Introduction:
Never afraid to experiment with different form factors and styles, we’ve seen Taiwan based manufacturer Asus frequently delivering a wide range of tablets that fit different lifestyles and models. At one extreme, they’re renowned for coming to up with fantastic and memorable slates like the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity, while on the other, they never shy away from going with something more modest – like the Asus Transformer Pad 300. Going back to the latter premise, the recently available 10.1-inch slate in the Asus MeMO Pad Smart 10 aims to win over people with its ample hardware and affordable price point.
The package contains:
Never afraid to experiment with different form factors and styles, we’ve seen Taiwan based manufacturer Asus frequently delivering a wide range of tablets that fit different lifestyles and models. At one extreme, they’re renowned for coming to up with fantastic and memorable slates like the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity, while on the other, they never shy away from going with something more modest – like the Asus Transformer Pad 300. Going back to the latter premise, the recently available 10.1-inch slate in the Asus MeMO Pad Smart 10 aims to win over people with its ample hardware and affordable price point.
The package contains:
- microUSB cable
- Wall Charger
- Quick Start Guide
- Product Safety and Warranty Guide
Design:
By no means is the MeMO Pad Smart 10 a premium slate, especially when you factor in its average price point of $300, since its design language follows similarly to what we’ve seen in the Transformer Pad 300 already. Employing a 9.9mm thin all-plastic casing, which strangely gets dirtied very easily, we’re humbled by its light weight (580 gr) and rounded edges – making it very comfortable to grasp with both hands. Overall, it chooses to stick with a cookie cutter approach with its design, which makes it all too conventional, but at least it doesn’t entirely come off as being cheapo.
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The Asus MeMO Pad Smart 10 is very comfortable to grasp with both hands
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Much like the other Android slates from its stable, the MeMO Pad Smart 10 maintains a very clean appearance on the surface, as the only thing evident from up front are the “Asus” logo and front-facing 1.2-megapixel camera.
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The front-facing camera
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The sides of the Asus MeMO Pad Smart 10
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Flipping it onto its back, there’s a 5-megapixel auto-focus camera there enabled for 1080p video recording, but lacks an LED flash. Along the left and right edges, the tablet’s left/right speaker grills are slightly recessed – giving it stereo output.
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Rear camera
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Display:
Indeed, it’s not something galvanizing amongst other things, but the 10.1-inch WXGA 1280 x 800 IPS LCD panel of the MeMO Pad Smart 10 is still pleasant enough to accept. For most people viewing the tablet from a normal distance, they shouldn’t find much trouble making out certain things – and that’s despite having a pixel density of 149 ppi. On the color reproduction side, it lacks the delicious iridescent tones seen with other panels, but at least it doesn’t exhibit too much distortion, which is attributed to its 170-degree wide viewing angles. Using it outdoors though, we find the need to shield it from the sun in order to view things properly. All in all, we’re totally not blown away by it, of course, but like we said, it’s ample enough for us to like.
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Viewing angles of the Asus MeMO Pad Smart 10
Interface and Functionality:
Peering at the software running on the Asus MeMO Pad Smart 10, it’s nothing more than the usual fanfare we’ve been seeing with other recent Android slates from Asus. Running a mostly stock Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean experience, the typical stock experience is broken up by Asus’ set of specific widgets. Beyond that, there isn’t anything entirely new with this fella, but it at least adheres to the foundational properties we’re familiar with Android as a whole – so there’s plenty of personalization with it.
Checking out the tablet’s organizer apps, they stick firmly to provide us with the stock experience – so there’s no change with their layouts and functions. Out of the box, there isn’t a whole lot of bloatware found with it, but the few third party apps worth noting that are preloaded include Amazon Kindle, PinPal, MyBitCast, Press Reader, and Zinio.
When it comes to email, we’re quite productive in using the standard Email and Gmail apps that are staples within the platform. Unfortunately though, the messaging experience proves to be a challenging one – even with this spacious 10.1-inch tablet. Specifically, it’s the cramped nature of the on-screen keyboard that makes it tough. Sure, we appreciate that a row is dedicated to numbers, but the compromise is made in having a more cramped layout.
Processor and Memory: By no means is it a slouch, but quad-cores are increasingly cropping up in the entry-level segment nowadays. Armed with a quad-core 1.2GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor coupled with 1GB of RAM, the hardware tandem is effective enough to offer us a likeable performance, but it’s still not without its faults. In fact, it doesn’t surprise us to find occasions when sluggishness creeps in with more processor intensive tasks, but as a whole, it’s never to the point downright unusable.
Out of the box, the 16GB of internal storage actually translates into 11.7GB of free memory, which should be a sufficient tally. Always putting a smile on our face, it’s nice to see that there’s a useful microSD card slot to supplement its capacity. Internet and Connectivity: Knowing what’s running under the hood, it doesn’t shock us to find the Asus MeMO Pad Smart 10 is quite effective in the web browsing department. In general, its smooth performance is consistent with page loads, rendering, and navigational controls. Moreover, it doesn’t strain under the pressure with sites that are more demanding with multimedia content.
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