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Photos: Dell Venue 8 7000 tablet hands on

A closer look at what Dell claims is the thinnest tablet in the world and the photo editing features enabled by its depth-sensing cameras.
By Nick Heath, Contributor
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1 of 10 Nick Heath / ZDNet

This is the Dell Venue 8 7000 series tablet – referred to by Michael Dell as the thinnest tablet in the world.

The device is a mere 6mm thick, and includes Intel's RealSense technology that uses three cameras to measure image depth in photos – allowing the focal point to be shifted after an image is taken and other neat photo-editing tricks.

The screen appears crisp, with an 8.4 inch, 2,560 x 1,600 OLED display sat alongside the stereo speaker and front-facing 1080p video camera.

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Here you can see how slim the tablet is – thinner even than the 7.5mm-thick iPad Air.

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For photographers the built-in photo editing tools in the tablet's Gallery software offers some interesting ways to tweak photos taken with the RealSense cameras, which can capture depth information up to a range of 10 metres.

One possibility is changing where the focus lies within an image, for instance here you can see the majority of the photo is clear.

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Here is the same shot after the focus has been changed, by pulling a slider across the bottom of the screen, so only the tree is clear.

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Similarly, filters can be applied to objects at specific depths within an image. Here the foreground is changed to black and white.

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And here is the same photo with the black and white filter applied to the background.

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The depth information captured by RealSense also makes it possible to take measurements of items within the image, by dragging your finger across the item you want to get the dimensions of.

Other reports have questioned the accuracy of this feature, with one test finding a man was labelled as 12-feet tall.

Dell has said all of the photo-editing tools are being refined for the release version of the tablet.

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Photos are also geotagged, allowing users to view all the photos taken at a particular location.

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The tablet runs Android 4.4 OS and comes with a range of apps installed, including the usual Google Chrome browser, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Calendar and YouTube. Also included is Dell Cast, for wirelessly pushing the tablet's display to a TV or monitor – with support for 1080p video.

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The tablet's grey and black plastic case feels relatively sturdy while the machine weighs very little. The RealSense cameras lie within the thin black bar just above the base of the tablet.

Powering the device is an Intel Moorfield SoC, while the tablet packs 2GB of DDR3 memory and a 16GB SSD for storage, with the option of adding more via an SD card.

The Dell Venue 8 7000 is due out in November but pricing has not yet been released.

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