My new Android powered Dell Venue 8 32GB showed up yesterday. I'm amazed how good this little tablet is! Quick and snappy I through Nova Launcher on it to configure it to my liking.
Very pleased with the purchase
Placed an order for the Venue 8 - 16gb in Red for my son's b-day about two weeks ago. Got an email from Dell yesterday telling me it was delayed until the 25th of November, originally given the 8th as the date. Very disappointed as now it is schedule to arrive (fingers crossed) 4 days after his b-day . Should I just order him the Nexus7?
Jay, I ordered mine on Oct 19th. Original ship date was Oct 28th, then 30th, Nov 2nd, Nov 4th then finally got an email saying Nov 22nd. Without notice I just checked my tracking info and it said the packaged shipped and would be at my door Nov 8th. I was confused but excited haha. So keep checking the tracking number Dell gave you, yours may ship early as well!
This guy had Dell offer him a $25 credit because of this, and when he still insisted on returning it, was offered $50 to keep it. Perhaps more of us need to contact Dell and request a credit, maybe they'll realize we want this basic, stock Android feature.
I really want to snag the BF $129 deal for the 16GB model, but I am concerned about the level of support that Dell and the developer community will provide.
So far, I have seen a few sites reporting that Dell have said they will update to KitKat, but no concrete evidence as such. Also, I haven't been able to find any successful rooting guide. If it possible to root the device, then it might be possible to re-enable the missing multi-user option as well.
I'm sooooo glad I found this thread. I was just about to purchase the Dell Venue 8 Android version, but I decided to confirm that it had multi-user accounts enabled within the Android OS, since this is my biggest disappointment with my Samsung Tab 2. I'm not able to share it with my family and the only way to log out of gmail is to completely delete my account within the tablet. Ridiculous. I will not be buying this Dell Venue tablet until they enable this built-in feature in Jelly Bean 4.2.2. Thanks for the heads up.
It doesn't look to be a bad device at all but I wonder if the Nexus 7 would be an all around safer bet. Accessories (cases, screen protectors), updates, performance.
I'm still deciding between a Dell Venue 8 and the newly announced Acer Iconia A1-830. I'm going to use this tablet primarily for PDF files (O'reilly books), so Acer's 4:3 format will come in handy. On the other hand , Dell's 2GB ram and higher resolution are very enticing. Can anyone tell me how pdf books look with this device? Thanks.
I'm strongly considering a Dell Venue 8 as well. I picked up a Le Pan mini for 129.00 at Christmas and am very happy with it. Quad core, 4:3 ratio, extremely light thin and responsive. My only complaint would be the typical tinny tablet speaker. I've heard conflicting opinions on the dell speaker. Any opinions on that?
I'm keeping the mini but just might add the dell to my stack.
I bought the Dell. So far I'd highly recommend it. Very fast, bright clear crisp screen. No touch screen issues. It is very responsive. Very strong WiFi and a loud clear speaker.
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".
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.
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.
Hi all, I'm in need of an android tablet replacement to my nexus 7 which died a year and a month from purchase :P
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?
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.