Newb questions

[StuartV]

I took advantage of the Microcenter sale yesterday and bought a V8P 64gig. I already have a Galaxy S4 phone and Galaxy Note 10.1 (2012) tablet, so I'm very Android savvy. And I've been running Windows 8, then 8.1 on my work desktop for about 6 months, so I'm reasonably W8 savvy, as well. But, this V8P is my exposure to using W8 on a touch-only device. So far, I've run across a few things that have left me with questions.

The first thing I did after getting it going was use the Dell utility to update to the A04 BIOS and I did install the touch panel firmware update. But, the Dell utility did not tell me that there were any updates that I needed to install. And several of the other driver downloads that were available would not install.

On to the questions:

- Did I really just buy a digitizing tablet that doesn't come with a stylus?!?! There was not one in the box. If they really don't come with one, I am stunned!

- The ad said it includes Office Home 2013. I configured my mail and shortly after, I received an email that had an Excel spreadsheet attached. When I tried to open it, the device told it didn't know how to open that type of attachment. Huh??

- The Dell utility took me right into Desktop mode. Everything there is too small, so I tried to change the Windows setting to make fonts bigger. But, the Control Panel applet for doing that has the option greyed out and a message on the dialog that says that setting can't be changed. Huh?? I really can't change the Windows setting to make fonts bigger?

- On my PC, when I'm in Internet Explorer, I can press Alt-V to get the menu that will let me change the Text size on a Web page. In IE on the V8P, whether it's the IE app or desktop-version, I don't see any way to press the Alt key. Is there something I'm missing? Tap-and-hold somewhere just below the title bar, then tap to turn on the Menu bar, then tap on View on the menu bar, then repeat all that to turn the Menu bar back off seems like a LOT of steps just to increase the text size on a web page.

- When I was on my way to bed last night, I clicked the power button to turn off the display, then I plugged it into power to charge. After that, I could not get the screen to turn back on at all. I pressed the power button. I pressed the Windows button. It wouldn't do anything. So I just left it to charge. This morning, while it was still connected to AC, I pressed the power button and it seemed to actually go through the boot process, not just resume from Sleep. Is that normal?

All in all, so far, the jury is still out on whether I'll be keeping this. I have been looking for a 7 to 8" tablet to carry around and use when my Note 10.1 is too big. The Nexus 7 sucks because of no storage expansion. The Galaxy Note 8 is too expensive. The Venue 8 Pro offered too much, at $249, to ignore and not try. But, everything is so SMALL. I don't want to have to put on reading glasses every time I do ANYTHING with my tablet. Heck, I don't have to put on my reading glasses to use my S4, even for web surfing, so I can't see any reason I should have to put them on to surf or read email or whatever on the V8P.

Also, is there any kind of forum reader app like Tapatalk for Android? Reading the various forums that I visit is a lot nicer using a tablet-optimized app than just using the plain old web browser. Especially since IE doesn't reflow the text. So, when I view a forum in IE on the V8P, and I pinch-to-zoom to make it big enough to read, I have to scroll back and forth horizontally to read the posts. Even on my S4, using Tapatalk, I don't have to do that. It flows the text so that I just have to scroll down as I read.

Thanks for any help.

 

[David Rittenhouse]

#1 - Correct - no stylus
#2 - Comes with an activation code for Office Home and Student, which you have to install (does not come pre-installed)
#3 - Check the box 'Let me choose one scaling level for all my dekstops' and you can then adjust the size
#4 - Part A - Desktop IE - pull up the On Screen keyboard and Alt-V to your hearts content.
#4 - Part B - Modern IE - swipe in from the right to bring up the Charms menu, select Settings, then Options, and adjust your zoom level
#5 - several have reported not waking from sleep. I however have not seem this issue on my V8P. I think there are some Dell and Windows updates that address this issue, you could search this forum for more info.

Hope this helps.

 

[TheKinkajou]

I can answer a few.

The tablet doesn't come with a pen, and the one they did make for it was so horrible that they stopped selling it. Word is a new pen will be out next month.

Office is not pre-installed. In the paperwork that came in the box, there should be one piece with a key on it for office. Follow the instructions on it to get it.

Not normal for it to not turn on when plugged in. Hopefully this won't be a persistent problem.

To make things bigger, go to control panel - appearance and personilization - display. You should see the option to change the size of all items.

In IE in Win8 mode you can pull the sidebar from the right, go to settings - options and select desired zoom level and font.

 

[StuartV]

Thanks, David and TheKinkajou.

Your info definitely helped make things bigger and easier to see. But, I'm still debating whether to keep the V8P or not.

Honestly, my biggest issue is that a LOT of my tablet use is for reading and posting on forums like this on. On my Android devices, I use Tapatalk and that makes it very nice and easy, I can read all the posts without any horizontal scrolling. I don't have to constantly zoom in and out (e.g. to be able to hit the "go to newest unread post" button on a thread). And Tapatalk has a view for "threads I've participated in", which I have not found in the web browser interface on any of my usual forums.

Other issues that I've noted include:

- URLs in email that I receive aren't made clickable. I had several emails in the last few days with links in them - including the "Reply to thread" email that came from this thread - where on any of my Android devices, the link is clickable when I view the email, but in the email app on the V8P, the link is not clickable.

- there is no notification bar. If I'm in the browser app (on the V8P), I don't see any notification if I receive an email. On Android, I can always see the notification bar at the bottom (or top, depending on the device), and tell if I've received a new email while I'm doing something else.

- I can't get a combined Inbox. I have 2 Exchange accounts (work and personal). On my Android devices, I can have it show me all messages to both in one combined Inbox view. Or I can view them separately. In the email app on the V8P, I can only seem to see one or the other at a time. My normal preferred view is to see both email accounts combined.

- separate notifications for work vs personal email. This kind of goes back to the notification bar issue. On Android, I can see separate notifications in the notification bar for work emails vs personal emails. This is nice if it's a weekend and I want to ignore work emails, but still be able to readily see if I've received a personal email. Since I don't have visible notification area while I'm, for example, in the browser app, I certainly don't get separate notifications for different types of email.

- tablet-optimized DirecTV and DirecTV Genie GO apps. I have these on Android. I can use the desktop versions of the DirecTV apps on the V8P, but they aren't nearly as nice on a device of this size as the tablet versions I have on Android.

- Google Maps. There doesn't seem to be a tablet-optimized version of Google Maps for W8, either. This is one of my most-frequently-used apps on my phone and other tablet. I have no desire to "switch" to using Bing Maps. I tried it and the icons were too small and non-intuitive and I didn't see any way to do a hover or something to elicit pop-up text telling me what each one means. Besides, I have a number of saved locations in GM, which aren't in BM, so I want to stick with GM, regardless. And using the browser interface to GM is definitely not as nice as the tablet interface.

- Verizon Messages. I have an Android app for my tablet (which is WiFi only, I should point out) called Verizon Messages. It sends/receives SMS/MMS messages as if it were my phone. I.e. when somebody sends a text to my phone, the text ALSO shows up in the app on my tablet. And I can send SMS or MMS messages from my tablet, which go to the recipient the same as if I did it directly from my phone. The only thing it lacks is that messages I send from my tablet do not show up in the message log on my phone. But, everything to/from my phone does show up on my tablet. I use this app a lot. I don't see any equivalent that I can use on the V8P.


I am definitely NOT trying to make this into an Android versus W8 thread. I really WANT to like and keep this tablet. So, I am posting these things that are negatives for me in the hopes that somebody will come back (as with the last couple of posts) and tell me ways to address/solve my problems.

Any help is much appreciated!

 

[foxbat121]

This is a PC and treat it as one. You can practically run anything you can on a desktop PC.

On the other hand, this is a PC, not really a tablet. There are somethings missing from the OS that are tablet friendly.

As for notification, there are popup notifications on top right corner but there is no Android like notification center. They popup for a few seconds and then goes away. You can configure the notifications on each email account.

I had Android phones and tablets as well as iPad. They all work differently. To me DVP is a PC that I can do things on it that no other tablets can ever do. That's the biggest differentiate factor.

If you are looking for a Phone OS based tablet like Android or iPad, this is not there yet.

 

[Armada]

If you absolutely need an Android app you could try using Genymotion. It's a fairly quick Android emulator and you can install Google Play to it, if you wanted. Can't guarantee how well it'll work on the DV8P, but it should be ok in a pinch.

 

[StuartV]

Thanks, Armada. That's cool to know about.

Unfortunately, I think foxbat121 may have hit the nail on the head for me. For an 8" device, I want a tablet, not a tablet-sized PC. A PC with an 8" screen and a virtual keyboard is really not very useful to me. My 5" screen phone is more useful - for the tasks that I use a mobile device for.

If the Genymotion emulator was a Metro/Modern app, so that it would make Android apps run with the Metro/Modern UI characteristics, instead of being an "app-in-a-window", that might fill the bill. But, that does not appear to be the case.

In the end, I don't want the burden of trying to make my tablet-sized device be something it's not. I want it to be a tablet, not a tablet-sized PC, and definitely not a tablet-sized PC that's trying to emulate a tablet. Not when I can just get an actual tablet.

I guess what I really want is for somebody to make a fully functional native boot of Android (4.4, of course) that I could load on this V8P. For $250 (for a 64gig, no less!), you just can't beat the value of the hardware. It's just too bad the software doesn't seem to be available to match the hardware.

 

[Armada]

Well, there's also android x86 and android-ia if you're willing to wait. The latter is officially supported by Intel. I suspect there will be a 4.4 build for Bay Trail.

EDIT: Genymotion can go full screen too! Just trying to stick bandages on things... but if it helps...

 

[foxbat121]

The dell venue 8 should fit your needs and cheaper too.

 

[StuartV]

The dell venue 8 should fit your needs and cheaper too.

Are you saying that the Venue 8 can do things that the Venue 8 Pro can't? If not, then I don't see how the Venue 8 would fit my needs better than the Pro.

 

[foxbat121]

Venue 8 is an Android tablet using Intel Atom processor (older version). I thought that's what you wanted.

 

[StuartV]

Ah. Sorry. I didn't realize. I just assumed the Venue 8 was a Windows RT tablet. Who'da thunk they'd have 2 tablets with the same name, but the regular would be Android and the Pro would be Windows?

Looking at the specs, the Venue 8 might actually be a good choice. But, the Dell page says the microSD only supports up to a 32GB card. Is that really true? I will only buy something that supports a 64gig card, so I can fit my entire music collection on it.

 

[StuartV]

Also, do you know if the Venue 8 (or 7) has a built-in GPS? The info on Dell's site doesn't say.

 

[StuartV]

Also, any idea with the Dell page for the Venue 8, and the Microcenter.com specs, say that the Venue 8 (non-pro) is expandable up to 128GB of storage capacity?

Specifically, from Microcenter.com:

Max Flash Card Capacity	Expandable up to 128GB

 

[foxbat121]

Looking at the specs, the Venue 8 might actually be a good choice. But, the Dell page says the microSD only supports up to a 32GB card. Is that really true? I will only buy something that supports a 64gig card, so I can fit my entire music collection on it.

That's a typical mistake in specs. No one builds old microSD slots anymore (which limits to 32GB). They all supports 64GB and beyond.

 

[foxbat121]

Also, do you know if the Venue 8 (or 7) has a built-in GPS? The info on Dell's site doesn't say.

From what I hear, yes, GPS is supported on Android version of the tablets.

 

[lee_michael_f92]

Has anyone figured out the whole clickable email links for the email app yet? Is there a way to enable it or something? I know in outlook you have to enable sometimes (I think?)


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[Armada]

It should be enabled by default. At least, it is for me on my desktop.

 

[StuartV]

As I mentioned in post #4, links in emails in the email app (the Modern App, on the Start page) are not clickable. I haven't figured out any way to make them clickable, either.

 

[lee_michael_f92]

It should be enabled by default. At least, it is for me on my desktop.

Do you mean on your desktop PC or desktop mode?


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