[Dell Venue] wayne710:
Dell Venue 7840 Saturation and other Ramblings

I read the reviews and purchased the Dell Venue 8 7840 a week ago so will make a few comments about my experience to date.

As background, I currently use for a significant time each day a Nexus 10 and a Nexus 7 (2013) tablet. I use both tablets as I like the 10 inch tablet size for internet use, but also read a lot of books and prefer to hold the 7 inch tablet for reading. After looking at the 8 inch tablet size, I thought that could be the size of tablet to replace both of the Nexus tablets. So, in late November I bought and used the Samsung Tab S 8.4 for two weeks before returning it. Although I really liked the size, screen, and lightness of the Samsung, the very poor battery life, Samsung bloatware, and the retro (IMO) hardware home button resulted in the tablet being returned.

A week ago after reading a few positive reviews, I purchased the Dell Venue 8 7840 as it sounded like it hit all of the parameters I was looking for in an 8 inch tablet. The tablet was lightweight, the screen size was what I desired, the screen resolution was described as excellent, no bloatware to speak of, a touch home button, and a significant larger battery than the Samsung. I have since found and agree that the tablet hits all of the above marks. It is also very well built, the processor is more than fast enough for my needs (I am not a gamer), and to date, all of the programs I use run on the Intel processor.

I agree with the person on this thread that asked if the screen reds and greens are over saturated like on the Samsung Tab S. However, I find that as long as the brightness is not set too high it is not bothersome to me.

The device only comes with 16 GB memory, but does have a a micro usb card slot. I currently have 164 apps on the device and have 6.52 GB of space still available. Most all of the associated app data can be directed to be stored on a micro usb card. I installed a 32 GB micro usb card and have downloaded a few GB's of music as well as about 4 GB's of Smugmug images through their respective apps directly to the usb card, so for me, the internal 16 Gb is adequate.

However, I do have a couple big disappointments with the tablet that will probably result in its return this week. My first disappointment is the lack of an external notification LED. I am used to watching the LED on my other devices for email notification as well as to indicate that the battery is being charged and then fully charged. I am missing that feature and not sure what the logic was to omit a notification LED from a $399 tablet.

Second, I reside part of each year in two different States and keep a Slingbox hooked up in my "home" state, primarily so I can watch regional sports broadcasts. Although the Slingplayer app works well directly on the Dell tablet, I have yet to find a way to get the Dell Cast to work with either a Roku 3 or an Amazon Fire Stick, nor can I hook up the tablet via HDMI since there is no micro HDMI out. It appears that Dell wants the users of their tablet to purchase their $69 Dell Cast Adaptor. With all of my Nexus devices I can either screen cast via the built-in Android Cast software or hook up physically via an HDMI cable. I will contact Dell about this but if there is no resolution to this issue without purchasing another adaptor, the Dell Venue will be returned.

My current conclusion about this tablet is that it has a lot of great features and would meet a lot of users needs but it is missing the mark on some of my needs. If they release a revised tablet with a few more features it definitely would be a tablet to keep.