Dell Venue 8 Pro…a blast from the past!

So, my wife’s been doing a little bit of a tech clean out the past few days, and it has yielded some fairly interesting specimens. A couple of old phones, including an iPhone 4 that’s still in pristine condition. And this Windows 8-era Dell Venue 8 Pro. Both she and I had these back in 2014. I sold mine years ago; she obviously shoved hers into a bedroom drawer and forgot about it.

This thing is…interesting. Even at the time, the specs were nothing to write home about. I think it only cost about $100…back when Microsoft and partners thought there was a market for low-cost, low-spec tablets (y’know, the market they’ve now essentially ceded to cheap Android tablets and iPads). I believe it has a 1.33 GHz Atom processor, 2 GB of RAM, and 64 GB ECC storage (though it does have a microSD card slot). It even has a Dell-branded stylus (though the AAAA batteries are completely dead, I may see whether I have any replacements laying around). I did manage to upgrade it to Windows 10 at some point (it’s currently running 1803), so I guess it’s still technically in support (sort of). At least, updateable.

She mostly used it as an e-reader, media consumption, and light web browsing device. I used it pretty extensively back in the day, but it was woefully underpowered for my needs. I quickly outgrew it and upgraded to a proper Surface Pro 4 in 2016.

Now I’m considering what (if anything) to do with this. I’ll probably try to see how far I can upgrade it. Maybe see whether any of the apps can still be used. The rubbery back has started to break down and now feels tacky. But I can’t help but marvel at what a decent little tablet this was for the time. Windows Phone, Windows tablet, Xbox One, Media Center PC in the living room, and a Home Server in the closet. Windows all the way down. Man, those were the days.