Dell Venue 8 7000 review: A thin, light tablet with a weird depth-sensing camera

I have to be honest here. I’ve only ever really known Dell as a maker. The company’s laptops were once a staple on my college campus for those who couldn’t afford a fancy Apple werbook, now some of my colleagues even use a Dell laptop as their daily driver.

So you can imagine my surprise when a Dell-bred Android tablet showed up at my desk with some really supreme specifications Intel’s latest Atom processor. ile the words “Dell” “Intel” don’t exactly conjure up the image of an Android tablet, I’m open to trying out new things. Dell’s new Venue 8 7000 (the exact model number is 7840), as it’s also referred to—scored high marks in its design functionality. But some of the extra stuff bundled with it, like Intel’s RealSense camera technology, seems like it could really use a little more polishing.

Thin, but not flimsy

For the most part, I’ve been unimpressed with Android tablet design. Most of what manufacturers have brought to market have been rather basic looking, save for Samsung, which introduced its attractive Galaxy Tab S series last year specifically to compete against Apple’s id.

venue8 compare 2 — The Venue 8 7000 on top of the second-gen id Air.

The Dell Venue 8 7000 is still a bit behind where Samsung’s at with its tablet design, though it definitely has an air of originality about it with its gunmetal chassis black glass accents. At 6mm, it’s thinner than the id Air—though only by 0.1 mm— one of the lightest tablets I’ve ever held.

venue8 h ebook — Sometimes, thin bezels aren’t the best when all you want to do is read a graphic novel.

Despite its weightlessness, the tablet isn’t very comfortable to hold. It may sound pedantic, but the top-left placement of the power volume buttons are completely opposite of what I’m used to (though I could see left-hers getting excited about that), the bezels are so thin that I kept accidentally activating the screen while I was trying to read an ebook. You can certainly hold the tablet by its bottom chin where the speakers are housed, but it’s sort of awkward to do so in lscape orientation. And when you’re ready to shoot a selfie, you have to flip the tablet upside down to properly do so.

venue8 back — HEY DID MENTION THIS TABT IS MADE BY DE BY THE Y OK AT THE GO

st to show you that it hasn’t left behind its -making past, Dell even slapped on its huge logo on the back so that everyone on the train ride to work can see that you’re still buying products from the same company that made your college laptop.

A sharp display with noticeable flaws

venue8 h home — The Dell Venue 8 7000 sports a gorgeous OD display.

At first glance, the Venue 8’s 8.4-inch, 2560 x 1600 resolution OD panel is truly a thing of beauty—I loved doing even mundane things on it, like reading a graphic novels or watching YouTube. Dell’s display isn’t as over-saturated as Samsung’s displays, the picture is always nice clear at medium-to-high brightness levels.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem Dell properly calibrated the tablet’s display. I noticed a bit of nasty color distortion with the brightness turned all the way down while using the tablet in low-light. The display takes on a purple tint, contrast all but disappears, apps like the Keyboard look as if they’d been improperly colored.

It’s what on the inside that counts

venue8 homescreen — The Venue 8 7000’s Home screen.

The Venue 8 runs near-stock Android 4.4.4 KitKat, though Dell bundled in some extra applications that are a bit tacky looking. In particular, the MaxxAudio app, an equalizer for the Venue 8’s awesome stereo speakers, sports an interface that’s stuck in 2010. But again, it is what helps make the tablet great for bumping out loud tunes, so it’s a transgression worth overlooking.

venue8 maxxaudio — It’s not just me that feels the way I do about this interface—right?

As far as operating system performance goes, you won’t experience any slowdowns with the tablet’s quad-core 2.3GHz Intel Atom Z3580 processor 2GB of RAM. Since this is my first time with an Intel-based Android tablet, I decided to put the device through its paces in a few benchmark tests.

venue8 vellamo benchmarks — The Venue 8 7000’s Vellamo scores.

venue8 3dmark benchmarks — The Venue 8 7000’s 3D scores.

venue8 geekbench benchmarks — The Venue 8 7000’s Geekbench 3 score.

It scored lower than the Nexus 9’s 64-bit Tegra K1 processor in both Geekbench 3 3D, about average in Vellamo’s Chrome multi-core benchmarks. It’s still really speedy, though, about the only time I really experienced lag was after I’d snap a photo using Intel’s RealSense camera.

The Venue 8 7000’s 5,900 mAh battery pack seemed to last forever on stby. I’d leave it alone over the weekend it’d only eat through about three percent of battery life. I did notice, however, that the brighter the screen was the quicker the battery would drain. But for the most part, I could leave the tablet behind come back to it a few days later it’d still have a little juice left in it.

RealSense makes no sense

Intel’s RealSense is definitely first generation technology that’s in the process of establishing what it’s capable of. The technology uses the rear-facing 8-megapixel camera two accompanying 720p cameras that record depth information. Thus far, it can measure distance, change a focus point, colorize or filter a specific part of a photo.

venue8 labtest — A photo taken with the Venue 8 7000’s three rear-facing cameras.

The three rear-facing cameras are too easy to block with your fingers when you’re taking a photo, for the depth-sensing to really work you’ll have to situate yourself far away from the subject to get it to fit in the frame.

venue8 realsense measuring — You can use the camera to measure real life things.

The measuring tool is also a neat utility to have, but I’d rather see this technology on a smartphone than a tablet. You shouldn’t be snapping many photos with your tablet, anyway.

A good start from Dell

If you’re the type of person who wants to buy a tablet from the same company that makes the laptop your IT department issued to you, then I think you’ll like the Dell Venue 8 7000. It’s a formidable competitor to Apple’s id, it’s thin chassis will at least give you some bragging rights.

But if you’re a seasoned Android user, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S is still the one to consider. It may not be as speedy as the tablet reviewed here, but it’s a bit more trustworthy given Samsung’s time in the Android realm. Or, if you’re really power hungry, there’s the Nexus 9.

Regardless, this is an improvement over Dell’s previous tablets. Between its manufacturing power Intel’s storied hardware past, the two companies could really be on to something here. They just both need to stay focused if they want to become a top contender.