Venue 8 Pro Stylus Problems

Question

Hello, I just bought a Dell Venue 8 Pro from my local Costco and love it!  The main reasons I chose it over other options were 1) active stylus, and 2) price.  I just received the Stylus on Dec 20th.  Unfortunately, it performs very poorly.  I've been reading posts about this on these and other forums and I'm trying to figure out if I can get this fixed or not.  Unlike most, the Stylus option is very important to me as I primarily use my current tablet (iPad gen 1) for taking notes in meetings and for doing remote white boarding of the technical solutions I sells as a Sales Engineer.  The iPad's capacitive touch stylus's are just not what I'm looking for.  I want a tablet that has an active stylus, runs windows so I can use OneNote and Lync, and is under $400.  The Dell Venue 8 Pro meets all of these requirements except the stylus I have is misbehaving.  I'm hoping its just bad hardware and I can get a new one.  But if it is something more systemic, I need to know that so I can return my Venue which I really don't want to do since I love it.   What I'm seeing in OneNote is stray marks on the screen before I even touch the pen to the tablet screen.  Additionally, if I hover the pen within about 1 inch of anything that can be clicked, like a button or link, it will do so.  And finally, when I have the pen in the loop attached to the portfolio I received with the Venue 8 Pro, it seems to activate the palm-rest avoidance or something so that I cannot touch the screen with my finger. I've downloaded the latest drivers marked urgent  for both the touch screen and stylus, but no change.  I tried calibrating the stylus but as I go to put the pen to the cross-hairs, it starts 'auto-clicking' before I even get close to the screen and the clicks seem be spread out randomly since its not close enough to the screen to get a precise reading of its location.  I'll call support as well but wanted to find out if others are still seeing this behavior since all the posts I see on this are back in November.  Thanks!

Netstatinfo · Answer

There's supposed to be a firmware /driver update for this ( Found in other thread latest is December !), I just got mine today the 23rd and I too am having issues as you described.  Just hold off for another week or so, worst case return everything like you said.  Hope the info helps.

mchackintosh · Answer

A lot of users have been having success with this set of DIY fixes for the hardware issues. http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/dell/59959-dell-venue-8-pro-active-stylus-fix-me-least.html

grissom3310 · Answer

I have heard of a replacement, a part 2 if you will. Stylus. But now I'm hearing about battery drain. Jeez.

grissom3310 · Answer

The biggest shame here is....WHY COULDN'T DELL GO WITH PROVEN WACOM!!!!!!! When I had my Note 8.0 it was awesome, but battery life was terrible. Now I have a Note 3 and I am of the religion WACOM. If Dell can't get it together I'm getting the Asus 8' windows tablet about to come out.

npoenn · Answer

I found that the AAAA battery in the stylus dies within a week, regardless of whether or not it is being used.

grissom3310 · Answer

Is the one you have the newest one? A01?

npoenn · Answer

The original october one, i'm planning to return it and try to get one of the newer ones to see how it is

npoenn · Answer

yeah, I would have been willing to pay $100 more if it had working wacom in it instead something completely untested like this.

grissom3310 · Answer

I'm still on the fence about buying one myself. I did see a YouTube video that showed a decent working product. I just know I'll be comparing it to my note 3 Wacom stylus. The video did show that the stylus is hard tipped, the Wacom is softer, why oh why no Wacom Dell.

grissom3310 · Answer

It's still the best. 8' tablet until the Asus with Wacom comes out

npoenn · Answer

I agree, it's a really good tablet. It's just too bad that the pen support was so half-baked.

i2fat2kidnap · Answer

Regarding the stylus, what exactly does the top button do? I'm assuming the bottom button only enables the 'right' clicking feature. Do these buttons do anything else and are we able to customize them?

Kentcomp · Answer

I just received my rev. A01 stylus yesterday, installed the latest firmware but am having the same writing issue that others were having with the earlier pen. My issue is perfectly illustrated here: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/mobile-devices/f/4586/t/19537316.aspx Aside from taking the stylus apart does anyone have any suggestions for calibrating the display and pen so they work symbiotically on a Venue Pro 8?

Kentcomp · Answer

In OneNote, the top button makes the stylus behave as an eraser and the bottom button is a looping tool for selecting previously written handwriting. I haven't found any other uses for the top button in Windows yet, but I just got mine. It doesn't seem to do anything on the modern screen or the desktop. BTW, I found another firmware update that addressed the handwriting issues I was having when I lifted the pen from the screen. No more bad calligraphy from digital errata! :-)

Mikerman · Answer

Regarding the stylus, what exactly does the top button do? I'm assuming the bottom button only enables the "right" clicking feature. Do these buttons do anything else and are we able to customize them?

Apparently, the button functions are set by individual programs--thereby requiring some experimentation. I recall having read that the buttons will work to left and right click (perhaps that's with Windows, or a browser?) and that the bottom button, when held down in applications, will cause a hover circle to appear.

Tablets & Mobile Devices

Was this post helpful?