This is just a quick post to let people know about a nice portable device for running a software remote. I just bought a Dell Venue 8 Pro windows tablet. I bought it specifically for use as a software remote device. I've only had a few hours with it but I already really like it. I fell in love with the smaller form factor after buying a Google Nexus 7.
The Venue is a 1280 x 800 device. My previous device (a Samsung ATIV-500) was 1366 x 768 so I only had to do a little bit of recomposing of the theme to make it work nicely in the Venue 8. For $300, I think this will be a great device. It's small, light, fast and (relatively speaking) very affordable!
Let me know how the software remote works on it. I recently purchased an Acer Iconia and haven't been impressed. Partially because of the way the sleep/awake is working on Windows 8 and button presses don't show on the remote.
I've been using Windows 8 on my ExoPC and Samsung ATIV-500 as well. The issue I had (and I suspect the one you are referring to) is that often when I wake up the device, it has lost connection to the HB server and doesn't seem to be able to get it back without closing and restarting the remote. My best guess is that this has something to do with power conservation and the wireless adapter.
Unfortunately, I've noticed that the driver for the Atheros adapter (which many of these tablets use) doesn't have a Power Management tab, so I can't tell it to always stay connected. I've noticed this on the Venue 8 Pro as well, but it doesn't seem to happen as frequently (although I need to use it for a week or two to get a really good idea of stability).
When you say "button presses don't show on the remote", I assume you mean that you never see the depressed state? I do see them on the ATIV-500, but not on the Venue 8. I remember early on with HB, I was using a Dell 15" touchscreen. In that case there was configuration software and I had to change a setting to get the buttons to show depressed. My guess is that something similar is going on here, but now the vendors don't expose those settings (or maybe they just don't implement them) anymore.
