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The Dell Venue 8 is a rock-solid Android tablet devoid of bells and whistles. If you're looking for a clean slate – pun intended – with bare bones Android 4.4 KitKat on it, this is the tablet for you. And honestly, I think more budget tablets should be exactly like this.
The reason you're buying a tablet is for its bigger screen, which helps in reading text, watching videos, looking at photos and maybe having a little more space in tending to e-mails and documents. Since all of that happens on the display, you want the hardware to get out of your way, and the Dell Venue 8 does just that.
We liked
This is what a $200 Android tablet should be. You're buying a big screen – or at least a screen bigger than your phone – that's sharp, vivid and happens to have good battery life. It's responsive and doesn't lag, and it lets you meddle with apps and take in multimedia content without bothering you with quirky hardware design.
We disliked
The speaker on the Dell Venue 8 could be a lot better. It sounds metallic and weak, although not entirely awful. A wired or Bluetooth headset or speaker would do just fine here, but simply a deeper, more powerful speaker would've been ideal.
And while I generally poke fun at people who take photos with their honking tablets, the camera on the Venue 8 is an afterthought. It'll take photos for the sake of documenting them, but don't expect to win a National Geographic award with anything you snap on this thing. Colors are dull and images seem oversharpened.
Verdict
Simply put he Dell Venue 8 is an excellent value. It's kept speedy, thanks to a lack of annoying or useless UI elements. Stock Android 4.4 KitKat really works well here, and the battery life is lengthy.
If you could design a clean slab of glass, plastic and pixels, and throw in Android KitKat at its barest with a few add-ons, that's what you get in the Venue 8. Couple that with snappy performance and long battery life, and you practically have a steal at $200.
