While I've liked some of the designs of Dell's recent Android tablets, their pricing has been more iPad-territory than Nexus-7 territory. Same with the pricing of the Nexus 9. And I'm a cheapskate. But it looks like one OEM has finally brought good value to Lollipop tablets, and perhaps not surprisingly, it's Asus.
$199 gets you:
8" 2048 x 1536 (4:3 aspect ratio)
32 gb onboard storage with microSD expansion
2 gb RAM
Intel Atom Z3530
BestBuy listing (I'm not affiliated with them and am just posting this for reference)
Am I missing something horribly bad about this tablet, or is this just just a value proposition that no other tablet offers right now?
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Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow
It's not bad, ASUS software isn't the greatest, but it works. Zen UI takes a little getting used to. The Intel chipsets aren't the greatest for gaming but will also suffice. If you just want a high resolution tablet that won't lag and doesn't have absolutely trash specs, then this is a good buy. 8" is in that strange twilight zone of being more expensive than 7" tablets but straddle the 10" price point almost. Indeed I still think the Nexus 9 is overpriced by at least 50 dollars, and to compel me to buy one would be to drop it to 250. Too many compromises IMO on that tablet, plus middling HTC build quality issues.
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Yeah, I don't know anyone who actually likes Asus software better than vanilla Android (or better than well-executed OEM software like Motorola's), but with those specs and that price point, I'm willing to be forgiving.
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Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow
Mitlov likes this. -
also have you seen this?
http://liliputing.com/2015/07/asus-zenpad-s-8-tablet-priced-at-299-4gb-ram-64gb-storage.htmlMitlov likes this. -
I did see the Zenpad S as well, though a good tablet at a $199 price point is much more appealing to me than a very good tablet at a $299 price point.
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Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow
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I mainly use a tablet for web browsing, media consumption, and casual gaming, not productivity work. For my usage pattern, the Zenpad S definitely isn't 50% better than a regular Zenpad. -
Asus Zenpad is a good deal, but which panel is fragile. i send mine for repair last week.
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New Asus press release about the Zenpad 8.
https://www.asus.com/us/News/QVbqeN16rX8roSIB -
http://www.phonearena.com/news/The-...high-res-display-Intel-Moorefield-CPU_id71420
http://www.droid-life.com/2015/07/13/asus-zenpad-s-8-0-hits-best-buy/ <- Check out the comments section on that one.
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superparamagnetic Notebook Consultant
Another not super positive review on the higher end unit: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9555/the-asus-zenpad-s-z580ca-review
Another interesting tablet if you can find it is the Nokia N1. It's basically the $299 Asus with half the RAM and NAND, and also drops GPS and microSD. But you get a much better build quality with a solid aluminium chassis. MSRP is $~250, but it's been as low as $209: http://www.eglobalcentral.com/nokia-n1-32gb-wifi-silver-en.html?gclid=CJLgwd7o1McCFcNhfgodKjwB3A
Technically this is a China and Taiwan only product, so there might be a risk in buying it outside of that region.
Asus also has a version in the UK that is at similarly specced and priced to the N1, so maybe we'll see a world wide release at some point: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Z580CA-1A031A-ZenPad-Z580CA-Storage-Android/dp/B010Q2RZX6. To me this would be the value tablet to get.
Asus Zenpad 8: the best value of its generation?
Discussion in 'Smartphones and Tablets' started by Mitlov, Jul 13, 2015.