Dell Venue 8 7000 Tablet featuring Intel® RealSense™ Technology

After sharing with you some of the incredible things you can do with Intel® RealSense™ Technology back in March, I had the opportunity to see it first hand in the  Dell Venue 8 7000 tablet.  The Dell Venue 8 7000 tablet is actually the first tablet to come with a built-in Intel® RealSense™ Snapshot Depth Camera and it is also currently the world’s thinnest tablet.  Packed with cutting edge features, this tablet easily breaks the mould.

The Dell Venue 8 7000 tablet features an incredibly vivid 8.4, 2560 x 1600 OLED infinity display surrounded by a super thin bezel on three edges.  The other edge is thicker and houses the speakers and a 2 MP front facing camera.  The back of the tablet houses the Intel® RealSense™ Technology which comes in the form of two 720p depth sensing lenses and a regular 8 MP lens.

The Dell Venue 8 7000 is powered by an Intel Atom Z3580 2.3GHz quad-core CPU which enables it to deliver smooth and quick performance handing web browsing, video playback and everyday tasks with ease.  I did notice just the slightest lag when loading larger apps and games but overall the performance is great, even when multitasking to get my work done. 

It also runs on the latest Android™ 5.0 Lollipop® operating system and comes with 2GB of RAM, Bluetooth 4.0, 16GB of internal storage as well as a microSD card slot that’s expandable up to 512GB.  I really appreciate the ability to expand the physical storage on this tablet, especially as microSD card slots seem to be missing on many new tablets on the market.

It also has pretty impressive battery life, although it’s a bit slow to charge; a trade off I am more than content with. I can’t tell you how many times I have been at an event with a tablet or my phone only to have the battery drain part way through.  Definitely not a problem with the Dell Venue 8 7000 tablet.

 Of course, what really differentiates the Dell Venue 8 7000 from other tablets is the new Intel® RealSense™ Technology.  Using the Intel® RealSense™ Technology and Dell’s Gallery photo editing app  you can measure objects in photos, refocus pictures and apply selective filters for some pretty cool effects.

Using the RealSense camera is easy once you’ve got the hang of flipping your tablet upside down in order to avoid covering the three lenses with yours hands. Once in the camera app you simply select Depth snapshot mode from the shooting options and take your shot.  I did notice that also there was no lag when taking the pictures, there is a short processing time before each photo is available to edit.

If your photo has been shot in depth mode you will see it listed in the Dell Gallery app with a cube in the upper right corner of its thumbnail.  From there just open the photo to find three icions on the top left side of the screen for the three depth editing functions.

The ruler icon allows you to get approximate real-world measurements from within the photo and it’s easier than you think to use.  Simply draw a line from one point to another and be instantly rewarded with a measurement. 

You can even measure the surface area of an object by drawing around an object. Of course to get more accurate measurements you need to be taking your photos in just the right way as lighting, distance and angle can affect the accuracy.   It’s certainly a lot more fun and far easier to use than traditional measuring tape, that’s for sure!

For me though, I found the most useful of the editing tools is the ability to refocus after the fact.  Sometimes you just have to grab a quick shot and unfortunately that means you might not have the time to sit and focus your photo properly.  

Instead of worrying about all of that, with the Intel® RealSense™ Technology camera you can simply snap a quick photo and worry about getting just the right focus later.  This feature of course is not to be confused with the ability to stabilize photos so you still need to hold that tablet steady to avoid blur.  Hold it steady though and you can snap away knowing you can fix it all up later!  A dream come true for those who want perfect photos every time whether its a picture of your child walking for the first time or getting shots at an event. 

Turn your photos into art with the depth editing feature by applying filters such as black and white to planes of the photo without affecting the rest.  This is a really fun and pretty cool feature which will have your friends asking you how you did it.

The bottom line is that if you are looking for a premium tablet with incredibly innovative technology and a sleek design the Dell Venue 8 7000 is an excellent choice.

Disclosure:  I’m required to disclose a relationship between our site and Intel Canada.