ASUS MeMO Pad HD7 Review: $149 Nexus 7.1 Successor & Our First Look at MediaTek's MT8125
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 29, 2013 3:55 PM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Asus
- Mobile
- Android 4.2
- MeMO Pad
ASUS' Android Customizations
The MeMO Pad HD7 ships with Android 4.2.2, as well as a few ASUS customizations. ASUS includes its own keyboard by default as well as its own unified notification shade:
Both of these customizations are reversible. The HD7 includes the stock Jellybean keyboard, and you can revert to the standard notification and quick settings combo shades.
A tap and hold on the virtual home button brings up a shortcut widget that lets you launch voice search, Google Now as well as a number of user definable applications.
Borrowing from what we've seen a number of Android OEMs do lately, ASUS includes support for floating apps/widgets with the MeMO Pad HD7. There's a fourth virtual button to the left of the standard three, tapping it brings up a configurable list of floating apps/widgets. Tapping on any of the icons drops the app/widget on your screen in a floating window. You can move the window anywhere you'd like. Resizing is supported depending on the app/widget. Floating windows persist across app switches, however they disappear the minute you hit the home button. There are video player and browser floating apps, although there's no support for automatically snapping individual windows to half of the screen to easily share display real estate with two windows.
The rest of the experience is pretty much stock. As always, ASUS includes a set of preloaded apps including SuperNote Lite, File Manager, and its own gallery app (ASUS Studio).
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matt32 - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
Can you guys run more kinds of WiFi tests on your review devices? Peak throughput is as useful as only showing sequential SSD writes/reads. Can you show how the throughput and latency changes over time especially when there's some sort of interference (ie. microwaves, other WiFi access points, cordless phones, etc.).All too often my Skype calls and Netflix videos get forced into a lower quality whenever my WiFi gets burps. Depending on the device (ie. single atenna vs 3 antennas), the frequency of my WiFi spazzing vairous. Of course, I get the least amount of issues when connected via Ethernet.
Alexvrb - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
Yeah I don't know what Google's problem is with SD slots. I'd take this thing over the Google-branded hardware.lightsout565 - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
Very compelling but I'll wait till prices drop to $100. If someone could only make a decent $100 tablet, that'd almost be in "impulse buy" territory for me.Bob Todd - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
I think it's worth noting that the price, although higher than the gen one 16GB Nexus 7 has been since before the iPad mini launch, is actually _cheaper_ than that device when it launched a year ago at $250. Getting a 1200p panel that's also higher quality, a much faster SOC, double the RAM (@1600 vs 1333), much faster storage, and bunch of other little things (rear facing camera, wireless charging, etc.) for $20 less than the 16GB N7 debuted with just one year ago is pretty impressive to me.As for this thing, I actually wish the 8GB model was available here. This looks like the perfect replacement for an old Nook Color that's used to keep a toddler entertained with movies in the car. Especially if it can read SDXC (even if it's the gimped non UHS 1 speed that some devices not rated for SDXC can read them at).
Bob Todd - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
That should read..."noting that the price of the Nexus 7.2".Zibi - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
I've just bought one for my father. Pretty decent thing. Unfortunately it hasn't got USB with OTG. During the brief playing with the thing I did not found the option to create user accounts.SirCanealot - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
Sorry for the possibly silly question, but does anyone know what the cpu monitoring tool used in the screen shot in the battery test is? Looks awesome!skyline159 - Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - link
It is System Monitorhttps://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com....
randomhkkid - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
Great article as expected Anand, what is the program you used to overlay the core usage/speed in game?Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
So basically this is what we can expect to pick up for $99 during holidays sales.