Dell Venue 8 2014 16GB WiFi

Who am I? I a samsung smart phone user since 2010. I started with 160mb RAM phone and currently use 1GB RAM phone. What I was looking for? I was looking for a tablet for my wife and 6 months old kid. Earlier I wanted a 'all-in-one' device with sim and call feature. But I realized using tablet for phone function is just not the thing. And there is no sense in compromising just for a 3g sim slot in device when you can tether internet from existing phone or buy wifi at home. Why did I buy Dell Venue 8? Because of its superior specs. No other device has 2GB RAM, 1280 x 800 pixels, Hyper-threading processor, 4100 battery, 8 inch IPS, Dell brand and quality. What is my experience so far with this device so far? After 1 week of usage I find this device worth every penny. Pro: OS - Vanila version of android 4.2.2 ships with device. Dell doesn't do any heavy UI customization. On first boot it updates to kitkat 4.4.2 over-the-air (OTA) Build - Solid, no plastic feel, back panel is matt and non-slippery. No branding on front side. CPU - Intel processor is Hyper Threading capable. A dual core Intel performs better than other cheap quad core MTK, snapdragon, etc. (no comparison with qualcomm they are far better than intel in mobile processors). RAM - 2GB RAM and almost 1.3 GB is free while playing heavy graphics games. You just can't beat that. Display - IPS - view angles are good. Resolution gives this device high PPI. I have personally used Lenovo Yoga 8 inch but that device doesn't match resolution of Dell. You could see pixelization in Yoga but not in Dell. Battery - A typical good battery for tablet without 3g feature. 3g is main culprit for battery shortage on your device Internal Storage: 32 GB out of which 26 GB is for user. Out of which I got 23 GB available even after installing all my apps and games. That's massive. Benchmark: Antutu Benchmark for this device(12,700/-) is ~22,000. It ranks above Samsung Galaxy Note 2 phone(27,000/-), Samsung Galaxy S3 phone(24,000/-) and Google Nexus 7 2013 Tab(16,000/-). Cons: Issues: After 2 months of usage I noticed two issues - 1) tablet screen goes white after playing videos for variable minutes using any player. 2) tablet screen becomes unresponsive while playing games (asphalt 8 mostly) and you must lock-unlock tablet to resume playing game. Build: Non removable battery, dell wants you to throw away device when it is old :-) Accessories: No head phones in the box Charging time: Bigger battery, more charging time :-) Sound quality: Single stereo speaker at the bottom of device is well placed. But it lacks quality. I can tell that because I am a musiniac. It doesn't even makes good sound with my wooden woofers. Device just does 'ok' with sound. Dell, did you miss something here? Is Dell Venue 8 worth price? I bought it for 12,700/- including 1000/- discount from ws-retail. At this price this device gives is unbeatable deal. Are there other options? 7 inch, 3g, call, tablet, phone under 10,000 = DigiFlip 7 inch, 3g, call, tablet, phone under 14,000 = Asus phone pad 2013 7 inch, 3g, call, tablet, phone, branded under 14,000 = HP Slate 7 voice tab 8 inch, 3g, call, tablet, phone, with good phisical looks under 17,000 = Lenovo Yoga 8 How should you buy from Flipkart? The prices on flipkart for this device (any many others like Lenevo yoga, HP Slate 7) keep on fluctuating. You must keep an eye on price and buy it on the cheapest day with some offers. I watched price of this device fluctuate between 19,000 to 12,700 in last one month.

It has issues, from the day one, issues like touch insensitivity, long charging time and so on. However, after a year and a months use I do not regret buying it. Here is why-nnI purchased it at a much lower price than the MRP and also got a 3G-wifi dongle free. nn32 GB of external memory is more than sufficient. Soon you would realize a screen size of 1 extra inch makes a huge difference at least for reading pdfs in a potrait mode.nnThe tablet has awesome specifications on paper. But it also does mamoth tasks for me from running powerful games to running Fortran programs (CCTools) to handle drawings in Autocad 360. So the tablet is awesome in hands too.nnThe touch issue gradually reduced probably through 3 software updates from 4.2 to 4.4.2. Also pressing the power button off and on is a sureshot cure for the issue.nnIt has an intel processor and many applications are not compatibles, (say MS office). But developers are working on making their apps compatible with intel processors. For instance after checking from the MS team, I inststalled the preview version of MS office for android, whuch is compatible with intel processors. Now it works great.nnI do not need to talk about the basic android/google features. They are great. More so if combined the ith a device like this.