Xpost /r/androidtablets: samsung tab s2 9.7 vs. Dell Venue 8 7000

Hi there,

I'm moving to Taiwan for a year and my girlfriend was thinking of getting me a tablet for xmas. We were looking at these two at the local Best Buy and the screens were really nice.

The dell is around $280 while the samsung is $400. I'm worried about the availability of future android updates, especially for the dell, and am a little disappointed neither have a digitizer, but whatever.

I'll mostly use them for when I don't want to lug my heavy laptop with me. Email, video chat, blog posts, etc.

Any thoughts?

Posted Dec 12, 2015, 8:59 AM UTC

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ajaxanon•10 yr. ago

As far as I know, Samsung is pretty bad with rolling out updates for their tablets.

I agree, the lack of digitizer is disappointing, and generally there are very few options for tablets with digitizers in a smaller form factor. I ended up getting the note 5 as an alternative, but obviously it's a lot smaller. If you really want a digitizer, a good option is the surface 3 (non pro version). The only gripe for me (other than the price) is that I don't think I would be able to use it comfortably one-handed. If the form factor was a little smaller, I think I would have picked one up by now.

Another option you could look into is the Nexus 9. You should get good software updates on the nexus. The S2 is not a bad option, but $400 is a pretty hefty price tag for the machine.

Sorry I couldn't be more help.

akebethOP•10 yr. ago

Yeah I don't know how much I'd use the digitizer or not, but I felt like it would have been a good option.

We looked at them again today. Decided the 10 inch s2 was too big. So now it's the dell vs the 8 inch s2.

Nexus 9 was going to be my first choice but I've heard of some quality control issues. And the OLED screens look pretty so there's that.

I am more worried about the Dell NEVER receiving updates than I am on Samsung slowly updating.

I hate choices.

buzzer58•10 yr. ago

Actually the venue 8 7840 has a digitizer that works with synaptics styluses. It just isnt advertised. It wont have a silo, and you have to buy a stylus. It doesnt have any built in functions but has palm rejection and should work with anything you would normally use it with.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/dell-venue/general/dell-venue-8-7840-secret-t3140663

Samsung tablets have way better 3rd party support at least with the last two tablets the s2 has replaced (tab pro and tab s). I seriously doubt dell will give any more updates to the 7840. Its bootloader is actually unlocked, but there are no roms or anything for it, probably because no developers have it.

akebethOP•10 yr. ago

Oh cool! But yeah, lack of updates is worrisome. I think the samsung is the safest bet. The 8 inch is only 70 bucks more than the samsung. I'll probably go samsung just because of that. Stylus makes the dell tempting though.