Dell Venue 8 Pro – Review

Dell’s production line seem to work faster than what we reviewer can review. We have one more model here and it looks like a good one. The Dell Venue 8 Pro is ready for sale and for a good price too: $299.99. Let’s take a further look into the potentials of this machine.

The most important aspect of this tablet is clearly, the power to run a full version of Windows 8. And it does not stop there, this little machine comes with a full Home and Student edition of Microsoft Office 2013. If we think about it, it’s ready to be a full productivity machine, but it’s the small size that is responsible for some hold-backs.

The size matters.

The Venue 8 Pro is a small tablet, just an 8.1 inch touch screen and a resolution of 1280 x 800. When we think about the resolution it’s clear that Dell is not investing much on this aspect of the machine. Yet those many pixels are not a problem in a small screen. In the end, it’s a good trade off.

Everything would be just great, but size enters again the battle. When you are running a full system like Windows 8 things on a small screen look very tiny, making it difficult to use with your fingers. Something that, in our opinion, works always against the power of tablets. The Venue 8 Pro works much better as a slate tablet connected to a physical keyboard yet even in those cases we felt that a mouse was missing.

What is inside?

The Venue 8 Pro pulls its power from a 1.3GHz Intel Atom 3740D processor that itself benefits from 2048MB DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz. This is enough power to run Windows 8 just fine and you will never feel slowness while running it. The Intel HD Graphics provide the power this tablet needs to render common tasks.

We can also find a 32GB SSD hard drive and for expanding storage capacity there is a MicroSD card reader. Standard Stereo speakers, and a one headphone/microphone jack will do the trick. It covers all that you need in terms of wireless connections with 802.11 b/g/n wireless and Bluetooth 4.0. And to end the combo it comes with a Micro-USB 2.0 port for charging and syncing.

A great tablet overall. Great power. Great system. Great insides. Good pricing. The only thing that holds it back is the smallness.