisy, just don’t expect flourishing, wealthy audio to fill your ears. The even louder it will get the greater noticeable the distortion becomes. It’s greater than appropriate for watching films and gaming but it is underwhelming for raging out Spotify playlists.

Dell Venue Pro 8: Software

Ultimately, the ability to operate a full form of Home windows 8.1 and never restricting RT may be the greatest benefit of possessing something similar to the Venue Professional 8. You are able to install full desktop programs having a 32GB of hard disk space that’s really around 25GB. There’s an alternate configuration so that you can progress to 64GB and can cost you nearer to £300. Which means you aren’t limited to installing programs in the Windows Store, which still lags behind Google Play and Apple’s Application Store for content.

For anybody that has used a Windows 8 tablet, the interface, charm bar and desktop mode all will be very familiar. The normal applications are incorporated with Bing-powered content for sport, travel, physical fitness and food & drink all superbly presented. Xbox 360 forces music and gaming while Dell includes four maintenance-style programs to help keep named current.

The large sell gets Microsoft ‘office’ Home and Student 2013 free of charge, turning this right into a potentially great productivity tool. We are saying potentially, because to take full advantage of it you will have to purchase a Bluetooth keyboard, something which Dell has like a situation or stand alone format, however is one thing you will need to pay extra for.

Typing away on the third-party Bluetooth keyboard is okay but our issues with obtaining the the majority of it is always that the classic desktop mode isn’t scaly to really make it simple to use. The symbols are they canrrrt make and it is way too picky attempting to drag home windows round the screen to really make it a really intuitive experience. You are able to pinch and zoom within Windows, however it is not enough to create dealing with it anything apart from frustrating.

The scaling problem may also be extended with a applications like Netflix, which runs with edges rather than filling the entire screen which could irritate some once the entire screen isn’t fully accepted.

We naturally spent most our amount of time in tablet mode to look the net, play games in the Windows Store, watch movies online and check out photos. That’s another problem that Microsoft must address, making the 2 more carefully connected and never so alien from one another.

Whispers suggest the following Home windows 8.1 update will integrate Metro applications in to the Classic desktop mode which might be a part of the best direction to create this operating-system more appropriate to have an 8-inch tablet.

Dell Venue Pro 8: Performance

Like its rival 8-inch Windows pills, the Dell Venue Pro 8 is operated by an Apple Atom Bay Trail quad-core nick with 2GB of RAM to deal with multitasking. Whilst not within the same league as Apple Core i3/i5/i7 processors it provides the Dell Venue Pro 8 enough energy to deal with a complete form of Windows and make sure the battery existence is sufficient to pull through a least a day’s use. The Apple Atom Z3740 processor is which is 1.8Ghz, just slightly greater compared to Toshiba Encore and definitely leaves us having a better impression.

For general navigation swiping round the UI, the Venue Professional 8 is a fairly, zippy artist. It handles nipping applications for multitasking with little problem and games like Wreck-It Rob run nice smooth. It isn’t great news, though. The application loading occasions still grind as well as attempting to pair products over Bluetooth may take a time for connecting. A few of the more aesthetically demanding games around the Home windows Store like Avengers Initiative still are afflicted by some minor framerate drops, too.

Embracing the benchmarks, within the three dimensional Mark Ice Storm Limitless gaming test the Dell Venue Pro 8 scores a 15,005 beating the Toshiba Encore’s 14,024 score. Will still be behind the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800-powered RT-based Nokia Lumia 2520 (16,123), although it outperforms the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 (13,557). Within the Geekbench 3 Pro tests the Dell Venue Pro 8 handles a couple,515 multi-core score, that is roughly around identical to the Nexus 7 (2523) and iPad Mini 2 Retina (2551) handles. This indicates there’s hardly any improvement in raw performance, although we’d say the truth is iOS and Android are snappier and faster to load then Windows 8. The Dell Venue Pro 8 continues to be reasonable improvement within the Encore, though that’s more an expression how poor the Toshiba was.

Dell Venue Pro 8: Camera

If you wish to take photos of the selfie or scenic variety, Dell has incorporated a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera along with a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera. The primary camera provides the type of quality you’d expect from the budget phone having a fairly low-resolution sensor and incredibly little when it comes to software to consider great pictures.

Because the samples show below, the reduced-resolution sensor produces images that lack sharpness, look overprocessed and colors which are not even close to accurate. There is no Brought expensive so it will not considerably help taking shots in low light and also the front-facing camera is sufficient for video calls and a smaller amount helpful for photos. The HD videos similarly is affected with the type of noise and underwhelming quality that you’re unlikely to swap your smartphone for filming in a rush.

The Dell Venue Pro 8 main camera captures average photos at best that lack sharpness

Toshiba Encore 8-megapixel main camera (left) vs Dell Venue Pro 8 5-megapixel main camera (right)

Dell Venue Pro 8: Battery Life

The Dell Venue Pro 8 packs an 4,830mAh battery that Dell states provides the 8-inch tablet as much as 9.9 hrs battery existence, effectively putting in to the iPad Mini 2 Retina area of battery existence. Within our testing it’s under that, although not by much. Getting 8 hrs and half an hour is much more accurate if you work with it occasionally throughout your day and you do not have the brightness cranked up, which generally is necesssary since the default brigtness setting is placed so low.

Utilizing it more occasionally throughout your day to complete some gaming, see the internet and stream video it will pull through each day, though you will need want the charger from your bedroom to energy up for that morning simply to be safe and sound.

In additional intensive testing running a whole series on Netflix it handles nearer to 7 hrs half an hour, therefore it is less than the 9-10 hour battery existence from the iPad Mini 2 Retina. It will match the Toshiba Encore and implies that the Apple Atom Bay Trail-powered pills can go all the way.

Should I buy the Dell Venue Pro 8?

If you’re set on purchasing a 8-inch, Windows 8.1 tablet then your Dell Venue Pro 8 is presently the very best one available. It’s comfortable to make use of, includes a nice, vibrant display, battery existence really impresses and general performance is excellent. For £250, it signifies great good value like a stand alone tablet you will use for everyday tasks.

We have our worrying issues many of which are levelled in the operating-system greater than other things. Until Microsoft straighten out scaling issues for that traditional desktop mode, Microsoft ‘office’ is tough to make use of with no additional keyboard. Which means trading more pushing the cost nearer to £300 if you opt for Dell’s official option.

The only real serious problem compared to other 8-inch Windows 8 pills is the possible lack of any physical video output. Which means you are totally dependent on Miracast, which though an encouraging technology does limit your choices just a little. If you wish to make use of the Dell Venue Pro 8 like a type of desktop docking tablet you might find this tricky.

Searching at other options, at a lower price you can purchase the Nexus 7, which has a much better display, efficiency far more more applications to select from amongst other things. The iPad small 2 Retina continues to be easily the very best tablet available, but you will need to pay over £300 to possess one.

This really is simply the start of the onslaught of more compact Windows pills so we’re not recommending this is actually the someone to rival Apple and Google’s slates at this time. It will get several things right and definitely does a more satisfactory job of featuring Windows 8.one in more compact, more portable body than we have seen to date.

Dell Venue Pro 8 full review