Dell was one of the first companies to launch 8 inch Windows 8 tablets. Now the company is updating its line of small Windows tablets with a new model.
The Dell Venue 8 Pro 3000 Series tablets looks a lot like the 5000 Series models that launched late last year. But the new models are priced as low as $200, which makes them at least $50 cheaper than the 5000 series tablets.
Dell did cut some corners to bring the price down. The Venue 8 Pro 3000 Series has an Intel Atom Z3735G Bay Trail processor and 1GB of RAM while the 5000 Series has an Atom Z3745D CPU and 2GB of memory.
The 3000 Series tablets also lack the active digitizer and support for pressure-sensitive pen input that you get with the higher-end model and the cheaper tablets have single-band 802.11n WiFi rather than dual-band.
Other features are largely the same though, including the 8 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel IPS display, 32GB of built-in storage, and Bluetooth 4.0. The tablets have 5MP rear cameras and 1.2MP front cameras, microSD card slots, and they measure about 8.5″ x 5.1″ x 0.35″ and weigh less than 14 ounces.
There’s one more thing setting the Venue 8 Pro 3000 Series and 5000 Series tablets apart. For some reason Dell offers a 1-year subscription to Office 365 Personal when you buy the cheaper model, but the Venue 8 Pro 5000 Series comes with a full license for Office Home & Student 2013 which never expires.
Dell is hardly the first company to offer a Windows tablet for around $200 or less. But while it’s largely following the standard playbook by shipping a tablet with an Atom Z3735 series processor and 1GB of RAM, it’s nice to see that Dell’s model has more than the bare minimum of 16GB of built-in storage.
via TabTech
More interested in hp stream 7,even thought it has no sd, if you could figure out how to connect it to external screen, you could have your own mini desktop computer. Also ips screen for $100! Must be better than $120 toshiba
Just get a Winbook TW801 for $ 139.00 and be done with it. You’ll get the sd and mini hdmi. Had mine for 2 weeks now and it’s awesome. Can’t believe how nice the thing runs.
Can you tell me more about the Winbook TW801? Hows the 1GB RAM doing? Doesn’t it run out of memory quickly, especially if you browse the web heavily or open large programs?
I’ve got the TW801 now which has 2 ram. Prior, however, I had the TW800 with 1 ram. That one ran just fine too…..at least for general surfing and working with Office. Decided to get the 2 ram version just to get a bit more cushion. 16 storage wasn’t enough was the reason I exchanged for the 32 model. Really, really happy with the TW801.
So with 1GB RAM, its good enough for general surfing and working with Office only? Multitasking is definitely not recommended I presume, lol. I wonder what will happen if the tablet runs out of memory… Will it crash? I don’t really mind the 16GB internal storage though since an SD card can be added.
Not sure the limit of multi-tasking with 1 ram. But it ran just fine surfing, Office, and running Bitdefender scans. Never missed a beat. 16 GB didn’t cut it for me. Almost nothing left. Keep in mind that Metro apps can’t run off an SD card.
Yeah, the Metro/Modern apps default to “C” but there should still be ways to trick it to go on the SD card… So long as you never remove the SD card… Ever!
Hopefully, MS will change this default when Windows 10 gets released and they unify the app store because the limit isn’t there for the WP range and they should know people prefer flexibility… but at least most Metro/Modern apps are pretty small and with the store you can uninstall and install them as needed without worry of needing to repurchase, etc… to further maximize space…
A little note on the internal storage… these cheaper devices default to using WIMBoot and that saves space by keeping most of the installation compressed as a WIM file and that also eliminates the need for a recovery partition as well… but with only 16GB of storage it basically comes out to just about the same free space as you would get with a normal installation on a 32GB drive…
Though, you can convert a installation to a WIMBoot setup yourself… So, those willing to go through the trouble can make more use of their 32GB drives… While 64GB and larger should be fine as they come…
Regardless… since we can’t count on the normal recovery to always work I always recommend people create their own backup on a USB drive… and for those who still have a recovery partition to deal with also means you can delete it for extra space by doing so…
Yes I know. That is why I try not to rely on Metro apps.. Even if I do use them, I would only install small apps like Evernote, OneNote & TuneIn Radio… Hehe. How much was left btw of the 16GB? Did you install Metro apps/desktop programs there?
I only had 1.5 megs left with my Winbook TW800. Not enough for expansion so I splurged another $ 40.00 for the TW801. Still can’t believe how nicely my new toy is running. I use a Logitech K810 bluetooth keyboard, a Microsoft bluetooth mouse, and a 64 EVO Samsung sd card. Money all well spent.
Woah… Now that is very low! I guess its true then as what most users are saying.. 32GB should be the minimum for a Windows tablet to be useable, even with expansion slot. It seems as well that 1GB of RAM is enough for basic use.. Just the 16GB internal storage is an issue.
Running out of physical RAM will result in what has been done on desktop OS’s for years: paging/swapping to disk. This often results in a sudden performance drop due to the disk being much slower than RAM and causing applications to wait/hang/stutter/etc. How long the hangs will be will vary depending on the application/tasks and the drive speed.
Thank you for the clear & simple explanation. I think eMMC should be ok in terms of drive speed… It is quite fast. Its just a matter of having enough space for the paging/swapping.. I hope there is at least 2GB left on 16GB internal storage tablets after installing all the necessary updates & all.
You can literally get TWO Z3735g tablets, from at least 6 competitors, for $198. The best of which would be this Winbook TW800 from Micro Center https://tinyurl.com/m98lyhc.
The Larger computer companies have gotten stuck on this internal dynamic of the previous decades, where they can’t justify “wasting” a Windows consumer, for less than $100 profit. Dell, Lenovo, HP have become dinosaur dung vendors.
So, how likely are we going to see “premium” 7″-8″ Bay Trail tablets? There seems to be a trend towards the other direction so far?
There’s an 8.3 inch 1920×1200 IPS Lenovo ThinkPad 8, with the Intel Atom Z3795, 4GB DDR3 PC3-8500 RAM, 128GB storage, 20.5 Wh 2-cell Li-Po, and 4G LTE, for $850 to $1,250, if you absolutely have to throw money down a rat whole…
Or… you could use that money to get 10 wholesale TW800 or A1 mini’s, and tile your bathroom floor, with genuine Windows metro tiles 🙂
Why bother with these Z3735G pads when the superior Windows tablets from last year can be found in the same price range? It’s obvious that Dell and the other big OEMs aren’t passing their savings down to the customers!
Are you really trying to compare discounted and clearance prices to new release prices?
Besides, actual prices of those so called superior tablets are still higher!
These cheap tablets are going below $200, to even below $99 in some cases… While the superior tablets are still going for over $200, even with the discounted pricing!
The models with updated specs are even still even higher priced as well! Like the newer Asus Transformer T100 with can still be found with pricing up to $400 and the larger T200 now offers a Z3795 with 4GB of RAM and 64GB eMMC for $499… and while the news doesn’t regularly cover the premium tablets they’re still around and many still priced over $500!
Um, the Dell Venue 8 Pro 5000 is on sale for $199 very frequently, otherwise $229 (as on Amazon right now). Last year’s toshiba, miix, and acer windows 8 inch tablets are also frequently on sale for $199 and they’re much much better than this Venue Pro 8 3000 Where do you see an 8 inch windows tablet for $99 other than Chinese sites?
I think his judgement is fair. The T100 is also a 10 inch that comes with a keyboard . $359 (as on Amazon now) is not that expensive. T200 is 11.6 inches. We are talking 8 inch tablets here.
Sorry but really stop confusing discount and clearance prices with actual prices!
Getting the Dell Venue 8 Pro 5000 for $199 is like getting a Z3735G tablet for $79! Doesn’t change that the normal price for the Dell is still $249 and the cheap tablets occasionally go on sale too and they start out even cheaper to begin with!
And it’s not like the Dell’s Z3745D is much better than the Z3735G anyway… and even companies like Toshiba, that normally charge a fair premium, still let you get something like the Encore 2 for usually around $189.99 in most places and that’s well below the normal pricing of your Dell example!
So these cheaper tablets are cheaper to get, period! You can easily get most of them for below $150 and they’re likely to get even cheaper once they’ve been out awhile, just like all other models do eventually!
Sure, you may be right, but you’d have to wait a few months to get those sale prices. Whether it’s a sale price or not, it doesn’t change the fact that there are older products with better offerings at a discounted price. That’s why people buy things on sales. When the first Dell Venue 8 pro came out, it was relatively new, there was nothing to steal its sales away, now you do. You have tablets like the Encore 2 or last year’s Dell Venue 8 Pro that comes with active digitizer which is a pretty big deal for many users, $20~$30 for permanent office and an active digitizer this Christmas is a no-brainer. Also, there are products that gets discounted and people will line up to buy, then there are products that will get discounted and most people won’t even bother and they’ll head to the forever discount bins because nobody wants to buy them. This one is closer to the latter.
You’re not really looking at the whole picture… Like the permanent copy of Office doesn’t auto update itself to the latest version and doesn’t give you the entire suite, like lacking Outlook among others…
And in the mobile range we are often dealing with products you would replace in a year or so… Especially with non-removable batteries that will wear out…
While waiting for sales apply equally for the latest products as they did for those who waited for the older products to go on sale…
What you suggest only applies to impulse buys and ignores that some things go on sale faster than others…
Along with ignoring that not everything is being compared equally and that usually we would be dealing with products with improved technology…
It’s mainly the rare long delay between updates that creates situations where older models may still offer more but is not the normal cycle…
Besides, the cheaper tablets are still cheaper… You can get an older model on sale but the newer cheaper models start even lower still and heading into holiday shopping season means everything can be on sale…
Some even got the Asus Transformer Book T100 for about $200 when it first came out because of such holiday sales… So you don’t always have to wait months but just have good timing…
For a while, Micro Center has been offering an entry-level Windows tablet for $99:
https://www.microcenter.com/product/437500/TW800_Tablet_-_Black
That’s the thing then, why is Dell releasing this when something similar, no active digitizer, no permanent office license for $100 more.
Methinks Dell is desperate to avoid what happened with netbook margins.
Pretty much the entire industry is trying to avoid what happened with netbook margins… it’s partly why most of them conspired to help kill off netbooks as quickly as possible…
Some companies were only making less than ten cents worth of profit per unit sold for netbooks, so it only made sense when selling millions of units, but even the cheapest tablet is making $50 or more on top of BOM… and is one of the reasons why they migrated to mobile devices so quickly and it has taken so long before we started seeing many netbook replacement devices finally start to come back into the market…
Well… Name brands tend to charge a small premium because they can provide better service. tech support, warranty in general, etc. versus a small and not well known company product…
While it remains to be seen how the build quality of these tablets compare fully…
And the price difference is actually smaller than $100, as the WinBook TW800 is actually $139.99 but is an example of products that often go on sale very shortly after release and can now be found for $99…
Thing is the name brand models also can quickly start to get on sales as well but we won’t know until after they release it… but the holiday shopping season especially will often show sales that often won’t become permanent until months later and they often have sales to promote new products…
Take Lenovo for example, they’re notorious for listing pretty high prices for their products but regularly put out sales for them and in practice you usually can get one of their products for much less than originally advertised… In their case it helps their customers feel like they’re getting a deal but they sell a lot to business users who expect high pricing… and Dell also caters to business users as well… So that’s a factor too for them as well…
Also mind that the little known companies have more pressure on them to be competitive because consumers are less likely to buy from a company they don’t know… So often take higher risks on profit margins than the big name companies would…
But this sometimes also means they cut corners on something in the product but may be something you may not realize until months later…
Many also try to get into the impulse buy price ranges whenever possible and is one of the reasons why they are pushing so heavily the minimalistic specs, even if it doesn’t cost them much more to add 1GB of RAM but they have to meet the threshold of pricing to get the most sales possible…
How about one of those running Ubuntu Touch instead? I’d buy one of those for sure!
This race to the bottom for Windows tablets is not good. 🙁 I was hoping for Dell to freshen UP their Venue 8 Pro not dumb it DOWN.
Agree. I have the 8 Pro from last year. It is a nice machine, but Lenovo already had one with a better screen and camera, and Toshiba and others are undercutting the Dell pricing. I see no value in “upgrading” at this point.
It’s typical of the period before the next release of upgraded hardware that they simply expand the product line to cover the entire range and since they started at the upper range this meant they expanded downward…
Unfortunately, thanks to delays, the Braswell/Cherry Trail updates can take up to mid 2015 before we’ll start seeing them…
Though, there are some higher range models still being released… the 11.6″ Asus Transformer Book T200, for example, now offers a model with Z3795, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB eMMC for $499 and is one of the first offering both 4GB of RAM in a mobile tablet and full 64bit OS/UEFI support…
Recently Dell showed off the Venue 7000 which is a pretty nice looking Atom tablet, but running Android. I wish they would do something like that with their Windows tablet line, but without the cameras. I would just like to see a nice 7-8″ Windows tablet that doesn’t cut so many corners.
While I understand the reason they’re doing this, I completely agree with you. I’m waiting for an 8″ Windows 8 tablet with more ram, and both USB and HDMI out (as separate connectors).
The Asus T200 shipping with 4gb of ram is a great sign of things to come. Who knows, maybe we will be waiting until LPDDR4 ram hits the market before it becomes feasible.
If they could fit the Z3775 (or faster) with 4gb, I feel it would be worth $399ish. Although I completely understand that not nearly enough people would agree with me to make it a viable product.
These manufacturers have completely lost the plot.
I think the trend is that newer devices come with office 365 and the older generations came with office 2013. Not just Dell doing that.