Asus Zenpad 8: the best value of the generation?

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?

 

The one thing on the specs that might be a red flag is the processor speed. at 1.33GHz, that's slow -- but I don't know how the quad-core Atom processor compares to what's in (by comparison) the Samsung Tab 3 7" that I have, which clocks in at 1.2GHz, running an Arm-v7 dual-core. The S3 dual core is 1.5GHz, the S5 quad-core is 2.26GHz; either phone blows my tablet waaaaay out of the water; most likely not due only to processor speed, but suspect that's definitely a component. May not make any diference at all, might make you want to break rocks with your head…good luck!

 

I'm not buying it right away, but I'm going to keep a close eye on it, and if it doesn't end up having any deal-breaking flaws or defects, we'll see what Santa thinks of me this December.

 

I haven't tested that particular type of Atom processor; that one maxes out at 1.33 GHz, instead of "bursting" up to 1.86. So I can't say for sure how they'd hold up.

But those Bay Trail ones that DID do the 1.86 GHz burst were the fastest Android devices I've ever tested. In Quadrant, they both scored over 20,000, beating out the Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 edition that cost three times more.

In the meantime, I'll drop a line to Ed and see if there's any chance of us getting a review unit of this thing.

 

Thanks Adama, I would really like to see some reviews of this. I know Android tablets aren't a huge market, but if this is as good as it looks on paper, it's going to be the best Android tablet since the Nexus 7.

 

"Huge market" is relative. The iPad is more profitable, but Android tablets make up about half of all tablet sales.

 

I am tempted with this, though my tablet use has declined thanks to my Chromebook use. Also my Samsung tablet dropped hard on the toilet floor and I wasn't able to get her screen back up even though she's not physically broken. A solder must have gone loose. That adds to a factor in getting a tablet, though there is the new Tab S2. Another thing is that my Shield tablet is subject to a fire hazard recall and I already submitted my form for it. Waiting for the replacement while the old one is deactivated.