While the company never found footing in the cutthroat smartphone arena, Dell is still keeping its toe dipped in tablet waters. Around six months after shipping its initial Venue 8, Dell’s latest edition, the Venue 8 3840, is a vast improvement.
The new $179 Venue 8 maintains the same product name as the prior edition, but
inside, it’s a different beast. The sub-$200 sector is a challenging one to play in, and it’s becoming tougher to cut through the noise as well. Externally, you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the initial Venue 8 and the 2014 edition, but a Merrifield processor from Intel as well as an upgraded display makes this a very compelling offering. Those two additions alone make this one of the best-spec'ed value tablets on the market, but as you well know, buying decisions can’t boil down to specifications alone.
In the pages ahead, we’ll evaluate the whole package...