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ASUS announces $149 MeMO Pad

by Mark Tyson on 14 January 2013, 10:30

Tags: ASUSTeK (TPE:2357), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qabrkv

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ASUS waited until after CES 2013 to take the wraps off its new budget 7-inch tablet. The new ASUS MeMO Pad looks a lot like the ASUS Google Nexus 7 but there have been a few of corners cut for the sake of affordability. The suggested retail price is US$149, that’s the same as the Acer Iconia B1 we looked at on Friday; the specs are pretty similar to that tablet too.

Here are the MeMO Pad specs, direct from ASUS:

CPU / GPU

VIA WM8950 (1GHz Cortex-A9) / Mali-400

Operating system

Android™ 4.1 Jelly Bean

Display

7-inch (1024 x 600, 170PPI) LED-backlit, 10-point multi-touch, 140-degree wide viewing angle, 350-nits brightness

Front Camera

1MP back-illuminated sensor, f/2.0, with 720p HD video capture at 30fps

Storage

1GB RAM, 8GB or 16GB storage with microSD card slot (up to 32GB), 5GB free ASUS WebStorage

Wireless

802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi

Connectivity

3.5mm headphone/mic, Microphone, Micro-USB port

Sensors

G-Sensor

Pre-installed ASUS applications

SuperNote Lite, ASUS WebStorage, ASUS WebStorage Online Office,
ASUS Studio, BuddyBuzz, MyPainter, MyBitCast

Battery

7 hours (16Wh Li-polymer, 4270mAh)*

Available colours

Sugar White/Titanium Gray/Cherry Pink

Size

196.2 x 119.2 x 11.2 mm

Weight

370g

 

Looking through the table above there are obvious similarities and differences to the Nexus 7. ASUS seems to have saved money on the CPU; the MeMO uses a VIA WM8950 (1GHz) / Mali-400 instead of a 1.3 GHz quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 CPU. The screen isn’t as good; the resolution is lower and it’s not an IPS panel. The cheapest ASUS MeMO comes with 8GB storage whereas the $199 (£159 in UK) Nexus 7 has 16GB. Also the MeMO Pad lacks Bluetooth, is a little bit heavier and has a couple of hours less battery life.

It’s not all bad news though - the ASUS MeMO Pad has its positives. Of course there’s the price; the $149 should equate to £99 in the UK (like the Acer Iconia B1). The MeMO hasn’t cut the RAM, it still packs a decent 1GB to give Android room to breathe. ASUS has seen fit to provide a microSD card slot so the 8GB storage isn’t a brick wall. Another “advantage” over the Nexus 7 is the availability of more colours including cherry pink...

There is an important question concerning the performance of the VIA WM8950 (1GHz Cortex-A9) SoC equipped MeMO. If ASUS has got that balance right it may have trumped Acer’s effort at the same price target.

ASUS say that the MeMO Pad “will be available starting this January in selected markets”.



HEXUS Forums :: 6 Comments

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The nexus 7 was brilliant, I'm sure Asus can do it again. :)
Just goes to show what can be done by the top manufacturers at the budget end of the market. Google pushing out it's Nexus devices with minimal profits to drive the market, lets hope some well spec'd budget smartphones follow as well.
Looks OK but you can buy a similar tablet spec for £20 less in the Sumvision Voyager model. I own 2 Sumvision tablets now and ignoring the less than imaginative ‘easy start’ leaflet they are serving me well
What's the point of them launching two tablets of exactly the same price with almost the exact same specs? (there are pros and cons for each one over the other)
This is specced up similarly to the chinese tablets - although its about twice the price. Still a lot closer to that end of the market than we have seen before though (for a device with google play out of the box), and I guess that this is really competing against the similarly priced Kindle Fire (not HD) which also has very similar specs.

More competition like this can only be a good thing ;)