Dell Venue 8 Pro - does anybody have one

[strollin]

I have the 64G version and straight out of the box there was only 38G free so I agree that the 32G is just too small. There is a recovery partition that many delete after making a recovery image on a USB stick.

 

[madcratebuilder]

I concur on only 38gb free with the 64gb version. Good idea on getting rid of the recovery image after backup. I'll work on that today. Mine shows 2 recovery partitions, 1 400mb and 1 at 4.76gb. I assume I should not touch the oem or efi partitions. I have 5 partitions in all. I just installed a 64gb micro sd, it created a 59.62gb partition and a 16mb unallocated partition. Anyone know what the 16mb is about?

 

[Saintor]

After a week with it, I will make a short review. I already expressed some negative sides of it in my post #11 and #18. I also recommended to pass the 32Gb version.

The issues in those post were annoying and almost ruined my experience. I had to reset it twice and reinstall my software, lost many hours. It should not happen. I also decided to disable Skydrive for good in the registry and use rather Dropbox; Skydrive refused to fully sync with MS Onenote 2010, an application that I am a fan and why I wanted a Windows tablet (Android' version of Onenote is not good enough). I also turned off the large buttons Metro menu which I find redundant.

Unbelievable but Google Chrome will not zoom with your fingers! Not pinching in/out. I searched and found no solution. However I can zoom using the roll on the mouse. In Internet Explorer 11, clicking a control/text field won't bring automatically the keyboard. I am surprised that it was overlooked. Even if I finally find a way to fix this, I should have to deal with this nonsense in the first place.

The size is ideal to me; I can bring it in meetings yet it remains discreet. It is the size of a paper notebook. I was a bit reluctant to consider an Atom processor to run a full version of W8.1 but it rocks. It feels snappy and speed is never an issue. Battery life is very good. It is a temporary thing but now it is one of the latest toys in town, so the IT people were interested and you can see that this tablet particularly make sense in a business context. All the people who played with it liked it.

But this isn't the only way to connect to the business world. About everybody seems to forget that if you have wi-fi you can run a remote thin Windows session and basically run Windows in an Android/iOS-based environment. This is my preference and I would do it in my home network if needed. However in my need of working offline with MS Onenote 2010, that was not possible.

I use a mouse and a pen (not the Dell's). IMO, you need one of the 2 input devices when you use the tablet in Windows Desktop, since the buttons are so tiny.

The screen is very good, I don't regret not having a 1920x1080.... it doesn't make a big difference here.

The camera is poor, and GPS would have be nice, but in both functions my Nexus 4 will come to the rescue. Even without them the Dell Venue is a very good tablet I give it an overall positive 8.5/10 because it fulfills its tablet mission very well. I appreciate the gadget aspect of a full W8.1 tablet, it is nice to have all these capacities and you have the impression that you got a really nice toy. Given the mission of a tablet, I feel that the W8.1 is 'too much'; I give my preference to a late Android version and save money in the process.

 

[strollin]

Saintor - Have you tried a browser from the Store called the UC BrowserHD? I found that desktop browsers (such as FireFox & Chrome) aren't very touch friendly and I dislike IE 11 so I tried several from the Store and found that I liked the UC Browser. If you have used the Dolphin browser on Android, it's similar to that.

My biggest complaint with my V8Pro is that some text was very difficult for these aging eyes to read. I set the text and other items size to 150% of normal and that helps a lot.

 

[Saintor]

I will give it a try.

Monday the Venue Pro 8 will be offered at 99$!
Microsoft Sells Dell's Venue 8 Pro Tablet For $99 - InformationWeek

 

[Saintor]

Now for 1.5 hour I have been trying to create another user account and it keeps coming back to a blank screen.... great.

 

[pparks1]

I will give it a try.

Monday the Venue Pro 8 will be offered at 99$!
Microsoft Sells Dell's Venue 8 Pro Tablet For $99 - InformationWeek

Did anybody try to get one of these today. The website was an enormous debacle. Nothing but PlaceHolder error messages. I tried getting in 15 minutes early and the site was already pretty much non functional. I finally got the page up at 10:03am and the $99 model was sold out, it was only a few minutes later and the $199 model was sold out. From what I have read online, stores were lined up hours before their opened.

It's kinda embarrassing to have the website struggle, one of the points of something like Azure is to dynamically scale to handle load. It didn't appear to work well.

 

[robinb9]

I have the 64G version and straight out of the box there was only 38G free so I agree that the 32G is just too small. There is a recovery partition that many delete after making a recovery image on a USB stick.

btw I have the Asus Vivo smart tablet-64gigs and also straight out of the box I got 34gigs.
I have a client who has a leveno smart tablet 64gigs- he also got 32gigs out of the box
Seems a heck of a lot is for the OS and the Apps that you cannot remove

 

[robinb9]

I will give it a try.

Monday the Venue Pro 8 will be offered at 99$!
Microsoft Sells Dell's Venue 8 Pro Tablet For $99 - InformationWeek

Did anybody try to get one of these today. The website was an enormous debacle. Nothing but PlaceHolder error messages. I tried getting in 15 minutes early and the site was already pretty much non functional. I finally got the page up at 10:03am and the $99 model was sold out, it was only a few minutes later and the $199 model was sold out. From what I have read online, stores were lined up hours before their opened.

It's kinda embarrassing to have the website struggle, one of the points of something like Azure is to dynamically scale to handle load. It didn't appear to work well.

you can still get it at dell.com for $293.99 or $299.99 at Microsoft, seems you had to be there a minute after midnight to get the deal or you were out of luck

 

[whs]

Dell sold it to me for $299 including the sleeve which lists for $40. When I wanted to cancel it, they offered another $50 off - but I cancelled it anyhow - no GPS/GNSS. I am in no hurry. Still have my Nexus 7 from 2012.

 

[pparks1]

you can still get it at dell.com for $293.99 or $299.99 at Microsoft, seems you had to be there a minute after midnight to get the deal or you were out of luck

It wasn't available at midnight. It was available at 10am ET today on the website. The site was experiencing massive problems at 9:45am ET, and by 10:03 (the first time I was able to get the page to actually load), it was gone.

I wasn't interested at $199, but for $99 I would have picked one up.

 

[Little Darwin]

I am enjoying my Venue Pro. I did discover that it works with the Amazon Basics BT keyboard for Android... It took me a few times to get it to sync, but I am not sure if that was an issue with the tab or the keyboard.

However, I won't be carrying the keyboard with me all the time, and I think that the clicking of the software keyboard may be distracting to others... is there a way to reduce or eliminate the sound of the keyboard while allowing sound for notifications etc?

 

[strollin]

... I think that the clicking of the software keyboard may be distracting to others... is there a way to reduce or eliminate the sound of the keyboard while allowing sound for notifications etc?

Yes. Charms on the right side of the screen, select Settings->Change PC Settings->PC and Devices->Typing. There is a switch under Touch Keyboard on that page "Play sounds as I type" you can toggle to turn the clicks off.

 

[Little Darwin]

Yes. Charms on the right side of the screen, select Settings->Change PC Settings->PC and Devices->Typing. There is a switch under Touch Keyboard on that page "Play sounds as I type" you can toggle to turn the clicks off.

Thanks! I will take care of that little problem this evening.

 

[Little Darwin]

I did Windows update, and after downloading and installing, I do the reboot. I have done this at least twice, and both times after the reboot, I have no network connectivity. Anyone else having the issue? In between, I do a system restore, and the network connectivity comes back, so it seems to be software related.

 

[Dave76]

There is a known issue with some Windows updates.

venue 8 pro WiFi Issues - After Windows Update - DON NOT INSTALL KB2903939

What is being said is un-install these updates:
KB2903939
KB2887595
KB2883200

Try one at a time as there are reports in the link above that some people install these updates with no issues.

Will get my Venue 8Pro and Venue 8 tablets today, so have been researching for any issues.

 

[madcratebuilder]

There is a known issue with some Windows updates.

venue 8 pro WiFi Issues - After Windows Update - DON NOT INSTALL KB2903939

What is being said is un-install these updates:
KB2903939
KB2887595
KB2883200

Try one at a time as there are reports in the link above that some people install these updates with no issues.

Will get my Venue 8Pro and Venue 8 tablets today, so have been researching for any issues.

Is this wide spread? I have installed all updates including the above without a problem. So far this little machine was been running perfectly. I picked up a leather case with BT keyboard, paired up in seconds, much more usable with a keyboard. Only problem I have is the small fonts require me to wear my glasses. If I could do over I would go with the 11" Venue.

 

[Little Darwin]

Is this wide spread? I have installed all updates including the above without a problem. So far this little machine was been running perfectly. I picked up a leather case with BT keyboard, paired up in seconds, much more usable with a keyboard. Only problem I have is the small fonts require me to wear my glasses. If I could do over I would go with the 11" Venue.

I don't know how wide spread the issue is, but I know it bit me.

As far as small print on the screen, poke around in the settings. There is an option to increast the size of items on your screen and/or font size, but I don't recall exactly where right now... I need to do it myself since I haven't done it since I reloaded due to the wireless issue before I read that I could just delete the one update to fix it up.

I personally think that 8" is the max size I would go with a tablet. If I were to need 10" or larger, I think a small laptop would be better for me. I also have a BT keyboard and mouse that I use sometimes at home, but if I needed them very often, I would probably just carry a laptop instead. But the options are definitely there for anyone who feels differently than I do.

 

[whs]

There is an option to increast the size of items on your screen and/or font size, but I don't recall exactly where right now...

Type DPI on the start screen. That gets you to where you can set the the size to 125 or 150%. Not sure how well that works on the tablet though.

 

[Dave76]

Some people have this issue, but not everybody, see below for explanation.

Updated information:

Update on windows update. I went thro' a comment on post in Amazon, which is as follows.
--quote
Here is the official Microsoft response I found:

This issue may occur if specific Windows Updates are not installed in the proper order. Microsoft has made a change to prevent further customers from getting into this state. Customers must now have a pre-requisite update (KB 2883200) installed before being offered these updates.

To restore wireless connectivity:

1. Uninstall all of the following updates:
* KB 2887595 - Windows RT 8.1, Windows 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 R2 update rollup: November 2013
* KB 2903939 - Windows RT 8.1, Windows 8.1, and Windows Server 2012 R2 update rollup: December 2013

To uninstall an update, go to the Control Panel and select Programs. Then, under Programs and Features, select View installed updates. Select the updates listed above and click Uninstall. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

2. Install the updates listed below. When you run Windows Update, the updates will now automatically be installed in the proper order. You must restart the computer after you apply each update.
* Install KB 2883200.
* Install KB 2887595 and KB 2903939.
--unquote.

I installed the updates in that order with reboot each time. Now my tab works with out any problem.

Venue 8 Pro Owner's Lounge

Just getting ready to start mine up.