ASUS MeMO Pad 7 ME176CX-A1-WH 7-Inch Tablet (White)

The Memo Pad 7 is a great budget when you compare the price with what you get for it. Firstly, this 2014 model of the Asus MeMo Pad 7 has some minor differences form its predecessors, specifically from the 2013 model. The first change is the back material used for the tablet, previous MeMo Pads used a smooth glossy type material but this model comes with a matte type yet smooth plastic material. The camera is also a step down with this model featuring a 2MP rear camera versus a 5MP camera in the previous model.DesignThe device is beautifully designed and is very ergonomic. The tablet feels very nice to hold and does not become uncomfortable after holding for extended periods of time. It is light weight but doesn’t feel cheap at all, it is just short of feeling like a premium build. The edges are smooth and the borders are slim and device has a very futuristic look to it. I do not like the faux silver trim around the outer edge of the device, these tend to rub off after a while from abrasion and constant touching leaving an ugly appearance. On an overall all basis, the device definitely looks like a tablet from 2014 and unlike some other tabs that have 2014 internal components but outdated designs. My only gripe is that I am not a fan of the coloured models. The white and black are nice opposites of the colour spectrum but black front and red or yellow backs models are just plain ugly to me.HardwareIt runs and Intel Atom Bay Trail processor. This is something that got me really excited, and for good reason. Asus made a big win by doing this. If you hate slow devices then this is the tablet for you. This tablet is above all as the fastest I have ever owned and/or used. Some big negatives are is very poor camera quality and the lack of an ambient light sensor. The cameras are grainy in anything other than perfect lighting conditions, this is not a big deal as for most people their tablet is not intended to be their main camera. The lack of an ambient light sensor is a bit annoying though as I constantly have to adjust the screen brightness. This is something has been taken for granted in the past until you don’t have it.SoftwareAndroid 4.4 Kitkat has introduced a lot of performance improvements and matches well with Asus on top Zen UI. The Zen UI this time around has been improved in the way it looks and feels. The Do It Later feature and What’s Next are nice additions, they do things that many other apps already do but it’s nice to have them included. I personally like the What’s Next feature to see my schedule at a glance.Asus Shady Business PracticesI am a big fan of Asus as a technology company, as I do own many Asus products however I have noticed many subtle acts of deception on their part in the marketing of this tablet in particular.1. On their website, Asus lists the official specs for the camera as “2 MP Front Camera / 5 MP Rear Camera with Auto focus( 1080p Video Recording )”, however Amazon’s listing states “Rear : 2MP; Front : 0.3MP”. Seeing this I thought that Amazon probably made and error as I doubted and wished that Asus would not uses such a low resolution camera from what is considered standard today.2. Asus claims that the tablet comes with “over $270 worth of content and services”, namely eMusic, Zinio and ASUS WebStorage. I was expecting to open the box and see coupons for these, however none were included. So I checked the apps as I assumed that the offers would already be available, that turned out to not be so either. After some digging I realized that the offers for eMusic and Zinio are offers that are open to all users of the app and are in no way exclusive or part of any agreement with Asus. It was all a clever marketing trick to make customers think they are getting more than what they pay for.Overall the Asus ME176C is a great tablet and I would recommend it as a main tablet for anyone looking for a 7 inch portable tablet for daily use. It delivers on all grounds, hardware, software and performance.

It's not hard to compare this to the Nexus 7 from Google (7-Inch, 16 GB, Black) by ASUS (2013) Tablet because they are exactly identical to each other more or less. In some ways it would be unfair to do so because the Nexus 7 is a Google device that was built according to their specs however this tablet was entirely designed by ASUS from the ground up and I will detail those designs one by one. In doing so, I will compare to Nexus 7 when necessary.DESIGN------Very, very small. By that I mean it literally fits in your pocket. The portability of this is amazing. If you have a 10 inch or even an 8.5 in it becomes a nightmare to shelp around with you especially during the summer when you have nothing on you. Being able to conceal this out in public makes it even more special because to me portability is important.Sure it would be nice to have a bigger screen but bigger doesn't always mean better.DISPLAY------I haven't officially tested this completely yet in various types of light (sunlight, nighttime) but so far so good. You can adjust the display so that's good. The only thing I don't like is that it doesn't have an auto brightness mode (Unless it's hiding somewhere) but this shouldn't really be a deal breaker as I'll explain shortly. Although everyone has their preferences, you can adjust to your liking. I'm not sure I am happy with the settings as of yet but so far everything is crystal clear and sharp.PERFORMANCE-----------AS I said above, there is no auto brightness feature but ASUS seems to do something no one else does and that's an "ASUS OPTIMIZATION" feature which allows you to conserve battery. Not sure how this works except that one feature is that it turns off the WiFi when in sleep mode. Again, when it comes to this it's a preference so what works for me may not work for others.The MeMo Pad does perform fast though thanks to:HARDWARE-------For the price point (this is meant as a budget tablet) you get VERY good specs. ASUS was pretty generous.Android 4.4 KitKatCPU Intel Atom BayTrail Z3745 Quad-Core 1.33GHzGPU Intel HD GraphicsRAM 1GBMemory 16GBAnd for those who don't know, 16 GB isn't really 16 because half of that is ASUS's software (which is a lot) so out of the box it's about 12.5 give or take but that's okay because there's a micro SD slot expansion that's good up to 64GB (If you are like me, you will be using this to put downloaded movies)Camera Rear : 2MP; Front : 0.3MPNot much but seriously does it matter? You'd be surprised how many people won't buy a tablet if it lacks flash or higher mega pixels. I mean the front would technically only be used for chats and maybe selfies. And at 2MP, this isn't really bad. How many people will actually take pics with a tablet anyway? Besides that, in a budget tablet, some sacrifices have to be made so be glad it was with the camera.SOFTWARE-------I mentioned before how ASUS has some preinstalled software on this thing and they are:ZINIO - The World's Largest Newsstand 6 free Mini-Subscriptions to your favorite magazines and a $10 voucher at registration. 6 free Mini-Subscriptions to your favorite magazines and a $10 voucher at registration. 6 free Mini-Subscriptions to your favorite magazines and a $10 voucher at registration. (I don't use this but it could come in handy for others. I'm not even sure what the minis are as there's no voucher or coupon out of the box)eMusic - A discovery-and-download destination for people who love music. Play, discover, and download music wherever your day takes you Enjoy 75 complimentary music downloads from ASUS. (If you are a music fanatic then this is a really generous offer)Obviously ASUS put their own stuff on here some useful and some not. The problem with pre installed stuff is that they are nearly impossible to delete.ASUS WEB STORAGE: 500GB free of charge. I believe this is more then what Dropbox offers.AUDIO WIZARD: I failed to mention that the MeMo Pad has stereo speakers and as such has the audio wizard which is pretty nifty. What this does is basically allows you to be your own DJ. For example: If you are watching a movie (either your own or through Netflix) just press the MOVIE button and you will get theater quality sound. MUSIC will give you studio quality. So on and so on.... You get the idea. And if you toggle the sounds you will notice the difference. To my knowledge, this feature only works if headphones aren't plugged in.Also, some Google apps come already installed.I'm with the tablet for less then 24 hrs so this review is based on my usage so far and I am sure there's still more I am discovering however so far it's not bad at all and I'll end this review with a summary:1)Price point is excellent.2)Specs are very generous3)Design is excellent (looks like Nexus 7 only smaller)4)Software: It is what it is. What can you do?5)Hardware is goodLacks an HDMI port but it's purposely admitted because of Miracast which is supposed to "beam" to your TV. Honestly, I have no idea how this works as I haven't tried it let alone finding it in the menu. I don't even know if your TV has to be Miracast compatible. Ah well. There's always Google Chromecast HDMI Streaming Media Playerand Samsung UN32EH5300 32-Inch 1080p 60 Hz Smart LED HDTV (2013 Model)Yellow's my favorite color so I got the yellow version (They are all the same spec wise).I love my tablet and I hope you do to.