Dell Venue 8

[StuartV]

Can somebody enlighten me regarding 2 things on the Venue 8?

1) I saw specs that say it can take a microSD up to 32GB. And then, on Dell and Microcenter's websites, it also says storage is expandable up to 128GB. So, what's the deal? What I really want to know is if I can use a 64GB microSD in it.

2) Does it have built in GPS? I use the GPS in my Note 10.1 WiFi all the time for navigation, etc.. I turn on the mobile hotspot on my phone and use the bigger screen on the tablet for doing the "work".

 

[jlg234]

Yes the Dell Venue 8 (Android) comes with a built in GPS. From what I here you can use it with Google maps when not connected to wifi providing that you pre-load the map or destination while you have wifi. I use OsmAnd+ which works offline by allowing you to download free maps to work with. It also provides navigation. Something to try and will not bite into your data plan. If you like it consider buying it as there are more features.

As for SDHC card size support I believe it is only 32 gigs. I also have the Dell Venue 8 Pro (64 gig + win 8.1) and it supports 64 gigs in the card port giving you a total of 128 gigs available but the Android version supports only 32 afaik. I can confirm by inserting my 64 gig card and seeing if it is recognized. One other note: I have read in various forums where a 64 gig card can be partitioned into 2 32gigs partitions but again I don't know if this involves Android tablets.

Sent from my Venue 8 3830 using Tapatalk

 

[jlg234]

I just tried my 64gig micro SDHC card from my Dell Venue 8 Pro in my Dell Venue 8 (Andriod) and the device saw the card but wanted me to format it as it did not recognize the size. I didn't format - sorry but this card was already fat32 and had files on it from my win 8.1 system. I believe it would have just formatted the card to a 32gig.

Sent from my Venue 8 3830 using Tapatalk

 

[beomagi]

Hi all, I'm in need of an android tablet replacement to my nexus 7 which died a year and a month from purchase
I'm considering the dell venue 8, since i believe the CPU power is above Cortex A9 solutions and 2GB RAM should be better for multitasking. Trying to keep my spending under $200 here...

I'm concerned about compatibility - has anyone here tested
- mxplayer/bsplayer and gotten hardware accelerated playback with 1080p videos?
- games like real racing 3 - or does it not show up as available on playstore?
- Is there a working root yet?

Thanks,
Beomagi

 

[StuartV]

This thread doesn't seem to get a lot of traffic, so I'll just throw my uneducated $0.02 in here.

From some reading I did on XDA, I would be leery of the Venue if you want to do gaming. The reason is that the Venue has an Intel CPU, instead of an ARM. Any apps that are built to support Intel will work. But, if I recall correctly, I read some posts on XDA where at least one guy was complaining that some games didn't work on his Venue because they were only built with ARM support. MOST Android devices have ARM, so I'd feel pretty safe in assuming that any game you're interested in will run on ARM. But, Intel is rare in Android. So, if I were buying a tablet that I wanted to use for games, I'd probably not buy one with an Intel CPU.

Oh, and the Venue is only 720p, so 1080p videos are not going to play at 1080p anyway.

And I do not believe there is a root available yet.

 

[beomagi]

Thanks.

I feared as much. Based on what I've read, if it was written for the Dalvik VM it owuld be fine, but there's a lot that isn't and Dalvik is being replaced by "ART", which may compromise future Intel support unless it was designed to run there too.

I know it isn't 1080p, but I just rather copy files straight off my NAS or play from it instead of transcode. I've use devices with tegra3 (my dead N7) and snapdragon S4 (phone) so I know hardware acceleration there works with almost any video format (except Hi 10).

 

[johna2u]

I've got a Venue 8 android and love it. I'm not a game player so I can't speak to that, but a friend of mine has one too and he says it works great for games. Check out his review at lepanforum.com.

What I do know is it is very quick and responsive, very powerful WiFi, great on board speaker. Mine (and many others) won't update to 4.3. It is an issue dell is working on. It. Thinks it is up to date at 4.2.2. It is a bit long for most generic cases. A galaxy note 8 case with elastic corners fits nicely. Camera hole even lines up correctly. It is a little thicker than the windows pro model but still thin enough and pretty light. Ports and controls are oddly placed. When held in landscape with volume rocker at top right power button is right side near bottom corner and USB port is bottom far left. Too close to the corner in my opinion. But all in all its a great tablet. I do believe a 64 gig card will work with it.

Sent from my Venue 8 3830 using Tapatalk

 

[Tonko Horvath]

Hello. I just want to ask, if I would buy this android tablet Dell Venue 8, can I install there Windows OS instead of android?
Thank you...

 

[StuartV]

Hello. I just want to ask, if I would buy this android tablet Dell Venue 8, can I install there Windows OS instead of android?
Thank you...

Windows? No. Windows RT? Maybe, but probably not. The simplest way to tell would be to look at Dell's website in the Support section to see if they have Windows RT drivers for it that you can download. If they don't, they I'd say it's a pretty safe bet you can't run Windows RT on it.

 

[macroguy07]

Sideloaded the Google Experience Launcher [GEL] on my Dell Venue 8 running KitKat 4.4.2. Looks great and is fluid running. I don't play games, so no comment on an Intel chip on this tablet running games.

 

[GraveDigger27]

Thought I'd throw my two cents into the discussion about the Dell Venue 8 (model 3830) tablet - bought one from Dell earlier this year and I've been pretty happy with it. I've had no major issues with the tablet so far, have found plenty of cases that are suitable for the tablet (mostly at Amazon.com) and it was upgraded from JellyBean 4.2.2 to KitKat 4.4.2 shortly after it arrived in May.

Regarding the microSD storage, I've used both 32GB and 64GB microSDXC cards in the device and the only issue I found was the 64GB cards had to be formatted when initially inserted. Once done the 64GB cards showed 59.61GB available (I've done this with both a generic Micro Center brand and a Samsung 64GB EVO card). Google appears to have limited the functionality of moving apps to the microSD card, but I generally use the card for storing media (I have music and over 50 movies stored on the microSD card) as the 32GB of internal storage is more than adequate for lots of apps and games.

Regarding the speed of the tablet, running AnTuTu benchmark 5.3, my tablet scores an overall benchmark of 26568 and a GeekBench 3 of 545/1296 (single-core score/multi-core score) - which is slower than the Google (ASUS) Nexus 7 (2013 model - 585/1781) but faster than the older Nexus 7 (2012 model - 337/1085).