Despite a terrible name, the Dell Venue 8 is the thinnest tablet currently available. It’s also very good.

The Venue 8 is an 8.4-inch Android tablet that is only 6mm thick. That’s 0.1mm thinner than an iPod Air 2 but it’s apparently the detail that counts. The tablet is 215.8mm long and 124.4mm wide, bringing it in line with other tablets on the market. At only 306g, it’s also one of the lightest.

The aluminium frame feels premium and with a sleekness to the design that adds to its appeal. There is a power button and volume rocker on the left site and a SIM/MicroSD slot on the right, but that’s it. There are spaces for speakers and cameras but these are very low key. All in all, the aesthetics are good.

The Venue 8 has an 8.4-inch OLED display capable of 2,560 x 1,600 running at 361ppi. The screen is detailed and easy to use and image quality is sharp. Colours are rich and the viewing experience is good enough for most uses. Text and icons are small as a result, but this is easy to get used to.

One of the Venue 8’s signatures is the first use of Intel RealSense in a tablet. RealSense Snapshot Depth is made up of three cameras on the back of the tablet that combine to provide focal depth to an image. It allows you to take a picture and then select a focal point from that image. While it sounds impressive, demo versions of the Venue 8 are yet to enable this feature.

RealSense has potential for photographers as it allows you to take a snapshot and then play with the details and settings after the fact. Great for fast moving situations or spur of the moment pictures.

At the heart of the Venue 8 is an Intel Atom Z3580 2.3GHz quad-core CPU, Imagination PowerVR G6430 GPU, 2GB of RAM, Bluetooth 4.0, 16GB of internal storage and a microSD. It runs Android KitKat 4.4 at the moment with upgrade to Lollipop on the cards.

The Venue 8 has a lot of utility packed into its small chassis. While it isn’t as powerful as some, for its portability and its price is a worthy contender in the tablet market.

Jesmond Darmanin is a technology enthusiast who blogs at www.itnewsblog.com.

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