14 DAY TRIAL // Just a few days ago, Dell’s plans of refreshing the Venue 8 Pro lineup of tablets became clear, when two new models surfaced with a bunch of foreign online retails.
Now the Dell Venue 8 Pro 3000 Series becomes official, as an update to the previous 5000 Series. The first difference you notice between the old and new models is the price. The 3000 Series goes on sale for as low as $200 / €159, which is $50 / €40 less than the 5000 Series.
Dell Venue 8 Pro 3000 Series is a low-end line of tablets
Naturally, Dell had to make some changes in order to bring the prices down. It swapped out the Intel Atom Z3745D CPU inside the 5000 Series and replaced it with an Intel Atom Z3735G Bay Trail processor, which is the chip powering most Windows 8.1 (with Bing) offerings out there.
The tablet also takes advantage of 1GB of RAM instead of 2GB like the original version. What’s more, the 3000 Series lacks support for an active digitizer, so the tablet can’t be used in concert with a pressure-sensitive pen, like you can with the 5000 Series.
Last but not least, the new tablets have single-band 802.11 Wi-Fi rather than dual-band one. Apart from that, the specifications remain largely unchanged.
And one more thing: Dell is offering 1-year subscription to Office 365 Personal when you buy this cheaper, new tablets, while the more expensive Venue 8 Pro 5000 Series includes a full license of Office Home & Student 2013 forever and ever.
The tablet takes advantage of an 8-inch IPS display with 1280 x 800 pixel resolution, two cameras (5MP on the back and 1.2MP up on front), 32GB of internal storage (expandable via microSD card) and Bluetooth 4.0.
Windows 8.1 with Bing tablet deja-vu?
Looking at the specs of the Venue 8 Pro 3000 Series in perspective, they are reminiscent of most tablets running Windows 8.1 with Bing. The slate works with the same Atom Z3735G processor with 1GB of RAM but has more than the bare minimum (16GB) while storage is concerned.
The tablets are available in black and white, but for some reason the latter model is a tag bit more expensive ($219 / €174). Specifications of the two variations seem to concur and the only real difference seems to be glossy white finish.
Dell is also throwing in some accessories like the Duo Tablet Case, which will help protect your tablet from the harms of the real world.
