Which Windows <$350 8" Tablet? Dell V8P / ASUS VTN8 / Acer W4 / MS Surface RT

Which Windows <$350 8" Tablet? Dell V8P / ASUS VTN8 / Acer W4 / MS Surface RT

Well I sold my Nexus 7 2013 (great tablet loved it), but I am now looking to pick up a portable general use Windows 8 tablet.

Budget: $350 or less
Purchase time: soon...when I figure what the best option is
Size: 8", 10-12" if the price was right (mainly going for portability/lightweight device)
OS: Must be windows
Uses: Microsoft Office, read PDF, Zotero reference/bibliography software, stylus use is a big plus for notes and possibly sketches

All the 8" tablets seem to come with Microsoft Office now...

The top two contenders are the:
Dell Venue 8 Pro or ASUS VivoTab Note 8
- Both are very similar. The Dell has Synaptics stylus technology, where the ASUS has Wacom stylus technology. The ASUS 32GB model has the OS restore on a SD card which is an interesting plus.

Acer ICONIA W4? (the older W3 doesn't cut it)
- Has a mico-HDMI port, big plus there
- better battery life than Dell or ASUS?
- passive stylus

I tossed in the Microsoft Surface RT, purely because of the price you can pick up a refurbished one for now: 32GB = $169; 64GB = $199
- At that price its tempting, the main problem is I can't use Zotero or find a decent alternative reference/bibliography software program like EndNote for Windows RT...probably will pass on this mainly due to the WIN RT.


Any other tablets I should be looking at?
Toshiba Encore?
Lenovo?

Well after reading a bunch last night, HDMI out would be nice, but for my current uses I'm not sure I will use it that much, otherwise the Acer W4 looks pretty interesting. So its basically down to the Dell vs. ASUS and as usual for me I've got rewards to burn at Staples so price wise that is pushing me towards the Dell because Staples doesn't carry the ASUS yet...

Still debating...stylus functionality vs. HDMI out...

@ Staples the Dell V8P = ~$115+tax for me
(price match (PM) to Walmart @$199; -$60 in ink rewards and about another $25 in GC savings)
- at that price I don't think I can go wrong...

For comparison the Acer Iconia W4 with a PM at staples I should be able to get for ~$165+tax

You can use wireless display technology as an alternative to HDMI (Miracast I think?) Or you can get a usb 3.0 to hdmi adapter.

I have Dell Venue 11 Pro and the stylus is great, no real issues on that front despite hearing a lot of complaints on the internet.

Thanks for the input!

I read about the 1st batch of Dell styluses that had some major issues, some were lucky, most were not. But the revision they released in general seems to be more stable.

I think the Dell V8P only has USB 2.0, but I'll have to read more on the Miracast technology...

I reread your post and you said you also considered the Surface RT, which is 10", so I'm assuming you wouldn't mind another 10" Windows tablet. Have you though about Dell V11P? I got mine for $280 refurbished from Dell Outlet, it came with office 2013 which I sold for $85 on ebay. The stylus was $20 also.

It has miniHDMI and a full size usb 3.0 port. I bought a keyboard dock for $100 and it's like having a mini laptop with crazy battery life around with me all the time. In fact I'm typing from it right now.

hajalie24 said:

I reread your post and you said you also considered the Surface RT, which is 10", so I'm assuming you wouldn't mind another 10" Windows tablet. Have you though about Dell V11P? I got mine for $280 refurbished from Dell Outlet, it came with office 2013 which I sold for $85 on ebay. The stylus was $20 also.

It has miniHDMI and a full size usb 3.0 port. I bought a keyboard dock for $100 and it's like having a mini laptop with crazy battery life around with me all the time. In fact I'm typing from it right now.

Click to expand...

I would consider a 10" tablet, I had mainly discounted most of the 10" ones due to the price, including the Dell V11P...

$280 sounds like a great deal and brings it within my price range for sure and the added size is worth the extra features: more storage, higher rez 1920 x 1080, USB 3.0, HDMI out...

Looks like I'm going to have to start watching the Dell outlet again.
How did you manage to get the $280 price? 30% coupon

I think I'm still going to grab a Dell V8P from staples tomorrow, I basically have enough gift cards from discover card cash back to cover the cost of the tablet...

m715 said:

I would consider a 10" tablet, I had mainly discounted most of the 10" ones due to the price, including the Dell V11P...

$280 sounds like a great deal and brings it within my price range for sure and the added size is worth the extra features: more storage, higher rez 1920 x 1080, USB 3.0, HDMI out...

Looks like I'm going to have to start watching the Dell outlet again.
How did you manage to get the $280 price? 30% coupon

I think I'm still going to grab a Dell V8P from staples tomorrow, I basically have enough gift cards from discover card cash back to cover the cost of the tablet...

Click to expand...

It was a promotion they did a month ago that I found on slickdeals, $75 off all Venue 11 tablets. There's a 20% coupon going on right now making it around $300. If you keep checking the page maybe a cheaper refurbished model will pop up. I think the one I ordered was $353 before the coupon, right now it's $380.

Well got a box today...Dell Venue 8 Pro 32GB
Between the ink rewards and Discover Card cash back staples gift cards I had saved up I ended up paying $1.16 out of pocket
Biggest issue will be lack of space, just turning it on there is only 11.6 GB free...time to read up on how to recover space and find my extra 64 GB microSD card.

This will get me started playing with a WIN8 tablet, I think I'll still save up and watch the Dell outlet for the DV11P, the added space, usb 3.0 and hdmi out would be nice.