Asus MeMo Pad FHD 10 Review

Introduction

For the longest time that we can remember, most of the Android tablets floating about have been ARM based. As a rival, Intel has been the player looking from the outside as Google’s mobile platform has proliferated to a very competitive platform in the space. Fortunately, Asus is one of the major players that is giving Intel some love, as the Asus MeMo Pad FHD 10 is the first from the Taiwan based company’s portfolio to feature a chipset from Intel. A bold move no doubt, but let’s find out what the transition is going to be like.

The package contains:

• microUSB cable
• Wall Charger
• User Manual
• Warranty Card

Design

Conventional is the name of the game here, it doesn’t try to be daring whatsoever.

Meh. That’s essentially what comes to mind the instant we feast our eyes on the Asus MeMo Pad FHD 10, seeing that it doesn’t try to do anything daring with its design. Instead, it’s pretty much the usual variety from Asus’ camp, which is a boring slate design we’ve been exposed to countless of times with the company for the last year or so. In comparison to some of its past high-end offerings, this one isn’t as premium sadly to say – nor is it the skinniest or lightest. With a textured rear casing that has a subtle soft touch finish, it undoubtedly maintains a clean finish, but frankly speaking, there isn’t anything too polarizing with its overall design.

Around the edges, we have its microUSB port, power button, volume control, microphone, 3.5mm headset jack, and noise-cancelling mic. Affordable in price point obviously, we’re comforted to find the tablet sporting additional amenities like a microSD card slot to supplement its internal storage, and a handy microHDMI port for quick and easy video-out functionality.

In the rear, two long notches on the left and right edges hide away its internal speakers, which offers Asus’ exclusive SonicMaster audio technology. Rounding things out, it features a 5-megapixel rear camera, and a front-facing 1.2-megapixel one.

Display

It’s thrilling to find better than 1080p resolution here, but its bland colors and poor visibility dashes any of our hopes.

As its name so kindly tells us, it’s packing a full HD display – though technically, it’s better than 1080p resolution. Specifically, it’s a 10.1-inch 1920 x 1200 IPS display, which gives it a pixel density count of 226 ppi. Far from cracking the class leaders in the space, the resolution is ample enough to give small text a crisp enough look. However, the colors that it produces is rather dull in tone – giving the display an overall washed out tone. Furthermore, it’s challenge trying to view it outdoors in direct sunlight.

Interface and Functionality

More of the same from Asus here with the experience, which amounts to taking the safe approach. Still, it would be more inviting to change things up.

By now, we’re all familiar with customized Android experience that Asus has been providing its set of tablets for a while now – so there’s nothing really new here. Overall, its customized Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean experience is beginning to look stale, both in its visual presentation and functionality. Of course, we appreciate the multitasking mini apps that can be layered on top of anything, but when we look at the big picture, the entire experience lacks the depth and diversity of its rivals.

In addition to the usual set of core organizer apps presented to us by Google, the tablet is home to a wealth of Asus-branded applications – with the majority of them pertaining to multimedia. Beyond that, there’s nothing really that separates it from other Android tablets.

Even though it has a sizable amount of real estate to work with, the keyboard layout is rather cramped due to the addition of a dedicated row for numbers, which interestingly enough, has the same button size as the rest of the on-screen keys. It’s quick with its response for the most part, but we’re careful to trudge along at a moderate pace to minimize mistakes.

Processor and Memory

If this is what we can look forward to with Intel’s chip, it’s going to be a long road ahead for them.

Without question its standout feature, the Asus MeMo Pad FHD 10 is most notable for the piece of silicon it’s hiding under the hood. Rather than siding with an ARM-based processor, it’s instead featuring one from Intel’s camp – a dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2560 CPU coupled with 2GB of RAM and the PowerVR SGX 544 GPU. You’d think it’d be able to handle some processor intensive stuff, but that’s sadly not the case, seeing that it stutters and exhibits lag with its performance.

Being an entry level thing, it’s no surprise to find it stuffed with 16GB of storage, which equates to 11.68GB out of the box. Naturally, its microSD card slot helps to complement its tally.

Internet and Connectivity

As expected, the web surfing experience hits the spot of being more than usable.

Despite its less than ideal performance with intensive things like 3D gaming, the tablet handles surfing the web with very little qualms. In fact, pages load in a timely manner – while kinetic scrolling and page rendered are mostly responsive.

As always, it’s armed with the bare essential connectivity features – like aGPS, Bluetooth 3.0, and 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi. Regrettably, it doesn’t feature other amenities such as NFC.

Camera

Don’t be fooled by this one, since it takes some dandy looking photos and videos – especially for an entry-level thing.

Bargain based tablets normally don’t get a whole lot of love, but for what it’s worth, the Asus MeMo Pad FHD 10 gladly sees its fair share of camera features. It’s mostly menu drive of course, but it has some basic manual controls and shooting modes to keep novice users content. For those hardcore folks, though, they might find its features inept in comparison to other things.

Surprisingly, its 5-megapixel rear auto-focus camera snaps up some good looking photos. It’s not something we’d classify as a leader in the tablet space, but for the stuff it puts up, we can’t complain about it. Our only complaint with outdoor shots is the over-exposed look it sometimes casts. Besides that, everything looks pleasing to the eyes. Under low lighting situations, its quality diminishes as there’s more noise and softer details.


Likewise, its 1080p video recording quality is also pretty nice looking – amounting to being nothing more than average. There’s some light artifacting that pops up as we’re panning quickly, but it’s not something that’s overpowering to the point that it greatly softens its quality.

Multimedia

More than effective for the occasion, we wouldn’t think of this as being astounding over other things.

You’ll find nothing but the Google Play Music app on the tablet, which as we know, is nothing new that we haven’t seen before. Although it features two speakers for stereo support, its output is less than ample – making it sound weaker than some smartphone speakers.

The display isn’t the most lavish, nor is its performance the most responsive, but regardless of that, the tablet is capable of playing high definition videos with little fluff.

Battery

Average, that’s the common theme we’ve been seeing with this one. Rightfully so, that’s yet again the word that comes to mind when we look into its battery life. Fully charged, we’re permitted approximately 1.5 days of normal usage with a full charge – and for those power users, it’s more than equipped at giving us a solid day of juice. With our battery benchmark test, it pulls in 6 hours, 30 minutes, which is pretty much in line to what we would expect in getting from a basic level tablet.

Conclusion

Now the Asus MeMo Pad FHD 10 isn’t something that’s new to the scene, since it’s been available for quite some time now. Still, if you try really hard enough, you can actually snag the tablet for less than $300, which is a bargain no doubt when you look at what you’re getting. Value is indeed on its side, more so when it has the same base line features of any other Android tablet out there.

Performance wise, it’s rather underwhelming to say the least, which is a bummer considering that it’s one of the first Android tablets to be powered by Intel’s piece of silicon. Nevertheless, it accomplishes the same tasks as its rival – albeit, it’ll probably take a whole lot more time. Average is something we’ve been noticing put out by this tablet, but at the end of the day, we wouldn’t classify it as an exciting thing. Instead, we find it a tad bit boring in comparison to the other stuff out on the scene. Still, if you don’t mind the straightforward operation and offering, it’ll suffice enough for you to accept.

Software version of reviewed unit:
Android version: 4.2.2
Build number: JDQ39.US_epad-V4.7.3-20131028
Kernel version: 3.4.21-00001-gc48a6fb