[Lance Holmes]

I'm surprised how little this sale is being mentioned. $199 for a Dell Venue 8 7840 is awesome. Mine is due to arrive tomorrow.

[worldspy99]

It is a great deal!
Dell Venue 8 8.4" WiFi Tablet: 32GB $249 or 16GB - Slickdeals.net

[Aquila]

It may be because off-brand tablets don't have a good reputation with Android - so hopefully this is an exception? I remember reviews for the Dell and it definitely has some noticeable traits. Extremely thin, very small bezels (except the bottom), very nice display. The biggest complaint was that it launched with very outdated software and that hasn't been corrected yet. If you don't like it, the Nvidia Shield Tablet K1 is the same price and is one of the top tablets at any price.

[paul foster]

Eyes wide open folks .... I own one of these and it has some nice features including a killer screen. However nothing from Dell in regards to Marshmallow upgrade. In the absence of guidance from Dell You must assume this tablet will remain on 5.1

Had I known that I definitely would not have purchased this tablet.

Also --- 16 Gig internal storage is insufficient.... not all apps will accept transfer to on board SDHC card

Just sayin

[Lance Holmes]

Eyes wide open folks .... I own one of these and it has some nice features including a killer screen. However nothing from Dell in regards to Marshmallow upgrade. In the absence of guidance from Dell You must assume this tablet will remain on 5.1

Had I known that I definitely would not have purchased this tablet.

Also --- 16 Gig internal storage is insufficient.... not all apps will accept transfer to on board SDHC card

Just sayin

For $200 you really can't beat this tablet. Nvidia has also dropped there price down to $200 which I think shows how slow the tablet market has become. In doing my research to buy this tablet I really only found the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8 as a better tablet at twice the price.

I think you really need to figure out what exactly your going to do with a tablet and how much the update from Lollipop 5.1 to Marshmallow buys you before you write this tablet off. I just got mine and it is a lot nicer than my Nexus 7 in its response. I know it has only 16 gig of storage so I have added an SD card. The only feature that I think would make my life better by having Marshmallow is the virtualization of external and internal memory in to one massive blob. Then I wouldn't have to move apps to the SD card as much.

[Aquila]

The only feature that I think would make my life better by having Marshmallow is the virtualization of external and internal memory in to one massive blob. Then I wouldn't have to move apps to the SD card as much.

One benefit of Marshmallow, such as on the Nvidia Shield Tablet, is that it does have adoptable storage, which is the only way to mitigate the low storage woes you're talking about. I've never seen any indication that Dell has upgraded this tablet to 6.0, so I'd be forced to evaluate things for how they actually are, rather than how they might be if Dell decides to support their device. When counting on updates to justify a purchase the buyer must get something that has a proven track record of providing monthly updates. For tablets, that leaves Nexus, Pixel and Nvidia - everyone else is at best a crapshoot as to whether or not there will be any updates, let alone timely updates, such as the monthly security patches.

But on the first point, there are many other benefits of Marshmallow over Lollipop, such as Doze (improved battery life), better security and more user control over app permissions, etc. etc. It's a pretty long list.

In doing my research to buy this tablet I really only found the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8 as a better tablet at twice the price.

IMO, the Nvidia Shield Tablet is better by a long, long ways - but it sounds like you disagree on that. The Shield also beats the S2 by a hefty margin. If the Shield is out, then that's where I'd be inclined to look more towards the $300 range where the Nexus 9 lives - although it is quite a bit bigger.

[Lance Holmes]

So say the Nvidia is a better tablet by a long ways is really an exaggeration. If you compare specs you find plus and minuses on both sides and as I said before I guess it comes down to what you really want to do with that tablet.

Display the Dell wins with an 8.4 inch rather than an 8 and a higher PPI, 359 vs 283

The Dell is lighter 305 grams vs 390.

Rear camera on the Dell is an 8 mega pixel vs a 5 on the Nvidia however the front facing camera on the Nvidia is a 5 mega pixel and only a 2 on the Dell.

They both have quad core processors and 2 gig of system ram. I don't have any benchmark numbers but I'm sure they both perform well compared to the rest of the market.

Yes the Nvidia has Marshmallow and the Dell has 5.1 lollipop.

The Nvidia obviously is targeting gamers and I'm sure Nvidia is hoping make a killing selling you games and the addition controller. You don't even get a powerpack and usb cable to charge your tablet. I guess they figure the typical buyer of this kind of tablet already has several.

Dell is the Rodney Dangerfield of the tablet market and maybe if they continue to produce quality products that can perform they might get more respect. And I do agree one way to do this would be to at least announce plans to put Marshmallow on their current products.

[Lance Holmes]

One last point, the marshmallow storage feature where your external and internal storage can be treated as one may not work well or it may not even be available through the normal settings. You need obviously to have an external SD card that is fast enough to handle the speed required by your device. The other issue is that now things you put in storage may not be accessible from a computer connected to the USB port. So even if you have Android 6 you might not want to use this feature and would be better off just moving apps yourself.

[paul foster]

last time i checked (may 1) Marshmallow was not running on my Dell Venue 8

[foxbat121]

Correct. No MM yet and probably never will. And Dell decides not to include exFAT support makes this tablet and its fantastic screen very useless to me because I can't put large movie files (anything over 4GB) on either microSD card (I have a 200GB one) or USB storage.