Dell Venue 8 Pro Review: Specs Of Windows Powered 8-inch HD Slab Bears Budget Friendly $229 Price Tag; Described As ‘A Windows Tablet You Might Actually Want To Buy’

Dell Venue 8 Pro review: Specs of the Windows-powered unit with a 8-inch HD display and long battery life has impressed many, Though it’s not the most well-designed tablet in the market, the Dell Venue 8 Pro is what Arse Tech described as “a Windows tablet you might actually want to buy.”

The look and feel of the Dell Venue 8 Pro is a huge progress compared to other Windows tablets. The back of the device is textured, its plastic rubberized and feels good to hold. There’s also no danger of the Dell Venue 8 Pro slipping through your fingers.

The Venue 8 Pro was not made to have a flashy design. It has a front panel that is all glass and a black bezel which has the embedded 1.2MP camera. The back is made out of black plastic with another 5MP camera on top of Dell’s logo. So as to be easier to hold, the plastic has been ribbed for more grip.

Despite not being flashy, the Dell Venue tablet weighs just under 400g and comes with a fast Bay Trail Atom CPU Z3740D. Being so light, it is extremely portable and can entertain you or keep you productive the whole day without running out of power. The 32 GB version retails for $299 while the 64GB goes for $349 which is very reasonable for what you get today.

The device also has plenty of ports and slots discretely placed around the edges. On the right side on top of the power and volume buttons, you have the micro-USB connector that can take USB 2.0 devices or its 10 watt charger. There is a port cover on the bottom right that peels away to reveal a micro-SD slot that you can use to expand your storage by up to 64GB. At the top of the device, you have a dual headphone/microphone jack next to what you will be using as the Windows button.

The Windows RT-powered Surface 2 could not run the full desktop version of Windows 8.1 while the Venue Pro handles it with ease. You will be able to use all the Windows desktop apps like built-in mail, Bing aps and Nook or Kindle apps.

The Windows 8.1 it runs on reduced the minimum resolution and screen size so that the OS could run on Microsoft-certified devices. It also has increased app-snapping options, which has made the brilliantly clear 1280 by 800 IPS display easily usable.

ZDNet, like ArseTechnica, also says that the Dell Venue 8 Pro is truly the first Windows 8.1 8-inch tablet worth buying. MicrosoftStore.com is currently offering the unit for $229, for it’s entry-level 32GB variant and $299 for its 32GB version, or free with a purchase of a Dell XPS 12.