Thinking about buying...

[Fishfam4]

I've been looking for a few days for a new, small, cheapish tablet for media consumption, internet browsing and maybe some blogging. I stumbled upon the Dell Venue Pro 8, and started looking up reviews. I'm officially in love! I have some questions, though.

1. Is there a Blogger app, or will I have to use the web page?
2. Is it powerful enough to play Minecraft PC?
3. How much of the 64GB's hard drive is usable out of the box?
4. Would I be better off with something like a Nexus 7 or a new Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 8.0?

Thank you!

 

[xandros9]

1. I never used blogger so I wouldn't know.

2. It plays Minecraft solidly, I've only seen it do fresh worlds though. (Heck, it does Starcraft II as a respectable solid 30 FPS)
I'd be more worried about the logistics of attaching a keyboard and mouse.
3. I forgot my 32's initial exact free space, but I'd say you would have an approximate 40 GB to play with out of the box.

4. the overarching question here is whether you want a big smartphone or a small PC. Neither is inherently bad, but it hinges on personal preference.

 

[Fishfam4]

1. I never used blogger so I wouldn't know.

Just searched MS's database, doesn't appear to be available.

2. It plays Minecraft solidly, I've only seen it do fresh worlds though. (Heck, it does Starcraft II as a respectable solid 30 FPS)
I'd be more worried about the logistics of attaching a keyboard and mouse.

I'll just buy a keyboard and a stylus at the time of purchase, then enable touchscreen controls.

3. I forgot my 32's initial exact free space, but I'd say you would have an approximate 40 GB to play with out of the box.

Great, that'll be more than enough. (One thing I really love is that it comes with the full version of Office. )

4. the overarching question here is whether you want a big smartphone or a small PC. Neither is inherently bad, but it hinges on personal preference.

I want a device to bridge the gap between my 15" laptop (read: not as portable/versatile as a 8" tablet) and my smartphone. I'll use it regularly, but not as my daily driver.

 

[waazzupppp]

1. Is there a Blogger app, or will I have to use the web page?

As a blogger aficionado, I was very concerned about this - until I saw that MS Live Writer 2012 was 100% compatible... Now I blog with that on my Venue Pro in desktop mode.

2. Is it powerful enough to play Minecraft PC?
Yes...

3. How much of the 64GB's hard drive is usable out of the box?
I didn't look right off the bat, but one major issue I fixed was copying my OneDrive folder to the SD card for syncing instead of using the primary storage. This freed up 20+GB of storage and leaves me with 26.5 open (I have Office 2013 installed for 4.5GB) so I would guess that you have closer to 35-40 open out of the box before you sync your MS account.

4. Would I be better off with something like a Nexus 7 or a new Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 8.0?
I have had my Toshiba Thrive tablet that I used primarily as a laptop replacement back in 2011. It is an amazing device and does about 75% of what I needed my laptop to do. Unfortunately, things like browsing, Apps that were made for 5" screens max and those pesky force close windows were just too much for me to deal with. I picked up an Acer Aspire Netbook to use for typing and browsing. After upgrading to Win8 and seeing how touch worked, the Dell was the perfect size for me. It's powerful and portable and with a few adapters can even function as a full PC for office work. I'll put my solid vote for Windows 8 over Android, but I just like my stuff to work right...