Dell Venue 8 (2014)

Design and Features

At 8.50 by 5.11 by 0.35 inches (HWD) and 11.9 ounces, the Venue 8 is larger, thicker, and heavier than the Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 8.0, which is one of the smallest 8-inch tablets we've reviewed. Available in black or red, the Venue 8's plastic body feels solid, and the narrow circular grooves adorning the back add grip and styling to an otherwise generic tablet design.

On the top right edge of the Venue 8 you'll find a micro USB port for charging and connecting to your computer. Further down is the volume rocker, and on the bottom right edge is a microSD port, which is hidden by a cover that's tricky to remove. The Power button is found on the top edge, next to a 3.5mm audio port.



With an 8-inch, full HD (1,920 by 1,200 pixel) LCD, the Venue 8 stands apart from similarly priced 8-inch budget-minded tablets. The Galaxy Tab 4 8.0Best Price at Amazon and the Asus MeMO Pad ME181C$169.00 at Amazon both sport a more common 1,280-by-800-pixel resolution. The Venue 8 shares the same 275 pixels-per-inch as the Acer Iconia Tab 8, but offers superior color accuracy to the latter's somewhat washed-out look. Viewing the Venue 8's display from the side slightly darkened the image, but the video I was testing with was still perfectly watchable. However, tilting the tablet vertically produced considerably washed-out colors.

I noticed a slight flickering effect when navigating around the Android 4.4 OS, especially on the Home screen, but that disappeared once I opened an app. The Venue 8 supports dual-band 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0, and you can wirelessly mirror its display onto connected monitors or HDTVs with Miracast.

Android and Performance

Thankfully, Dell stuck to a stock Android 4.4 experience for the Venue 8. Out of the 16GB of storage, 10.58 are available, 1GB of which is taken up by a significant amount of bloatware. You could add up to 64GB more storage with a microSD card, which lets you add more media, but you won't be able to easily install apps onto the card.

The Venue 8 sports a 2.1GHz, dual-core Intel Atom Z3480, which handled Asphalt 8: Airborne without a hitch, showing no signs of slowing down or loss of frame rate. You only get 1GB RAM, but that's typical for budget tablets. The Acer Iconia Tab 8 $187.05 at Amazon has a 1.33GHz processor and 2GB RAM, which performed a little faster than the Venue 8.

For our battery test, we streamed a video over Wi-Fi with Bluetooth turned off and the screen brightness set to maximum. The Venue 8's battery lasted 5 hours, 37 minutes, which is slightly below average. To compare, the Asus MeMO Pad ME181C lasted just under 7 hours, and the Galaxy Tab 4 8.0 for 5 hours, 51 minutes, but both of those tablets have lower-resolution displays.

The 5-megapixel, rear-facing camera shoots relatively unimpressive images that lack detail, but then again, the Venue 8 isn't trying to be your main camera. The front-facing 2-megapixel camera is perfectly serviceable for Skype calls or Google Video Hangouts.

Conclusion

In the 8-inch tablet realm, budget and full HD were once mutually exclusive; you'd typically expect to pay up to $400 for that privilege. Spending that much will still get you a great tablet, like the Editors' Choice Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4Best Priceat Amazon, but it's no longer required. The Dell Venue 8 (2014) comes in under the $200 mark and will serve up all your favorite videos in full HD. It can't match the Tab S on speed or features, but it's a solid value for on-the-go media consumption.