The Dell Venue 8 7000 Series Review
by Brandon Chester on March 12, 2015 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Dell
- Android
- Mobile
- Venue 8 7000
Battery Life
Battery life is obviously one of the most important aspects of a mobile device. With flagship tablets, users have come to expect that their device will give them ten hours or more of usage on a single charge. The Venue 8 comes with a 5,900 mAh (21Wh) battery, and Dell rates it for ten hours of usage.
In our WiFi web test, the Venue 8 manages just over nine and a half hours, which is fairly close to Dell's recommendation and competitive with the battery life results from the iPad Air 2. The Nexus 9 does hold a lead of a little over one hour, but in general any modern tablet that isn't the Stream 7 or a similar tablet is going to last you through the day adequately.
In our video playback battery test the Venue 8 really shines. The lower APL of films compared to black text on white webpages allows for a battery life of 12.77 hours which beats out both the iPad Air 2 and the Nexus 9, with a significant lead over the latter.
In BaseMark OS II we see that the Venue 8 does very well in both the overall time running as well as in the score given by BaseMark. Even with the CPU sustaining a high level of performance throughout the test, battery life is ahead of every other competing tablet.
In GFXBench we see a similar situation to BaseMark, but this time with the focus on the GPU. The Venue 8 takes the top spot in battery life, but comes out slightly below the middle of the results for its FPS in the final run of the test. Its FPS drops from 20.26FPS to 18.83FPS which means that there isn't much throttling going on with the GPU, but it also isn't putting nearly as much GPU power into a tablet as Apple, NVIDIA, and HTC are in their offerings.
Charge Time
Charge time is the other half of the battery life story. If you can charge a device very quickly, having a slightly shorter battery life may not be much of an issue. Conversely, an extremely long charge time can leave a device tethered to a wall for long periods even if it had great battery life while it was still charged. The Venue 8 comes with a 5V 2A charging block in the box, and it fortunately does not have any coil whine issues like I've experienced with other recent devices with high wattage chargers.
The Venue 8 does well in our charge time test. At 2.78hrs to reach 100%, it charges even quicker than many smartphones. There's not much else to be said beyond that Dell has gotten the best of both worlds with great battery life and a short time to recharge that battery once it's depleted.
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Sushisamurai - Sunday, March 15, 2015 - link
Yeah, this was a really well done review. Thoroughly enjoyed it even tho I'm not a dell fan.tipoo - Thursday, March 12, 2015 - link
My primary interest in this is that it has the same chip as in the Zenfone 2, I wonder how much it will have to scale back for a smartphone form factor. Seems like that could be the next budget champ, since it should be closer to the Snapdragon 800 than the 400.hrrmph - Thursday, March 12, 2015 - link
I find it less disconcerting that Dell made a WiFi only version that is being mistaken for a flagship tablet than the fact that it remains difficult to figure out from AT reviews whether there is an LTE version of any given tablet.For a flagship tablet review, this should be prominent in the Connectivity section, if not in the Introduction. Flagship tablets have everything but the kitchen sink thrown in - and that is the way it should be.
There is nothing wrong with the manufacturer making a WiFi only version. It is just that doing so will automatically make that version of the tablet a mid-range tablet. Maybe, upper mid-range - at best, if we are being charitable and they nailed everything else down perfectly.
4G LTE and GPS radios are mandatory for a tablet to be considered a true fully equipped flagship because it represents the peak level of equipage possible. Those who need it know why they need it...
...and AT should make it easier for us to figure it out... instead of having to sort through a pile of chaff to figure out if we are even interested in the article at hand. As it is, these type of muddled articles border on being clickbait.
If it were not for a helpful reader's comment, I wouldn't even know that Dell has produced LTE versions in this class of device.
In addition to asking whether Dell is interested in providing full flagship value, I'm finding myself asking the same of AT.
Brandon Chester - Thursday, March 12, 2015 - link
I apologize for not listing it in the chart on the first page. However, it was mentioned in the WiFi section. I've added it to the connectivity cell in the spec chart to make it easily accessible.FlyBri - Thursday, March 12, 2015 - link
@hrrmph -- I'm sorry, but you are sorely mistaken with your comment about a flagship tablet absolutely having to have a 4G LTE radio. Adding in a cell radio usually increases the cost of the tablet much more, and you can have the exact same tablet without it, and it's still considered flagship. So what are you saying is that an iPad Air 2 with a cell radio is a flagship device whereas the same iPad Air 2 without is not? That's just ridiculous. any iPad Air 2 is a flagship device -- period. Many tablets are used just as a media consumption device at home with WiFi. And as someone mentioned earlier, you can also many times use your phone as a hotspot to get cell coverage for the tablet.As a tablet doesn't have to have a cell radio, it can still be a flagship device. So you can have a flagship tablet with and without a cell radio -- it's as simple as that.
metayoshi - Thursday, March 12, 2015 - link
By the way and off topic, nice Google+ avatar Brandon. One of the best Anime in recent times.Back to the review... Great review. I was also someone really wanting Dell to succeed on this one since I'm still on the lookout for a Windows tablet and Dell seems to have a bunch in the pipeline. Kind of disappointed at this device, but also somewhat expected considering they're not really the first choice when it comes to Android tablets.
Dell recently updated their Venue 11 Pro tablet line with the Core M 5Y71, and that, along the Asus Transformer Book T300 Chi, which is not out yet, is on my radar for a future purchase. If you guys could get reviews on those devices, that would be really nice. Of course, the best thing to do right now is probably wait until the Surface Pro 4 comes out, but I'd like to see some comparisons with other tablets/hybrid models before I make a purchase decision.
GeekBrains - Thursday, March 12, 2015 - link
Since the DELL Venue 8 is now having the option to update to Lollipop, why wasn't it updated before running all the benchmarks?http://www.hardwarezone.com.sg/feature-hands-dell-...
Brandon Chester - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
The update wasn't available at the time I was doing my testing. I had to send the Venue 8 back to Dell.LukaP - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
Perhaps noting in the review that the Lollipop version is now available, instead of saying it may take a while would be good.Brandon Chester - Friday, March 13, 2015 - link
I'm actually still looking into this because that hardwarezone source is the only site saying there's now a Lollipop update out, and yet their photos are of a tethered unit running KitKat. Once I hear back from Dell I'll update the article.