Best bang for your buck tablet

I have a Nexus 10 and it's pretty awesome for the price.

Dell Venue 8 Pro

Pros: Currently $199 on Amazon (Prime eligible. Refurb and "Like New" used models are even less, but not taken into account for the comparison). Runs Win8.1 (not Windows RT) + MS Office Home and Student 2013. Has expandable storage. Has Intel WiDi (Miracast compatible. I've never evaluated Miracast streaming dongles, but there are a ton of offerings in the $20-35 range, giving you the coveted wireless device mirroring capability previously only popularly integrated in the Apple Ecosystem. Bay Trail CPU is phenomenal. Here's the Geekbench (higher is better):

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Geekbench 3 Results -

Device Single Core Multi Core
Dell Venue Pro 8 789 2525
Asus Nexus 7 622 1891
iPad mini 262 498
iPad 4th Gen 784 1427
Galaxy Note 10.1 392 1073
Amazon Kindle Fire 337 614
Acer Iconia W3 437 1106

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So, since it's running a full desktop OS, you would expect it to have a rather substantial processor compared to more limited operating systems- they don't necessarily need all the extra power to deliver similar performance. Remember- a benchmark is simply how fast a processor can crunch numbers. It has little to do with how it performs as it is designed to (this isn't suggesting that the OS is laggy, better, or worse than the competitors. It competes). Still, I find it pretty impressive that they do it at such low cost and such great battery life (claims 10 hours of heavy use)

Con: Lacks 1080p resolution. Have to tell people it's from Dell, which seems to be a con for a reason I am yet to understand. Windows OS is bulky by comparison, you get less native storage than you would with a competitor's product at the same storage claim. I think it's mostly negated by the microSD and the ability to join homegroups (though this isn't necessarily desirable for someone using it outside their home network).


I really do not understand how you can buy so much machine for so little- the software alone would cost a consumer roughly the price of the tablet.