Gadgetory

in a market that suggests Hamlet interests and cells are slowing entries on the Android side of the fence are heating up and an unlikely competitor appears Dell Dell is quite literally one of the last manufacturers we would expect a high-end extremely well-put-together competitive tablet from but that's exactly what the Venu eight 7000 appears to be from the outside and on paper despite its uninspired name the question is how does this tablet hold up in the day-to-day is it yet another letdown in the Android tablet space let's find out I'm Taylor Martin with Android authority and this is our review of the Dell Venue 8 7000 as a whole Android tablets have almost always been aesthetically underwhelming a few OEMs have managed to mix things up from time to time but from the appearance of the venue 8 7000 Dell appears to be hell-bent on visually differentiating its tablet from the rest and it definitely succeeded this tablet is truly stunning to look at and hold it's industrial design is comprised mostly of precision machined aluminum with hard edges and corners it looks and feels fantastic safe for the glass section at the bottom of the backside which is a terrible fingerprint magnet the primary design feature here is the nearly edge-to-edge display the screen runs up to just six millimeters from the top and side edges paired with being the thinnest tablet in the world at just 6.1 millimeters the Dell Venue 8 7000 looks almost surreal like a render of a concept device except it's very real and surprisingly its extra thin build doesn't take from its sturdiness it feels very solid in the hand without being too heavy for extended periods of use however all of those staggeringly small numbers for bezels and thickness mean the larger components have to fit somewhere the stereo speakers 8 megapixel rear camera 2 megapixel front camera and likely the antennas have all been crammed into the bottom bezel or chin as I like to call it this adds to the venue 8 7000 s unique design and we don't necessarily hate how it looks but rather the ergonomic challenges it poses this chin comes with some added utility like a place to actually hold the tablet since the other edges are so close to the screen at the same time it gets in the way and often makes me question how to hold the tablet portrait is the only orientation that feels natural both because the chin is at home at the bottom and because the navigation buttons don't always follow the orient the tablet particularly when you open the camera app and unless you hold the tablet from the narrow top edge it's virtually impossible not to cover up one of the cameras or depth sensors it's almost like the tablet doesn't want to be held in anything but portrait on top of that the power button and volume rocker are positioned along the top half of the left edge which is opposite of most devices plus while they're metal they're only slightly raised and have very little travel and tactility and all the design is stunning even if the ergonomics simply don't work out most of the time adding to the impressive nature of this Hamlet is the OLED display it measures in at eight point four inches diagonally with a resolution of 2560 by 1600 pixels it also has a relatively high pixel density of 359 pixels per inch the blacks are deep colors have a distinct pop without being super saturated and the brightness range is quite good still outdoor visibility is a common problem among OLED displays and could definitely be improved on this tablet as good side visibility but for gaming and viewing multimedia this is doubtless one of the best displays around unlike most Android tablets the Dell Venue 8 7000 relies on the intel atom z3580 chipset which is a combination of a 2.3 gigahertz quad-core CPU and power vrg 6430 GPU and so far as performance goes the Venue 8 7000 has very little trouble holding its own through most menial tasks like scrolling through lists and swiping through home screens we noticed no serious signs of lag or stutters but it wasn't too hard to find some performance quirks and reproduce them seemingly at will especially when pressing the recent apps button and changing orientation still the overall performance is pretty much on par with all the competition out there and it handles gaming like a champ which is great since this tablet is basically the perfect size for casual gaming the rest of the internals on the video eight 7000 are pretty standard it has 2 gigabytes of RAM with 16 gigabytes of storage no surprises there however it does have a card slot for microSD card expansion and it's capable of reading up to 512 gigabytes for the record a 512 gigabyte microSD card doesn't exist yet and regular SD cards in the half terabyte flavor go for upwards of $1000 so this is mostly future proofing more than anything connectivity options are par for the course to Wi-Fi a total 11 BG NAC and Bluetooth 4.0 but it doesn't come with an FC which is a bummer as for the speakers were torn we were surprised by how loud and fooled the sound coming from them actually was they're loud very loud and they don't sound half-bad mostly thanks to the built-in equalizer app Mac's audio by waves it comes with four presets movie music voice and gaming the difference between Mac's audio being on and off is night and day however despite being front-facing if you use the tablet and landscape all of your audio is coming from just one side of the tablet taking from the immersive effect in portrait this isn't much of an issue all the sound comes from the bottom but when it comes to stamina this tablet is killer only after three days and 12 hours did the tablet reach 28% battery remaining when the screen is off it barely sips at the battery dropping just between 2 and 4 percent each day but if you jack the screen brightness up and use you're gonna see that awesome stamina take a hit doe claims 10 hours of use and that's definitely doable if you manage the screen brightness well the camera on the venue 8 7000 is admittedly strange it's very gimmicky the setup around back is a primary 8 megapixel camera with to 720p cameras which work as depth sensors not totally unlike HTC's duo camera this is what Dell calls intel realsense 3d technology simply point the camera at an object in the depth snapshot shooting mode hold it steady and snap a photo if you open this photo in Dells gallery app you can adjust the focal point the amount of D focusing and more further you can estimate distances and measure items within the photo using that captured depth information this realsense technology works pretty well as good or better than most other fodi focusing methods but there were a few problems one it doesn't work in low-light - the images take what seems like forever to process once you open them in the gallery and three snapping photos is extremely awkward with this tablet not only because it's a tablet but because all the cameras are positioned around the only place you really have to hold the tablet the chin it's easier to accidentally take a photo than it is to take one on purpose and even Dells depth snapshot instructions look awkward and show the user holding the tablet by the screen and in portrait and the front-facing camera isn't any less awkward to use all of the cameras are in strange positions that are entirely too hard not to cover up and on top of that the image quality itself isn't much to get excited about in fact it's pretty drab and unimpressive Dell is so close to a solid execution but the unwilling nature of capturing photos with the venue 8 7000 makes us wonder how much better this technology would be if it were on a smartphone one of the most upsetting aspects of the venue 8 7000 is the software not that it's bad the software would actually be quite good if this were early or even mid 2014 it ships with Android 4.4.4 kitkat in a very near stock form normally that would be a good thing but it's been over three months since lollipop officially arrived and even longer since it was announced if you've never used lollipop this tablet software will feel quite natural and polished that said if you're coming from a phone or tablet which currently runs on Google's latest firmware even after just a few days with lollipop the sulfur on the venue 8 7000 will flow borderline archaic the separated panels for notifications in quick settings recent apps instead of the overview menu and 5 permanent home screens are stark contrasts and reminders of just how much the lollipop update has improved the usability and appearance of Android I constantly found myself long pressing on the home screen to add widgets but they still reside in their old home on this tablet the app drawer and the tab to the right of the applications outside that there isn't much to say about the software a few applications like Kobo books McAfee security cam card and file commander come pre-installed and Dells additions are pretty minimal it has its own camera app the my Dell app some live wallpapers a custom gallery app for editing photos with depth information and del cast that's right Dell has replaced the screencasting feature of Android with its own proprietary software which requires Dell specific hardware while unfortunate for purists it's a slight modification that won't affect most users and all the software is pretty solid even if it does look and feel a little old fortunately a lollipop update is in the works and is expected to land sometime in the near future it's also nice to see the app situation for Android tablets constantly improving though even some of Google's own app still have their own courts when it comes to larger displays Dells video 8 7000 tablet sells for just 399 a fair and comparable price to much of the competition we figure many potential buyers will be torn between Dells 8.4 inch slab and the 8.9 inch Nexus 9 which goes for the same price with many similar specs and features but expandable storage a killer edge to edge display and a really sweet industrial design means you might be getting more bang for your buck with the venue 8 7000 our biggest cause for concern with this tablet is its ergonomics and just about anything but portrait it doesn't feel quite right and accidental screen taps or button presses are inevitable but those issues are small potatoes when you consider all the high points of this tablet it's definitely one of the best-looking Android tablets to hit the market in a very long time the speakers and display make it ideal for multimedia consumption and it offers up some pretty impressive battery performance well not perfect the Dell Venue 8 7000 is a surprisingly great tablet and we say it's well worth the cash guys that's going to do it for this review if you enjoyed it and found it helpful please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel to see more awesome content from the team here at Android authority on the YouTube channel and also go to Android Authority calm for your source on all things Android one last time my name is Taylor Martin you can find me on twitter at casper tech and i will see you in the next one