Dell Venue 8 Pro

heatlesssun said:
What kind of an adapter/cable are you using to plug in your controller? As for the desktop, I've found that manually adjusting to scaling to 125% helps out quite a bit. Not by a long shot perfect for touch but it does help especially with programs like Office 2013 that do have touch in mind.
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I do indeed use the 125% scaling. It helps, and its not bad at all. I can deal with it no problem, but I can see it bothering people who are used to using something like an IPAD. That said, if people just stick with the METRO stuff, that works great. I personally would much rather use a full desktop experience, so I deal with the flaws.

As for the controller, I have an OTG micro to full USB adapter. I just plug in my logitech wireless dongle and it works great. Using the OTG adapter, anything you can connect to a desktop should work just fine! (If I had a bluetooth controller, that would obviously work too!)
 
Thanks for the info. The Windows desktops certainly isn't an experience that was designed to work well with touch on something the size of the V8P but it is for more useable than l think many think but it does take some getting used to and it's very app dependent and it isn't a consistent experience even within the core Windows UI. The File Explorer isn't bad with the ribbon UI but something like the Device Manger is pretty bad.
 
In case anyone is interested, I will cross post my gaming experiences thread that I made on a different forum:

So I plan on using my V8P for gaming on the go, not just touch screen games but real games ;) Here are my current experiences. feel free to add whatever you can!


EDIT: Turns out for certain games, like LoL and X-Com, they will not even boot up without having a usable mouse connected to the V8P. So if you are trying to start an old game that won't boot up, try using a mouse and see if that works!

(FYI, in order to play games, I have used a logitech wireless gamepad with an OTG cable connected to wireless dongle. Works GREAT! Still looking for the perfect tiny keyboard / mouse solution)

Civilization 5 - I was initially having crashes every time I tried to load a game. Changing all settings to the minimum allowed the game to load. Only problem is, it crashes quite quickly after loaded. I am wondering if the Win 8 Touch mode automatically puts the game into DX11. Going to do some research to see if I can get touch controls on DX 9, I would imagine it will run better. Some people have stated that Civ 5 runs just fine on their V8P, but mine is not playable yet. Anyone have a solution? EDIT: Seems to run great under DX9 mode, but then I don't have the touchscreen friendly controls :(

League of Legends - Runs quite well - Be sure to plug in a mouse (thanks Boomwaller!)

Dust - Elysian Tail - Runs quite well, works perfectly from the start with my controller. Also looks beautiful on the screen! No problems.

Shadowrun Returns - Runs quite well and even seems to be playable with the touch screen.

Fez - Choppy, borderline playable. Some levels were really jerky and there isn't much in the way of graphics options. Probably could lower the screen rez.. but then things wouldn't look as beautiful on the screen.

Mount and Blade - Warband Seemed to run great, though could not really do anything without a kb/mouse, so couldn't really test

Legend of Grimrock Runs great at medium settings!

Mark of the Ninja Playable, turn all graphics effects off

Braid Runs great

Crusader Kings II Fairly choppy, Playable though! Don't need high framerate for this game :) Looks pretty, text is tiny.

Walking Dead runs playable, maybe could get by with using a touch screen only? Seemed to work fine

Rogue Legacy Didn't really play past loading it up, but it seemed to run great!
 
Baconstrip said:
In case anyone is interested, I will cross post my gaming experiences thread that I made on a different forum:

[snip]
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Thanks. I have big plans for mine that involve gaming, so these are good to hear. Look for a thread by me in the Case Mods/Worklog forum a couple weeks after I get mine...
 
I'm waiting for the Encore.

I wonder how this CPU compared with a Q6600.
 
Baconstrip said:
In case anyone is interested, I will cross post my gaming experiences thread that I made on a different forum:

So I plan on using my V8P for gaming on the go, not just touch screen games but real games ;) Here are my current experiences. feel free to add whatever you can!
Click to expand...

I'm curious what kind of settings and fps were you getting for the 3D games like Civ 5, xcom and LoL? Running at native res?

Regarding Civ 5 the touch controls are DX11 only. If you look at the actual executable the launcher will run there is only 3, a DX9 one, a DX11 one, and DX11 tablet one.
 
Picked one of these up yesterday on a hot deal, quite pleased with it. I tried a program called "Virtual Controller" by GestureWorks and it works really well with customizable overlaid controls you can make ala android games, pretty slick stuff (I made one for a major mmo currently in beta even with a d-pad, some buttons, a joystick for mouselook, etc. and it was surprisingly playable though the tablet was running it at a low framerate). I'm keeping my eye out for a freebie promotion supposedly coming over the next couple of days for it, but if it doesn't show I'll just spend the $15 to grab the license for it, since it should work great with racing/platform/etc. games :D.

Tablet itself is really thin, really light, and really fast. I added a 32gb sandisk ultra microSD card I had around to it since I got the base 32gb internal model and life is good ;). The only downside is it does get pretty hot running the game I mentioned above which is well-threaded (so it's loading the quad core up AND the gpu heavily) but still perfectly usable, just the top right in landscape gets warm. The heat is never a problem otherwise.

I'm kind of curious if any new Intel Extreme Tuner software versions will come out that will let us OC the CPU/GPU in these... :eek:. Although, I saw good results for gaming on youtube with other games (I haven't tried anything else yet), it would still be nice.

For desktop use I'm using 150% DPI scaling and "large" font size in IE11... haven't dabbled with Metro much at all yet but there are reportedly some very strong apps in the store there. On the desktop the machine is completely responsive and just chews through everything. I'm going to grab a bluetooth keyboard-case and probably the active digitizer stylus (I gather it's improved with the newer BIOS version, but there's one that's supposed to come out soon that will be better) and then try Visual Studio on it... I have seen that Photoshop runs really well on there in reviews. I'll admit I'm also tempted to try out some sculpting but that's not exactly something I'd actually do too frequently with it :p.
 
Can anyone comment on the panel uniformity? Any backlight bleeding? Also, how does it do with 1080p video playback in MPC-HC with madVR?
 
Megalith said:
Crap, this is not 1920x1080? Nevermind.
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For a screen this size with the desktop 1080P resolution would has its drawbacks. The screen on this gorgeous and quite sharp. Sure higher resolution is better but I think resolution gets a little overrated.
 
Megalith said:
Crap, this is not 1920x1080? Nevermind.
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1080p would be a detriment on such a small screen for desktop usage... :eek: . You'd have to scale everything immensely and it wouldn't work well, not to mention you could forget running even the lightest of games at 1080p, but can still play some reasonably on low/lowest settings that are current (example Dirt 3, Grid 2, Counter-Strike type games, mmo's for pve'ing or auction house, etc.) with the 1280x800 resolution.

The display is great and looks very sharp. Add in that many programs that you would want to use on this don't scale properly with resolution to this day for their icons (photoshop, as a prime example) and it's actually a benefit to have the lower resolution in this case :eek: .

It's actually a pretty powerful little machine and can actually be used for medium-duty productivity & light-duty 3d gaming, while normal light-duty desktop stuff is a breeze for it. If you get a hot deal on this like I did it's in the "cheap Android tablet" price range while being a million times more useful. I plan on grabbing the Dell stylus as soon as the free $15 Dell gift card comes in my email from their promotion for registering the tablet. Add in an actual, real license of Microsoft Office 2013 Home & Student and this thing's absurdly good a value while actually being a strong machine for most everything of what you'd normally need/want to do with it.
 
Congrats! And completely agreed on the point about resolution as I made the same point about the desktop earlier. If you don't mind me asking, how much did you get your V8P for? Microcenter is selling the 32GB models for $260 which is a fantastic price for this thing I think.
 
heatlesssun said:
Congrats! And completely agreed on the point about resolution as I made the same point about the desktop earlier. If you don't mind me asking, how much did you get your V8P for? Microcenter is selling the 32GB models for $260 which is a fantastic price for this thing I think.
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Thanks! I didn't see that before but I guess I second your opinion then. I got a pm to 260 then a 50 off coupon at staples. So 210 and I plan to ebay the office since I already owned it, which seems to go for 90ish there. Being a physical item sealed with the key card was a nice surprise! So ultimately I hope to be 130 after fees, out of pocket. :)
 
GoldenTiger said:
Thanks! I didn't see that before but I guess I second your opinion then. I got a pm to 260 then a 50 off coupon at staples. So 210 and I plan to ebay the office since I already owned it, which seems to go for 90ish there. Being a physical item sealed with the key card was a nice surprise! So ultimately I hope to be 130 after fees, out of pocket. :)
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Can you still do this?
 
450, some people are saying on slickdeals that they're still having luck getting the PM + coupon done in-store even with the expired coupon (that Staples is honoring it as YMMV). Microcenter still shows the 259.99 price, so if you can get them to apply the coupon as well you're in good shape ;). Just wanted to give you a heads-up! Here's the coupon I had saved if you need it to print: http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/1206/ob84.jpg .
 
GoldenTiger said:
Thanks! I didn't see that before but I guess I second your opinion then. I got a pm to 260 then a 50 off coupon at staples. So 210 and I plan to ebay the office since I already owned it, which seems to go for 90ish there. Being a physical item sealed with the key card was a nice surprise! So ultimately I hope to be 130 after fees, out of pocket. :)
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Awesome deal! BTW, Dell just released a firmware update for the pen and touch screen. So far it looks like a mixed bag. I think I'm seeing a slight improvement in the pen performance but I wasn't having too bad of a time with it. Seems like it doesn't miss the beginning of strokes for some anymore though the stroke response at the end is still off. The ink stokes in the handwriting panel are now thicker which is nice. The button functions have been reversed for some reason, not a major issue and something that is configurable with Wacom pens, hopefully that gets added to the driver. I would assume there will be an update for that as well.
 
GoldenTiger said:
450, some people are saying on slickdeals that they're still having luck getting the PM + coupon done in-store even with the expired coupon (that Staples is honoring it as YMMV). Microcenter still shows the 259.99 price, so if you can get them to apply the coupon as well you're in good shape ;). Just wanted to give you a heads-up! Here's the coupon I had saved if you need it to print: http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/1206/ob84.jpg .
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I wasn't able to get it. :(

Thanks for the post, though!
 
Mine arrived today! It's really nice. I was worried about the screen resolution at first (my primary tablet is an iPad with Retina display) but it's actually not bad. The panel is high quality and the screen gets nice and bright. The texture on the back of the device is pleasant and helps it feel grippy. More impressions after I have some time to spend with it.
 
Thanks for the link. The reviewer took a good beating over not reviewing the pen which while it is an extra accessory is one that is pretty unique and important to the audience that would be interested in this device. Overall a fair review but it is pretty obvious that the reviewer doesn't really spend much time using Windows tablets. He complains about lack of apps, specifically mentioning YouTube as an example yet there are a number of very nice 3rd party YouTube apps in the Windows Store, my favorite is Hyper.

And to talk about using Office on a device like this and mention Word and Excel but not OneNote? Being able to run a desktop app like OneNote combined with a digital pen is the thing that sets the V8P apart from everything else this size, including other Windows 8 tablets.
 
ive been following this thread and tabletpcreview for a while and I finally picked one up :) but i think ill return 32GB and get the 64GB model. Also ordered the pen from dell and the estimate delivery date is 11/29 -.-'' oh well.....

thanks for your review/input heatlessun.
 
I know it's mentioned a bunch in reviews, but it took me a bit to realize something was strange with the display brightness. The "adaptive brightness" function doesn't seem to work properly on this device, but if you turn it off (Advanced Power Profile Options) the display gets even brighter, at the obvious expense of battery. The display doesn't get quite as dim as I'd like (for reading in the dark) but it gets very bright with this setting disabled.
 
drstk said:
ive been following this thread and tabletpcreview for a while and I finally picked one up :) but i think ill return 32GB and get the 64GB model. Also ordered the pen from dell and the estimate delivery date is 11/29 -.-'' oh well.....

thanks for your review/input heatlessun.
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Thanks. Windows 8.1 seems to take up a good bit less space than 8. There's a 5 GB recovery partition that you can make a backup and remove and reclaim that space. 32 GB would be tight for a lot of people but you can squeeze a decent amount of stuff on it unless you're loading a number of big desktop apps.

CEpeep said:
I know it's mentioned a bunch in reviews, but it took me a bit to realize something was strange with the display brightness. The "adaptive brightness" function doesn't seem to work properly on this device, but if you turn it off (Advanced Power Profile Options) the display gets even brighter, at the obvious expense of battery. The display doesn't get quite as dim as I'd like (for reading in the dark) but it gets very bright with this setting disabled.
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Adaptive brightness tech never seems to work on anything I've every owned, from monitors to laptops to tablets and I've always turned it off. Not sure why Dell set the defaults this low. Even at 33% brightness with adaptive off the display is fine for indoor use in all but very bright lighting and it's not that big of hit on the battery.
 
Wife hooked me up with a 64gb and stylus this morning for my birthday. Really liking it so far. Nice lil tablet. Pen isn't perfect, but more than acceptable at this price. Looking forward to messing with it more after work.
 
Deinos said:
Wife hooked me up with a 64gb and stylus this morning for my birthday. Really liking it so far. Nice lil tablet. Pen isn't perfect, but more than acceptable at this price. Looking forward to messing with it more after work.
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Congrats and Happy Birthday!
 
I picked one up about a week ago. Man, I been waiting years for a device like this. It's pretty speedy too.

Can't wait till MS store fleshes out missing must have apps.

For anyone that cares, wireshark and other network tools work great on this device.
 
heatlesssun said:
Don't think it does, that requires a WinTab support which the Synaptics driver doesn't support.
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I assume it supports the MS Ink api?

Looks like Wacom digitzers are still the only option then and by extension the Surface Pro/2 Pro being the only option.

This is going off topic but do you know if the n-trig digitizers have WinTab support now?
 
Really loving this little thing so far. Starting to look for a decent folio case that has a bluetooth keyboard built in. Saw you guys post the Moko Case earlier. Does anyone have any experience with this on other devices? Pretty solid? Reviews on Amazon seem to go both ways as far as usefulness vs. build quality.

Looking for something functional that doesn't add much bulk to the unit.
 
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limitedaccess said:
I assume it supports the MS Ink api?

Looks like Wacom digitzers are still the only option then and by extension the Surface Pro/2 Pro being the only option.

This is going off topic but do you know if the n-trig digitizers have WinTab support now?
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There's been some talk of N-Trig supporting WinTab but nothing has materialized so far that I know. If one is using Photoshop the one should go with a Wacom based digitizer. I use the pen on the V8P for note taking and since I'm not a digital artist it's not something I was going to use. It would be nice that if for the next version of this device that Dell can figure out a way to get a Wacom digitizer in it, but for what its right now I'm pretty happy for the size at the price. This thing is working wonderfully with desktop OneNote.
 
Hello heatlesssun,
I read in your first posts that you installed vs2013. My plan is to get this table so i can occasionally compile some some w8 apps (metro) and test them quickly and maybe some small changes and compile them. This won't be my main dev machine.
I won't install anything else besides vs2013 and telerik controls for w8 in this tablet.

So my questions are:
#1) do you remember how much HD space you had after installing vs2013?
#2) can you install programs to an external SD card(fast)? I don't see why not but I might be wrong.
#3) If I buy an USB->HDMI adapter. I assume it will work... but I'd like to know your thoughts about this.

I also found a post of somebody creating a small cable to allow charge and have a usb device connected (usb hub, keyboard,mouse) at the same time.
 
On a 64 GB I've got Office 2013 Pro installed along with a number of modern apps, about 6 GB for my OneNote book, VS 2013 Ultimate installed and have about 10 GB free and I've not yet removed the recovery partition which would free up another 5 GB. And a Class 10 microSD card should perform well. There are some BIOS options to speed it up but the performance should be fine with the defaults unless you're looking to all the performance you can. There's a sale on 64GB SD cards at Best Buy, I plan on picking one of these up this weekend: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/sandisk...wNw&siteID=TnL5HPStwNw-lEd.oJ3oGEAXBysi.vpA5g

Been very surprised how well VS 2013 runs on this thing, it's completely usable for small to medium sized projects in my experience thus far. Kind of a small screen to work on extensively but great for interactively debugging modern apps.

As for the connectors, check out TabletPCReview.com, there's a LOT of folks in the Venue 8 Pro threads and there's a lot of info on this subject there, trying to sort through that myself to see what the best option would be for an external monitor while charging. Probably will look into going with a Miracast solution.
 
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