190 of 200 people found the following review helpful.
By Yu-jin Chia
I got one of these for a friend, someone who I know isn't going to be picky about hardware specs and speed. There are a lot of entry-level Android tablets out there now, some of which are sub-$100 models. You can actually get this one in that price range if you find it on sale, but what sets it apart from a lot of others is it's actually not half bad.
On that note, a word of warning- most if not all other tablets in this price range are little more than child's toys. They tend to have very weak hardware that can barely handle Angry Birds and will lag seriously if you try to stream video. Furthermore the build quality is shoddy- they use cheap plastic and glass that affords poor viewing angle, has bad glare in bright light, and is very easy to scratch or break.
The main reason I even gave this consideration is it's made by Asus. I've used Asus hardware for a very long time- everything ranging from motherboards to graphics cards, monitors, laptops, routers, and most recently the Nexus 7. Generally speaking, their hardware is very solid in terms of performance and reliability. In fact I can't think of a single time I've been disappointed by one of their products. I figured even if this tablet was suspiciously cheap, it was probably at least decent. And it is.
First, expectations. This is not an iPad and you aren't paying $500+ for it. If you expect it to perform like an iPad, you WILL be disappointed. It's also half the price of the similar-sized Nexus 7 and of course not as nice. But for what you pay for, it's surprisingly good. Particularly, it has these pro points:
-- A lot of internal storage (16 GB), twice the Nexus 7 base model and as much as the Kindle Fire HD base model.
-- It is an Android 4.1 Jellybean tablet. Most tablets in this price range are 2.3 or 4.0
-- It has a micro-SD slot, which is very noteworthy. Many significantly more expensive tablets, including the Nexus 7, do not have one (the cheapest decent one I know of is the Galaxy Tab 2 7, which is about $70 more).
-- Pretty decent hardware and chipset- it's comparable to the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7. I at first thought the VIA chipset would be considerably slower, but it's actually so similar as makes no difference. It's robust enough to run some pretty heavyweight apps, and can stream HD flawlessly.
-- Light weight, solid build. The tablet has a rubberized back that feels rugged and affords good grip. It is about the same size and weight as the Nexus 7.
-- Good battery life. It lasts about as long as its more expensive cousins, especially if you don't use 'performance mode.'
-- Comes with an AC adapter. Might not seem a plus, but these days a lot of electronics don't include one, which can be a pain.
I suspect a lot of the complaints I've seen about apps and performance have to do with teething bugs. When a new device is released, this is pretty normal- a few updates usually fixes it. I've seen little in the way of these problems so far. That said, there are of course some downsides to this tablet:
-- The display is average at best. Touch controls work fine, resolution is not bad, but the viewing angle is very noticeably more narrow than a lot of higher priced tablets (not terribad though, like the Dell Streak 7). It also seems to suffer more from glare, possibly because the backlight doesn't seem to be that powerful even on full brightness. It's by no means unworkable but if you're not looking straight at the screen or if you're viewing it in bright light, it's harder to make out detail.
-- As with the Nexus 7, the speaker (note singular) on this tablet is pretty mediocre. You'll want headphones if you listen to music or stream videos. It works fine for things like Skype though.
-- Ditto with the camera, which is essentially just a webcam. Unlike the pretty decent cameras on the Galaxy Tab 2, you're definitely not going to be using this to take pictures.
-- No bluetooth. This is probably the biggest minus as far as feature set goes, and though the virtual keyboard is well done, it's still not great for things like email. This also means there's no wireless file transfer, though the SD slot and cloud storage mitigates that.
-- Some apps are apparently still incompatible at this writing, notably Instagram 4.0 (however, I was able to sideload 3.5). I don't expect this to remain an issue for long.
Overall, I would say this is a solid tablet considering what you're paying for it. I will also note though that you can 'fix' pretty much all of those cons by paying $60-70 more for a Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 Still, for a device that you can get for as low as $80 on sale, this is a surprisingly good performer. It's practical, inexpensive enough to gift, and doesn't cost so much that you'll be scared to use it.
Edit: 8/9/2013- just to add a few extra points in the MeMO Pad's favor:
-- This thing actually supports USB on the go. I was frankly amazed by this since a lot of much more expensive tablets and phones do not (including the KFHD). I've tried flash drives and a voice recorder; both work perfectly (you'll probably need a 3rd party cable for this).
-- The battery life on standby is pretty good. I've let it sit for 2 weeks with minimal use (wifi and sync on) and it still has about 1/4 charge. Not bad.
I've noticed that the 1st gen Nexus 7 has received a massive price drop (probably due to the release of the 2nd gen) that makes it much more competitive. The MeMO pad is definitely still the choice if you're on a budget though.
386 of 424 people found the following review helpful.
By Shawn
I purchased this to replace an older outdated tablet that i planned on giving to my 6 yr old. At first glance this tablet seemed amazing for the price, then i used it on a regular basis. I will start out with the good. The screen is responsive and works well, the battery life is ok if you set the WiFi as off when standby, and the apps that are downloadable work well. The internet and chrome seem to also work well for a tablet of this price. Now for the bad. I found that alot of the apps i like are not compatible with this model/tablet for some reason? There is no bluetooth, and the front only facing camera is horrible. Netflix does not work unless you ok with the audio and video being off by .25-.50 second. VuDu, Wikipedia, Netflix, Gamefly, and a few other apps are not even available from the play store due to "not compatible". I have had this for 1 week and decided to return it and spend the extra $50 for a Nexus 7 or a Samsung tablet.
Pros-good screen and touch response, works well for some apps/games and for minor internet use. I did not test this tablet with skype!
Cons-alot of apps are not compatible, streaming videos is not an option, camera sucks, no bluetooth.
120 of 145 people found the following review helpful.
By Takayuki Ono
I've been using Kindle Fire 1st generation as my comic reader. I loved it very much except one which is that there is no external memory slot. It was a little inconvenient to copy files into Kindle fire because of the slow speed and limited size. Now, with this one, I can add 32GB micro SD card to the internal 16GB space. If you pick class 10 micro SD with good card reader, the file copy is much faster.
Adding to it, I can have a video chat via skype and camera, I can still read kindle magazines via Kindle app, and it's cheaper.
My only concern is that the battery lasts 7hours compare to 8hours for Kindle fire as a spec. I'll see how different in the actual usage...
So far, I'm very happy with the tablet.
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