Top products from r/Venue8Pro

Every issue there was in the beginning has been fixed. The only thing you need to worry about is making sure you have the rev. A02 stylus, and all the latest touch panel firmware update from Dell.

Stylus here.

Update here.

This app from Wacom will make your writing just as smooth as on a Wacom tablet. It is free and is compatible with the Venue 8 Pro.

If you get the Venue 8 Pro, which would be perfect for you and I highly recommend it, wait for the updated version with the Z3745D processor, because it's better than the Z3740D for the same price. Make sure you don't get the one with 1gb of ram, because it will run terribly and it lacks the active digitizer needed to use a pressure sensitive stylus.

I bought one on Amazon for like ten dollars. Great quality:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00ETL53AS

I went with the Fintie Blade case + keyboard. It's been working pretty well for me.

What do you need?

If you want just a proper USB port for your DV8P, just buy this (I'll leave it up to you to find an Amazon.com equivalent, there's a lot)

And, what is probably more likely, if you want to charge your DV8P and use the port for data (USB keys, keyboards, etc.) at the same time then it will be a bit more involved. The easiest method (which requires zero soldering) is to follow this guide. Basically you order three cables, hook everything up, trick your DV8P into charging and accepting data at the same time, and voila. Warning: stuff from DealExtreme can take weeks, sometimes into a month, to ship.

because Windows needs a keyboard more than an Android does, I guess.

on the other hand, here's 30 dollars off: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00H34DLSO/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/181-9909183-3938503#

Here's the one I bought [Dell Active Pen PN556W (N1DNK)] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01BA5JT6O/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_Fg2GybFPNY77H)

It says right on it "Venue 8 Pro". If it's not compatible, they lied.

Edits: formatting

for that price, there has to be a better alternative. For instance, this one is cheaper and is backlit: http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Bluetooth-Illuminated-Keyboard-Smartphones/dp/B0099SMFVQ/ref=sr_1_12?ie=UTF8&qid=1404858843&sr=8-12&keywords=bluetooth+keyboard

I was actually looking at something a little bit more like this:
http://www.amazon.com/Bear-Motion-Case-DELL-Venue/dp/B00IKZENF0/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1404834972&sr=8-6&keywords=venue+8+pro+keyboard

Small, odd layout (?/ on left of keyboard, |\ -_+= and especially ' " relegated to Fn keys is especially annoying).

I got this http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-U6R-00001-Wedge-Mobile-Keyboard/dp/B008OEHPKM and have been pleased.

There's also this one on Amazon, but it's not through Dell.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00G0UARLQ/ref=s9_simh_gw_p107_d0_i2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=05D6QE2CRBRAX72TV287&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200382&pf_rd_i=507846

Did a clean install of W10 Enterprise on my unit (32GB, 1GB RAM). Initially did not have drivers (e.g. touch screen,WLAN, etc) during install which made it a PITA.

Did some research and the simplest way to go about a clean install (deleted all partitions), was able to inject the drivers into the WIM (install and post-install WIMs). Used NTLite to inject the drivers and then used a OTG USB drive to install W10.

Link to forum thread which got me going.

Link to OTG drive used

I got mine new for $100 from the Microsoft Store, and it's great for the price I paid. It certainly has its issues though, mainly that it's too difficult to write quickly and it frequently refuses to wake up without a hard reset. I use mine with a 64GB card and the transfer speeds from a 64GB usb 3.0 flash drive is several times faster than writing to it from my pc with usb 1. I'm not sure how fast it's supposed to be, so I can't say if it's performing as it should. I keep mine in an IVSO case all the time, so I feel little heat, but usually feel no heat. Mine is mostly used for reading with DrawboardPDF, which is awkward and unreliable, but occasionally I'll use it to watch 720p videos stored on the memory card or on a Plex server. I disable rotation most of the time, and manually rotate when switching from reading to watching videos.

While I'm happy with the $100 I paid, I regret paying an extra ~hundred for Microsoft CompleteCare or whatever it's called, and buying that first stylus that worked very poorly.

I still have the OS as originally installed, and haven't updated any of the firmware, so the issues I've experienced might have already been addressed by the updates or Windows 8.1.