Review: Asus MeMO Pad 7 (ME176)

 

Usability and Performance

The MeMO Pad 7 is exactly what you'd expect from an affordable, 7" tablet; no more, no less. Its performance is reasonably zippy, even if not as fast as most tablets. Web browsing was silky smooth, but there was occasionally a few second delay in opening games. I had no issues with game performance, and I actually experienced by first ever round of Candy Crush Saga on the device.

The touch screen is snappy and responsive; gestures like pinch to zoom and swiping all work flawlessly. The power efficiency of the MeMO Pad 7's Atom processor means that you should easily get 9 to 10 hours of battery life out of the device, depending on your usage.

While the MeMO Pad 7 is a great device, there are two small downsides. The tablet's camera isn't great, even in optimally lit environments; despite a 5 megapixel sensor, photos look quite grainy and a more-than-a-little pixelated, circa a 2005 camera phone. The camera also struggled to focus, but let's be honest, people look pretty silly taking photos with tablets.

The other is that the screen resolution is lower than most tablets currently on the market; a paltry to 1280×800 compared to the 1920×1200 boasted by the Google Nexus 7. If you look closely, you can tell it's not as sharpest of displays, but this doesn't stop it from being perfectly usable. From a practical perspective, all this means is the MeMO Pad 7 may not make the best eReader replacement, if you're intending to read books for an extended duration.