Dell - Venue 8 7000 Series - 8.4" - Intel Atom - 16GB - Black

I was totally awed by the design and qHD screen on the Venue 7840. The screen is the best display I have seen on an Android tablet. I looked at the Samsung Tab Pro 8.4, but TouchWiz was a deal-breaker. I was curious about performance with the Intel Atom chip and it has not disappointed. The is slight lag, but I suspect this may be more Kit Kat related. Apparently Dell has not provided a release date for Lollipop. The camera is a bit gimmicky, the features advertised in the Intel commercial are NOT functional in the software. I found this to be odd. Sony just got popped for advertising unavailable features on the PS Vita. Not that I would ever use the feature, but it was a bummer when I went to test it out only to receive a message that it was not yet available. The 16GB has not been an issue but the is a MicroSD card to expand. I have not had tom use it yet. The chin on the 7840 houses speakers and the front-facing camera. It's a little odd but is a good compromise for the thin bezel on the sides and top. It comes in handy holding it landscape. I use the tablet primarily at right as a reader or as a second screen when I don't wanna watch dumb reality shows the wife is watching. If she gripes about Sports or Sci-Fi I'm watching, the 7840 gives me the option to abdicate and give her the bedroom TV. Live to die another day. Thanks Dell!!

I picked this tablet 5 days ago and so far have been really enjoying it. The screen is amazing, the Intel Z3580 with 2GB of RAM absolutely flies, the build quality is top notch, the power/volume buttons feel nice, and I love the way this device feels in the hand. For me, this device has two fatal flaws: 16GB of memory is an ABSOLUTE joke. After taking the immediate OTA update, you are left with 9.XXGB of free space. This is 110% unacceptable in 2015. The ability to add and SD card is nice, but Android has made external storage much less appealing over the years. The second is no MHL or HDMI/slimport support whatsoever. (same as Nexus9) I imagine this is to drive users to the new dell cast, which may be nice, but forces users to drop an extra 80$. Overall, I love the device, but may end up taking it back and waiting for Dell to release a 32GB+ option. If this were included off the bat, I would say without hesitation that this is the best tablet on the market right now.

I've already written about my experience with the Dell Venue 8 7000 elsewhere so here it is edited for what Bestbuy considers inappropriate language: I've been agonizing over what to do about my light computing needs at home. I've got a workstation laptop at work which I take home, 10lb powerful behemoth which is great for technical work, but not so much when I'm just chilling on the couch or lazing around and doing light stuff. I'd been very tempted by the Surface Pro 3, in part because of my almost 10 years (school, work, grad school) of using thinkpad convertibles, but every time I tried one out, couldn't shake the feeling that it was too heavy for extended couch use and too redundant with the behemoth. I saw news on the 7840's release and was tempted to give it a try, especially since a local BestBuy had it available. Maybe I could leave the Windows ecosystem for my home needs. . . after all, I do have the behemoth when work needs to be done. . . So, I bought both a 7840, liked it, but wasn't quite sure I'd made the best choice. But I was disappointed by all the Windows tablets in BestBuy so I went back to the net to search for alternatives (or reasons to get a SP3) and was reminded of the Nvidia Shield tablet. The specs seemed promising and while it wasn't as high res as the Dell and had subpar reported battery life, the graphics potential seemed really good, so I pulled the trigger and ordered one from Amazon so I could compare them side by side. The Shield has a much better camera, the stylus is great (for those like me who like that stuff), and in certain situations, the Shield speakers are better (otherwise, they sound about the same to the Dell being slightly better), is much better for graphics intense games, and $100 less than a similarly specced 7840. On the other hand, for just about any activity other than intense gaming, the Dell's screen is much better, brighter, higher contrast ratio. The Dell also has better battery life and a bit lighter. The biggest plus for the Shield is when playing high quality graphics games (Grand Theft Auto just isn't going to stress things that much). After being disappointed that the Shield and Dell pretty much were the same when it came to rendering HD video, I was blown away by how much better the Shield was in a graphics intense game - even with scenes where there wasn't much going on, it was clear the Shield's graphics processing was superior. That said, I bet if there was a native Shield video player, it would kick the Dell's butt too. So, for me, I'm keeping the Dell. While it would be nice to pocket the $100 difference, I rarely play games at the level where I'd appreciate the Shield. Most of my use is web browsing and apps where the awesome screen on the Dell excels. That the Dell appears to have 2X+ the battery life (both from reviews and my personal use of the tablets) of the Shield is also a huge factor. Both tablets are gorgeous IMHO and if you are looking for a Android gaming device that doubles as your lazing around tablet, I'd hands down recommend the Shield over the Dell. I entertained getting rid of my FireTv and just keeping the Shield for tablet and TV duty but unless my game playing habits make a big change, I'll stick with the Dell. In unrelated news, this is cool to me because I got the Dell Streak when it first came out - they blazed the Android phablet trail and at least for the moment, are pretty compelling again. Edit: In response to a comment, I went and played with a Nexus 9 for a bit to compare against the Dell, here's what I found: Ok, got to use an N9 for a bit side by side and played a game (Modern Combat 5) on both. The N9 screen is brighter (likely due to a powerful LCD backlight) and resolution-wise comparable to the Dell. The Dell edges it out on crispness and likely sunlight readability. The screen tech in the Dell also strikes a blow in battery life, in just the 30 - 40 minutes I spent comparing the two, the N9 battery dropped twice as much as the Dell. Speaker-wise, they're on par with the N9 slightly edging out the Dell. UI responsiveness was about the same, game play in Modern Combat 5 was identical, though I did notice that the N9 loaded Modern Combat faster than the Dell (they were neck and neck for the first few sets of graphics / textures and other game elements, but then the N9 pulled away - ended up finishing about 5s sooner than the Dell). The Dell screen length and N9 screen length are about the same. So side by side, the N9 looks like someone took the screen and squared it up a bit. When browsing websites, the extra pixels on the Dell did give it a slight advantage when looking at things in portrait mode. In landscape, it was a bit nice to have images be bigger (on the N9). Even though the N9 weighs a bit more than the Dell (and Shield), it actually felt just as easy to hold as the Dell. I'm not sure if it has better weight distribution and perhaps I'd need to hold it for much longer, but over my demo time, my wrist felt the same holding either one. And the camera. Once again, the Dell is trounced camera wise. I'm still keeping the Dell so I"m really hoping there's an update that removes some of the awful camera performance. Note, there seem to be reports of less than stellar build quality on the N9 so you may want to do a comparison of product reviews on a big source like Amazon.

Just holding this tablet feels like the future. It is super thin and the nice metal build makes it feel completely different from other tablets. So much so that I feel bad leaving it in a case to protect it. Still very small but doesn't feel as nice. Note that unfortunately it does not support magnet cases auto sleeping the screen. The screen though, looks fantastic. High res OLED looks super sharp and bright. Only gripe with it though is it has so little border it is very easy to touch the screen with the hand holding the tablet by accident. Need to consider how you hold it carefully. On initial release there was also quite a few issues with the lack of storage space. 16gb was way too small and the SD card was pretty much pointless since transferring apps wasn't possible. It also took far to long to get the upgrade to 5.0 and once it was updated it still didn't allow transfers on half the apps. Luckily though, that is all resolved now and the current running version works great and you can move all your apps to the SD card making the low storage space on device less of an issue. Overall it looks and feels great, but considering the price has some minor flaws it really shouldn't have.

The new Dell Venue 8 7000 series is truly thin, light, and powerful, but it has some serious design issues. On the plus side, the screen is fantastic, magnificent, beautiful. Sharp and clear, reading small text is a breeze. Videos really pop. Battery life is decent, especially considering the screen. Processing power is really top notch. It beat all my friends' tablets on a bunch of benchmarks. Downsides: Firstly, power and volume rockers are on the left instead of the right. This means that typical cases will not have the tablet in the correct orientation when on a kickstand type of setup. This is minor Secondly, the highly touted camera "RealSense", does actually work, but the camera sensor itself is so bad that you can't really use it indoors. I took a standard picture of living room, dog, cat, etc, and the quality was so poor that I would not ever use this camera indoor. Outdoors its better, but who really uses a tablet camera outside? Third, it has stereo speakers, but they are both on the same side of the tablet?!? This makes no sense. The front facing camera is in a bad location, lower left. OK so you can turn it around (upside down) which is strange but works, but then the camera is still offset from center. The cost is very high right now. I'm sure it will come down, but this review is based on a $400 device. I would recommend an Nvidia shield or Nexus 9 instead of this table.

Yes, Dell actually made a full fledged premium tablet with the specs and looks to prove it. Like all tablets, there are quirks and kinks to iron out like the new depth camera settings, internet identity issues, and upgrading a dated version of Android. Other things should have been changed prior to it's release such as the infamous placement of the cameras in less than ideal places, power/volume buttons on wrong side, lack of flash, no NFC, and no smart cover function. That last one, Dell came up with their own feature to wake the tablet once the gyro senses movement which is elective thankfully. If they're competing with the likes of Fire HDX 8.9, they need a flash. With Nexus 9, they need NFC. With all others, they need cameras and buttons in the right place. That said, the screen is phenomenal, the OS is fluid though dated (just received update yesterday), support for wifi AC is fast, speakers bright and pleasant, paltry 16GB easily expanded for $30 with 64GB card. The feel in your hand is sturdy and seamless, though a bit slippery. The fact I could grip an 8.4" tablet in one hand is great; makes picture taking less awkward. Due to the antenna and light sensor placement, I tend to use it upside down. Really a departure from my first gen Nexus 7. Starting to enjoy it more and more every day.

I must say that the Venue 8 7000 is one of the most gorgeous pieces of hardware I've ever seen. It is incredibly thin but extremely sturdy (so far) as it has an aluminum unibody construction. The screen is super hi-def and shows gorgeous colors. Videos and photos look amazing. It also has a microSD card slot so memory is expandable. The only hardware fault I can find is the both stereo speakers are at the same end of the tablet, negating the stereo. So three sides of the tablet have barely there bezels while the bottom of the tablet in portrait mode has the speakers. The micro bezel makes it difficult to hold without opening a program or scrolling a document but it's a minor annoyance. The camera is supposed to be amazing but I would never use a tablet to take pictures. The major fault with the Venue 8 is that it comes with KitKat. You have this incredible piece of hardware with top of the line specs and yet it's running older software. This wouldn't be a problem if Dell had already had a Lollipop upgrade released so that when you unbox the tablet, it automatically updates to Lollipop. However, if Dell has an idea of when the update will come, they aren't sharing. I've been dealing with Dell Tech Support for a couple of weeks now and they keep saying it's imminent. I'll hold my breath. I still like the tablet but with KitKat, I don't love it unequivocally.

Don't get me wrong I love this thing, but major drawbacks are: the bezels are hard to grip without touching the screen, but man this thing is sexy, the screen is awesome. the speakers, I would prefer stereo on defined left and right. Cons, are lack of cases (good ones albeit) no auto sleep when cover is closed. no Lollipop yet, heard April 21st and it's Pricey.