The Dell Venue 8 Pro delivers full Windows 8.1 in a $299 package
On Friday, Dell began selling one of the first tablets with Intel's Bay Trail processor, as small Windows 8.1 devices go quad core.
The $299 Dell Venue 8 Pro can be ordered online starting Friday with an estimated shipment date of October 25.
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The tablet sports a quad-core Intel Atom Z3740D "Bay Trail" processor rated at speeds of up to 1.8GHz, a 32GB flash drive, and 2GB Single Channel DDR3L-RS 1600MHz RAM.
Dell is one of the first out of the gate with a soon-to-ship tablet packing Intel's redesigned, higher-performance Atom processor.
Bay Trail offers performance that approaches Intel's lower-end mainstream Core processors and benchmarks seem to bear that out.
The Venue 8 Pro boasts an 8-inch IPS display with 1,280x800 resolution -- that's a respectable 189 pixels per inch (PPI). By comparison, the iPad Mini has a PPI of 162.
Dell also begun selling Android tablets online starting Friday. The Venue 7 starts at $149.99 with an older Intel Atom Z2560 processor, and the Venue 8 starts at $179.99 with a previous-generation Intel Z2580 Atom processor.
Finally, Dell launched sales of its XPS 15 Touch Windows 8.1 laptop with an Apple-Retina-busting optional QHD+ 3,200x1,800 15.6-inch touch display.
The 0.7-inch thick, 4.4-pound design is also equipped with Intel 4th Generation Core "Haswell" processors, Intel HD 4400 graphics, and storage ranging up to a 512GB solid-state drive.
Pricing is high, however, starting at $1,499.
Editors' note: This post was originally published on October 18, 2013 at 3:26 P.M. PDT. It has been updated with the XPS 15 Touch launch discussion.
