Dell Venue 8 (2014): Top 3 Business Features

The new Venue 8 packs better hardware than last year's model in almost every respect. Credit: Dell

Dell's revamped Venue 8 tablet packs a sharper display, faster performance and longer battery life than last year's version. The updated 8-inch Android slate is a follow-up to the original Dell Venue 8, which launched last fall. In addition to better hardware, the device includes handy new software features and sells at an affordable $200. If you need a new Android slate for work, check out a full review of the 2014 version of Dell's Venue 8, or read on for three features that make it good for work.

Better specs

The new Venue 8 packs better hardware than last year's model in almost every respect, including a sharper 1920 x 1200-pixel HD display, which offers sharper visuals than other 8-inch Android tablets in the $200 price range. That's a plus for business users, since a higher-resolution screen can show more content on the tablet's compact 8-inch display. The Venue 8 also has a dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM, making it a bit speedier than last year's version. It's not as fast as competing slates like the ASUS MeMO Pad 8, but that tablet has a lower-res screen.

Software features

Dell packed some new productivity-boosting software into the refreshed Venue 8 tablet. That includes PocketCloud, a solid remote desktop app that lets you connect directly to your work PC, open and view apps, and run full desktop programs right on your tablet — as long as your computer is turned on and also running the PocketCloud client. Other software highlights include Miracast, which lets you share your device's screen over Wi-Fi with other tablets and computers, which can come in handy for business presentations. Buyers also receive 20GB of Dropbox space for a year, to ensure your important files and documents are accessible from anywhere.

Battery life

Great hardware and useful software features are useless if your work slate is out of juice. The new Dell Venue 8 improves upon last year's model with pretty long battery life: In our tests, it ran for 7 hours and 57 minutes with continuous Web browsing. That's slightly longer than the small-tablet average of 7 hours and 50 minutes. Business users who demand the longest battery life possible would be better off with the MeMO Pad 8, however, which runs for 9 hours on a charge.