affordable tablet Archives - Argyll Free Press

Asus Memo Pad 7 Review: The Little Tablet That Could

We expand our list of budget tablets that are worth at least taking into account when deciding to purchase one with the Asus Memo Pad 7: the spiritual successor of 2013’s Asus Memo Pad HD7. While the name not only does not imply it, but actually ends up doing the exact opposite – the Asus Memo Pad 7 is the series’ iteration that came a little over a year later but actually didn’t end up bringing astounding improvements over its predecessor.

There is never a shortage of tablets that fall into the low budget category; however, the grand majority of them end up particularly disappointing because manufacturers choose to cut corners on some very important aspects of the build. Now, depending on what a person wishes to purchase a tablet for, this may either be walked past with no problem or be an absolute disaster for other potential buyers.

The Asus Memo Pad 7 is a great example of an affordable tablet, especially handy now that the holidays are on our doorsteps. To be frank, the tablet doesn’t particularly stand out in any aspect and even struggles with some of them, but ultimately ends up being a decent piece of hardware that you can use for your daily internet-related routine or family time. So, on to the Asus Memo Pad review.

Pros:

Affordable
Decent Build
Great Quality to Price ratio

Cons:

Outdated Hardware
Performance Issues
Even more underwhelming in the camera department than tablets usually are

Asus Memo Pad 7 Design

Aesthetically, the Asus Memo Pad 7 is hardly an innovation. It’s a relatively small tablet, a fact only emphasized by the fact that the bezel surrounding the screen in a little on the wide and large side. That also takes away some of the charm from the tablet’s overall look and making it feel a little buried in the bezel and unsatisfactory to some. It has a 66% screen to body ratio which is a lower than average number; as a comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 scores a 72.7% ratio while the Apple iPad Air 2 only goes up to 71.6%.

There are no quirky features that seem particularly attractive about the tablet other than the metallic frame that peeks out all around the edges, breaking the uniformity to some degree. The edges are also slightly curved to give the tablet a good grip. Considering that its size falls into the small category, chances are that you’ll be able to hold it up single-handedly comfortably when watching something for example. It’s only 295 grams heavy so it shouldn’t weigh too much on your hand or become uncomfortable. At its overall dimensions are 189.3 x 113.7 x 9.6, it’s even smaller than an iPad mini 4, but considerably thicker. That’s also a result of the curved back that doesn’t look half bad and gives the tablet a smooth feel through the plastic but slightly rubberized texture that prevents slipping and will secure your grip on the Memo Pad.

The front of the tablet displays the Asus logo at the bottom, underneath the screen and a front-facing camera in the top right corner. We consider the portrait positioning as being the default one. The back of the Asus Memo Pad 7 displays an unusually large camera sensor that slightly juts out in a non-upsetting manner.

In terms of button placement, the tablet has a more unusual location for its volume rocker and power button: on the right side of the tablet, on the curve the surface makes towards the edge. While that may feel a little unnatural, it’s not hard to get used to it nor will you find the respective buttons hard to use or in any danger of accidentally pressing them. The opposite side hosts the microSD card slot, unfortunately not covered by a door so that is one aspect that you may want to take extra care of just to make sure you don’t lose your SDs by mistake. The top side of the Asus Memo Pad 7 tablet hosts the 3.5 audio jack and a micro-USB port for charging and data transfer.

The tablet doesn’t look like it has any particular physical weaknesses, with no visible creases or exposed bits that could end up being damaged by continuous use. Visually – and this may not be regarded as positive feedback – the tablet actually reminds me of the old Samsung Galaxy S, given the metallic frame running along its sides.

You can purchase the Asus Memo Pad 7 in 5 color variations: black, white, red, yellow and blue – making it appealing for both professional and family use alike.

Asus Memo Pad 7 Display

The Asus Memo Pad 7 employs an IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen that measures only 7 inches. Considering that we have seen 6 inch phablets, the tablet is really modestly sized and rather inspires something you would have your child use for entertainment. It is capable of multi touch of up to 10 fingers at once so any kind of game or app will not have any problem of being used on this tablet.

The display isn’t amazingly brilliant. For starters, it will only display a maximum resolution of 1200 x 800, a lot lower than you can get for high-end smartphones for example. Given its size, the tablet only manages to reach a 216 ppi pixel density, meaning you might end up thinking images look a little blocky and that reading small text is a little more tiring than it should. Secondly, the screen doesn’t seem to have been coated in the usual Corning Gorilla Glass that we see on most, if not all average and above devices. Don’t misunderstand me, the screen is by no means frail as it still has a toughened glass build protecting it from scratching and smudges, but it’s just not the material we’ve all grown accustomed to.

Because of that, the display of the Asus Memo Pad 7 has some considerable issues with reflexivity: viewing the images depicted on the tablet in clear daylight – or worse, sunlight – will turn out to be irksome as the image loses a lot of its vibrancy. In average lighting conditions, the screen is satisfactory to say the least in terms of color range and color accuracy, it’s just that the viewing experience may fail to impress a fair bit.

The fact that the maximum brightness that the Asus Memo Pad 7 is capable of isn’t outstanding by itself is one of the culprits behind that as well. The story goes down the same road when it comes to viewing angles: the image loses a considerable amount of brightness as you start rotating the tablet and viewing the image from the sides. On the upside however, the tablet has its very own customizable color temperature and saturation, allowing you to tweak the way things look on it to your own liking – whether you prefer vivid, saturated colors, or you’d rather aim for warmer hues over colder.

While we can’t say that the screen is necessarily bad, it’s just two or three things that happen to feed upon each other and amplify certain effects such as overall visibility on the Asus Memo Pad 7. However, this shouldn’t discourage you from two perspectives: one is the fact that this is, after all, a budget tablet. The other one is the fact that unless you’ve used amazingly detailed and clear displays on your other devices in the past, the effect is really not upsetting.

Asus Memo Pad 7 Specs & Performance

By far the most important part if the entire tablet, this is the one chapter where performance results have the unusual effect of not matching the hardware that we saw on paper. while the Asus Memo Pad 7 is a remake of 2013’s version of the tablet more than anything else, it did get some tweaks here and there. One of the upgrades that you’ll be able to find on this version over the predecessor is the processor. While the HD7 sported a Mediatek MT8125 quad-core 1.2 GZHz Cortex-A7, the Asus Memo Pad 7 brings to our table the Intel Atom Z3745 quad-core 1.86 GHz CPU, part of the Bay Trail chip family. It’s a core processing unit that is very familiar for a number of devices simply because it manages to pack a decent amount of power while keeping the costs to a minimum.

If we’re to take benchmarking results into account, this unit is comparable to what was considered state of the art technology 2 or 3 years ago. It scored 765 on the single-core Geekbench 3 and 2038 on the multi-core scale.

In terms of storage space, the tablet may seem underwhelming to some extent considering that it only comes in 8 or 16 GB HDD space respectively, but thankfully to the microSD card slot, that shouldn’t be a problem when it comes to storage management.

Asus Memo Pad 7 Features & Software

If you’re looking for a pure, stock Android tablet for your holiday gift shopping, I’m afraid that the Asus Memo Pad 7 may not be for you; there aren’t that many tablets that come from other manufacturer than Google, Samsung and a few examples from Dell that do. However, the Memo Pad 7 manages to pull off a skin that is anything but upsetting and “bloaty”.

The Asus Memo Pad 7 features the Andoid 4.4.2 KitKat operating system. Considering the tablet has been out for a while and yet there haven’t been any updates announced for it, there is a chance you will end up being stuck with this one for a while to come. That means you wouldn’t be able to enjoy Android’s Material Design on this one. Although that is a bit disappointing, the interface of the Asus Memo Pad 7 is anything but not stylish. It’s clean, it’s comprehensive and very practical; only a few minuses have made their way on this tablet.

What this tablet does on top of adding its very own native app of various utility, it also provides its own input when it comes to some of the basic apps by replacing them with Asus’ own version of them. The e-mail app, contacts, calendar, image gallery and even the keyboard have been given a new and different look.

The extra apps that you would be getting with the Asus Memo Pad 7 are mostly useful and very much excusable content, such as the Asus cloud storage app. Considering that if you purchase the tablet you get 5 GB of Life Time ASUS Webstorage Space as well as an extra 11 GB for the first year of usage, the manufacturer put in an app for you to be able to easily use when making use of the cloud services. There is a native, Asus-only application that you get access to – the Party Link which allows you to instantly share photos with 3 other people in your vicinity – which would be great if it wasn’t restricted to Asus devices alone. Other than that, you get a to-do note list app, Accuweather’s weather app, a Kindle app and Zinio, a multi-platform hub of digital magazines.

Anything else in terms of utility, you’ll most likely have to handle yourself and download manually off the Google Play – which thankfully offers a wide variety of applications that are compatible with the Asus Memo Pad 7. The interface itself hasn’t gone through a whole lot of changes, everything being controlled and navigated the same way. While the device is multi touch capable, there is no gesture control interface or anything of the sort.

There is one aspect of the Asus Memo Pad 7 that you may find very useful if you’re planning to allow your kids to use the tablet. The operating system allows you to set locks on certain applications that you have installed on the tablet. So for example, if you wanted to let your child only doodle, watch cartoons or play games on the tablet you can easily restrict his or her access to other parts of the system – whether we’re talking YouTube or System Options.

In terms of performance, the Asus Memo Pad 7 has an unexplainably hard time with keeping its footing when running graphic intensive apps or when multitasking gets serious. You may experience a short moment of lag when switching between apps and don’t rule out frame drops if you’re attempting the latest 3D games on it either.

Asus Memo Pad 7 Camera & Battery Life

The same unexplainable latency that we just mentioned above manifests itself when it comes to the camera too. When trying to take shots you may end with more frustration that you were ready for as the image on the screen lags behind the real time conditions in considerable amounts. In the absence of a more advanced auto-focusing sensor, the rear camera will never be a competing force when it comes to taking shots. Furthermore, the rear camera is only a 5 megapixel one, meaning that the images that the tablet is able to render will hardly be satisfactory in terms of quality. While the rear camera allows video recording in up to 1080p, don’t get too hopeful, the quality isn’t any better.

There is also a front facing camera that doesn’t exceed 2 megapixels. While you can use it to take selfies or video conferencing, don’t get your hopes up any more than you have for the rear one. Any of the cameras found on this tablet should really only be taken as a last resort and not much else.

Given the fact that hardware packed in the Asus Memo Pad 7 isn’t exactly the most lightweight build you can get, I think it’s a great fact that the battery life seems to be longer on the MP7 than it is on so many others. The tablet can handle itself for as much as 9 hours of video playback on one single charge thanks to the non-removable 3,950 mAh battery pack that was used in its construction. And as a plus, the one aspect that so many devices skip on for some reason, the Asus Memo Pad 7 also comes with a great amount of customizability your tablet’s power consumption – meaning that if you feel your device is eating up way too much power, there are a few things you can do about it.

Asus Memo Pad 7 Verdict

In the end, the Asus Memo Pad 7 remains a little, modest but reliable tablet that you can consider as a Christmas present for your kids or for any of the regular internet-related activities such as sorting through e-mails, reading documents, web surfing, watching movies and videos and whatnot. If you feel like you wouldn’t mind a display that isn’t up to par with the brightest and best looking screens out there, then the MP7 won’t give you any discomfort.

It’s far from one of the best but manages to make up for that through sturdiness and reliability – and everything at a price that doesn’t even come close to its more “advanced” counterparts. If I’d reviewed this tablet a year ago and unbiased by the more recent half a centimeter thick and downright power-house level tablets that are currently gracing our market, the Asus Memo Pad 7 surely would’ve received more praise than it has. And that’s without counting the extremely low Asus Memo Pad 7 price tag.

You can purchase the Asus Memo Pad 7 from various online retailers for as little as $125 for the 8 GB version and $150 for the 16 GB one. Accessories for it, such as Asus Memo Pad 7 cases you can still purchase off of the Asus official website instead.

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Hisense Sero 8 Review – A Budget Android Tablet

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Continuing our expedition in the less known but highly affordable selection of gadgets, we came across a clever little tablet known as the Hisense Sero 8. Also a Chinese production that is aiming to build products that can expand their reach into the Western market just as well, the Hisense Sero 8 inspires reliability and a good investment when you weigh in the shockingly small amount of money you’ll be paying for it.

We recently reviewed another tablet in this sector that the Hisense Sero 8 reminds us of; more precisely, the Tesco Hudl 2. However, this one comes from a company that has sort of specialized in producing low-cost devices, this tablet obviously being the 8^th iteration of the Hisense tablets series. The manufacturer seems to have taken the customer feedback that was received for the Hisense Sero 7 Pro tablet very seriously, and made a decision to improve directly on the various aspects that elicited most concern.

While the Hisense Sero 8 is anything but your brand new release in terms of budget tablets, having come out quite a while ago and even having a “Pro” variant that followed suit showcasing some new features that the crowds requested. But given that it’s nearing December, the time when your wallet ends up suffering tremendously with all the holiday shopping you have to do, shifting our gaze to the wide selection of budget gadgets on the market can turn into a life saver.

So what is there to expect from this highly accessible Hisense tablet? Is it worth its price?

Hisense Sero 8 Design

So what does the Hisense Sero 8 aspire to be? For an 8 inch display tablet, the dimensions that it comes with seem a little bulkier than they should be. At 208.55 x 129.8 x 10.5 mm, the tablet is both taller and thicker than you might be used to if you’ve used a smaller-scale tablet before. One aspect that some users may feel a little put off by is the width of the bezel, which even convinced the manufacturers to correct in the later released Hisense Sero 8 Pro. Even so, in terms of bezel size, it’s gone a long way from the Sero 7.

The thickness is also a slightly unsettling number that we don’t get to see much nowadays. At a thickness of barely over 1 centimeter, you could easily say it’s about the same size of two Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 stacked together; that may prove to be an issue if you’re trying to hold the tablet single handedly, but considering you’ll more often than not two-hand it when you use it, grip should not be a concern.

In order to make up for the extra thickness that the Sero tablet packs, the back of the unibody that the device comes with is covered with a textured plastic surface that makes the tablet easier to hold and handle. Considering its entire exterior is made of carbon fiber and not the more common aluminum alloy, you would think that this tablet spells bad quality and a frail chassis. Surprisingly enough, the Hisense Sero 8 feels like anything but cheap and prone to breaking. In terms of weight, the tablet doesn’t jump a long way away from the standard: no less than 450 grams.

Furthermore, the Hisense Sero 8 may feel as a pretty underwhelming design example for some considering that it’s relatively plain from an aesthetic sense; a fact only empowered by the color variants that it’s available in: only gray.

The back of the Hisense Sero 8 is very simplistic to begin with. A large, round camera sensor is nestled in the upper center of the cover, the Hisense logo resting a couple of inches below it. At the bottom of the tablet there is a strip of speaker holes, as well as the serial number and information regarding the product right above it. There is a chance that the consumer variant of this tablet does not incorporate that particular detail in its build, so if you consider it a problem, do check the retailer images of the product beforehand.

In terms of button placement, I found that the approach Hisense took with it is relatively clever. Aside from the volume rocker that you can find on the tablet’s right hand side (we consider that the default orientation is in portrait mode), all of the other function buttons, ports and slots have been clumped up on the top. Covered from nearly one end to another, this side of the tablet is home to the power button, the microUSB port that is responsible of data transfer and charging, a microSD card slot to expand your storage options as well as a regular 3.5 mm headphone socket.

All things considered, the Hisense Sero 8 is not an outstanding piece of well-designed device architecture; if anything, it feels like it’s trying to appeal to the market and not bring up something new. On the upside however, the manufacturer does give you the opportunity to purchase a separate Hisense Sero 8 case to spike things up – some featuring a pattern on the back that make the tablet more visually appealing.

Hisense Sero 8 Display

The display of the Hisense Sero 8 comes at a meager resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixel resolution, which – given the 8 inches diagonal it comes with – doesn’t end up in an outstanding pixel density: only 189 pixels per inch. Because of that the images rendered on the Sero 8’s screen won’t be outstanding in terms of clarity and detail, usually ending up looking a little pixelated at times. However, thanks to the IPS build, we can say that the display renders bright and realistic colors; contrast is the aspect that ends up suffering to a degree in comparison to the AMOLED alternative, which normally accounts for brighter whites and deeper blacks, but the colors look a lot more vivid and sharp on the Sero 8 than they would otherwise.

Viewing angles are pretty good, everything considering, the display managing to pull off a good job no matter how you’re looking at it. It fares relatively well in sunlit environments, though there’s a lot of obvious room for improvement. For the tablet’s price, I believe it’s not an overstatement to say that the display is one of the best you can find for the money you would pay.

Hisense Sero 8 Specs & Performance

Usually one of my favorite topics to discuss when it comes to phones and tablets, the Hisense Sero 8 is a device that gives plenty of room for praise; at least in close comparison to the amount of money the investment will consist of. To make a short list of the specs the Sero 8 packs in, we’ll be looking at a quad core Rockchip processor, 1 GB of RAM memory, an integrated Mali-400 GPU as well as 16 GB of storage.

The Hisense Sero 8 uses an ARM Cortex-A9 core processing unit with the Rockchip RK3188T clocked at 1,6 GHz. This is a relatively commonly employed piece of hardware that the Chinese companies implement in their handheld smart devices. Despite its popularity, the chip is far from the fastest on the market but scores decently on most known benchmarking scales. While this CPU falls behind plenty others, there are ways of improving its performance, most commonly by installing a custom kernel or ROM which will, in turn, allow you to overclock the core processing unit. However, that is not something to tinker with if not very well-versed in technology, which means that you’ll most likely have to stick with the speed it’s capable of straight out of the factory.

The Rockchip RK3188T SoC does however also implement an integrated ARM Mali-400 Mp3 @ 600 MHz graphics processing unit. Not as proficient as a dedicated GPU would normally be, this chip will ensure that you can smoothly run a great number of graphic-intensive apps, drastically falling behind with new titles or 3D rendered games. You won’t have much of a headache with most basic games, the tablet managing to sustain a fluent frame rate.

If you stop to compare the hardware that the Hisense Sero 8 tablet has got to show for itself, it won’t do that well when compared with a large number of comparable devices – some of which have been released as early as 2013. The tablet won’t give you a whole lot of trouble when using its basic features such as operating system navigation, emailing, watching movies, browsing the internet and social media and so on. However, if multitasking in its core sense and gaming are one of your main concerns, you might have to consider saving up for a more expensive but also more capable tablet.

The hard-drive potential may seem limited at first as it is only 16 GB in size but luckily the tablet can be upgraded in that respect via microSD, microSDHC or microSDXC cards that can pack up a few more dozen gigabytes of storage space. Given that on any device, the operating system and the basic apps will normally take up to 4 GB of space, you should start calculating the space you need starting at 12 GB instead.

Hisense Sero 8 Camera

Cameras are really not the strongest point of tablets out there, regardless of the manufacturer the device comes from. The cameras packed on the Hisense Sero 8 tablet are underwhelming to say the least – both rear and front facing. It’s safe to say that you won’t be switching your Sero 8 over your digital camera or even smartphone anytime soon. The only moment when I see that your Sero 8 camera will come in handy is really when there is no other alternative at immortalizing a moment on the go. And even then, the results might prove to be less than satisfactory in the absence of an optical image stabilization feature.

The rear camera is a 2 megapixel piece that can shoot photos in a maximum resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixels, but is also capable of recording videos in 720p at a maximum of 30 frames per second. The photos you take with it are not great looking to begin with, only losing even more on quality when you zoom in – either when you try to take a photo, or post-shooting.

The front facing camera comes with a questionable existence to begin with. At only 0.3 megapixels, it’s not that clear what the moment when you would even use this camera to begin with is. If lacking any other alternatives, the camera will do when you have to take a video conference right away and there is no other way for you to take it.

Hisense Sero 8 Software & Features

Surprisingly, the Hisense Sero 8 is one of the very few Chinese productions that rely on a stock Android version of the OS installed on it straight from the factory. It features an older version of it however, the Android 4.4.2 KitKat. Despite that, the tablet is thankfully free of any other, personalized skins that manufacturers opt for when they adopt Android. That means that there are no extra, third party apps clumping into the system, making its owner to wait for specialized updates once you purchase the tablet. The only native application to Hisense that you will be able to find on the Sero 8 is the remote app, implemented to allow you to control Wi-Fi based television sets, as well as a different video player.

For the more advanced users, one very much possible aspect of the tablet is the Hisense Sero 8 root. Rooting allows the user to unlock areas of the system that more often you would not have access to. Because of that, you suddenly gain a lot of freedom to experiment with other ROMS and full control over the apps installed on it.

Hisense Sero 8 Battery & Verdict

The Hisense Sero 8 comes with a 4000 mAh battery which is relatively strong by itself to begin with. Given that the display of this tablet is not the brightest and most powerful out there equals with a more disciplined use of the battery – earning you a longer battery life and more uptime when it comes to device usage. Continuous use in form of web browsing for example will earn you about 6 to 7 hours with a full charge; alternatively, HD video viewing will not exceed about 4 hours. No matter how you look at it though, you will find yourself charging the tablet on a daily basis if you use it regularly.

So when is it worth getting the Hisense Sero 8 tablet? Mainly, you should be looking at this tablet as a great alternative when you’re on a budget. For any of the activities that it allows you to perform remotely and the comfort of not having to stick to your computer, the Sero 8 will do the job wonderfully. If entertainment holds a more special place for you when it comes to tablets, however, it’s a lot more advisable to try saving up a little more and go for another variant.

You can purchase the Hisense Sero 8 from a variety of online retailers for $106.45.