I have a confession to make. While I’ve often taken to Twitter to lambast Windows 8.1 tablets that are less than 10” as too small for desktop mode, and probably mentioned it somewhere on the blog as well, I actually like the Dell Venue 8 Pro I’ve been playing with over the last few weeks.
Yes, running Office apps in desktop mode is less than optimal. Fonts and UI elements are tiny. However, it’s not quite as bad as I expected, and I’ve found that I can get real work done in a pinch. Connect the Venue 8 Pro to an external keyboard, mouse, and monitor, and it becomes a real machine.
In fact, check out this video for an idea of just how functional such a little machine can be:
I’m not suggesting that many folks have a need for such a setup, but there’s something intriguing about a device that can function as a decent consumption tablet (that just needs more compelling apps to be truly competitive) while also serving as a highly-portable productivity machine.
I’ll be posting more on the machine over the next few weeks, but for now, let me just say that I’m enjoying the Dell Venue 8 Pro more than I expected.
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