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
Final Words
We've already taken an early look at the new Nexus 7, also built by ASUS, and came away quite impressed. At $229 I don't think there's a better ultra portable tablet on the market today. With that established, how does the MeMO Pad HD7 hold up at $149? Pretty well I'd say.
The display is good given the price, as are the rest of the features. The MediaTek MT8125 SoC is a decent enough performer. Four Cortex A7s at 1.2GHz ends up being a good approximation of the four Cortex A9s in Tegra 3. The latter is quicker, but it's also more expensive.
The power consumption story is a different one. In light CPU or video playback workloads, the HD7 does worse than the original Nexus 7. You're still looking at around 8 hours on a single charge, but the higher end tablets are moving to 10 hours and beyond. It's unclear how much of this is software implementation vs. hardware, but by using the MT8125 you'd never guess it was a 28nm SoC with ARM's lowest power Cortex A7s inside. Obviously MediaTek's optimization target is cost, but power consumption is still important. I don't know that there's another alternative ASUS could've picked at this price point, so this is less a criticism of ASUS and more of MediaTek.
The MT8125's GPU performance is understandably not high-end, but it's still fast enough to play most modern Android games at high enough frame rates. The power efficiency story on the GPU side is much better as well. The HD7 easily outlasted the original Nexus 7 in our 3D battery life test.
The rest of the HD7's feature list is quite good. The 1280 x 800 IPS display is great for a value tablet, although it's obviously not going to be as good as what you get with the new Nexus 7. In terms of size, I personally prefer 8-inches if this is going to be my primary tablet. There's no denying the portability advantage of a 7-inch display though.
The addition of a microSD card slot will surely appeal to some customers. The integrated SK Hynix eNAND solution is an ok performer, but the HD7 will suffer the same fate as the old Nexus 7 over an extended period of usage until it gets Android 4.3.
The MeMO Pad HD7 is relatively quick, although no where near as fast as the new Nexus 7. UI animations are mostly smooth, but there are definite drops below 30 fps. The overall experience is similar to the original Nexus 7, just a tad slower.
Ultimately that's what ASUS has done with the HD7. It has given us a 1st gen Nexus 7 in almost every sense, with a $50 lower price tag. A pretty impressive accomplishment when you think about how big of a deal the Nexus 7 was when it arrived just over a year ago. Personally I'd rather have the new Nexus 7 at $229, but if you're on a very strict budget ASUS' MeMO Pad HD7 is a good option.
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n0b0dykn0ws - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
Given the MicroSD card slot I would highly consider getting one of these and using it for on the go media, especially for the kids.YaBaBom - Tuesday, July 30, 2013 - link
+1 for kids... Especially since this tablet actually outlasts the Nexus 7 in the 3D tests--i.e. gaming. Seems like a pretty well balanced tablet.synaesthetic - Wednesday, July 31, 2013 - link
Shame the 8GB model isn't available in the US. >< I would love to have the 8GB model and throw a bigass sdcard in it, then fill it full of movies.anxyandy - Thursday, August 8, 2013 - link
Hmm, I think the SD card is the only advantage over the Nexus 7! I would just pay the tiny bit extra, for what is one of the best tablets on the market!!!Have a look:
Direct updates by OS vendor Yes vs No It can be updated directly by the OS vendor, so no need to wait until the manufacturer or network provider releases an update.
Significantly higher pixel density 323 ppi vs 216 ppi 49.54% higher pixel density.
Reasonably more RAM memory 2 GB vs 1 GB 1 GB more RAM memory.
Lots narrower 114 mm vs 120.6 mm 6.60 mm narrower.
Thinner 8.65 mm vs 10.8 mm 2.15 mm thinner.
Much faster CPU clock speed 4 x 1.5 GHz vs 4 x 1.2 GHz 25% faster CPU clock speed.
Has NFC Yes vs No Near-field-communication (NFC) allows wireless transactions like payments.
Wireless charging Yes vs No It can be charged w/o any plugs and wires similar to electric shavers or toothbrushes (as extra).
Source; http://versus.com/en/asus-memo-pad-hd7-vs-google-n...
BryanDobbins - Saturday, August 17, 2013 - link
my buddy's aunt earned $14958 past week. she been working on the laptop and got a $510900 home. All she did was get blessed and put into action the information leaked on this site... http://xurl.es/qa0ukuhuznaa - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
Does the MicroSD slot support SDHX? Or in other words: What size of potential memory expansion are we talking about here?Death666Angel - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
Found one guy in a forum saying his 64GB SDXC doesn't work, but he didn't elaborate on the file system used or what didn't work.gorskiegangsta - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
I believe SDXC cards use the ExFAT format.madmilk - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
Maybe exFAT is the most common, but there's nothing stopping you from formatting an SD card as say, ext4.hrrmph - Monday, July 29, 2013 - link
64GB Micro-SDXC cards from SanDisk come pre-formatted with exFAT.I can attest that they work fine in a Samsung Note 2 and it's widely published on forums that other Samsung devices work fine with these cards.
The Blackberry Z10, and possibly other BB OS 10 devices, require the card to be reformatted to FAT32. This works fine, except that you are subjected to the 4GB file size limit of FAT32. For most uses this isn't a problem, but if part of your usage scenario is wanting to backup a few large files, in addition to all of the smaller, more typical file sizes that you would normally carry, then the Blackberry isn't the appropriate tool.
Also, you cannot then swap Micro-SDXC cards between a Blackberry device and a device that uses the more modern exFAT file system. For example, lets say you shot photos and video using a Z10 and saved it on the Micro-SDXC card in the required FAT32 format. You couldn't then put the card into a more modern tablet's Micro-SDXC exFAT enabled slot to display the photos and video to your friends.
But, if you shoot photos and video on a Samsung device (Note 2, S4, S4 Mini), you could then swap the Micro-SDXC exFAT card over to another device with a Micro-SDXC exFAT enable slot (I believe the Samsung Note 8, Tab 7, and possibly some of the other major name brand soon-to-be-released devices coming out of Asia) to easily display your photos and video to friends and family.
Many of the smaller devices are shooting 1080P video, but I'm not aware of any 7" or 8" tablet with a Micro-SDXC exFAT enabled slot that has the requisite 1080P screen to display the videos in full resolution once the Micro-SDXC card is swapped over to the larger display device.
In addition to capacity expansion, I also find it easier to get files in and out of my devices and PCs quickly with the Micro-SDXC cards.
That is why (for me) it is so frustrating to see Google Asus build such a nice Gen 2 Nexus 7, but leave off the fundamentally important Micro-SDXC slot. My main reason for wanting to replace my Gen 1 Nexus 7 is the lack of a Micro-SDXC slot. The Samsung Note 8 has the slot, but lacks the 1080P display.
Coming back to the Asus HD7, I realize that it is a budget device and makes no attempt to compete at the high end. The screen isn't 1080P for example. But, until we get devices that universally have Micro-SDXC exFAT enabled slots, we are looking at a fragmented market where devices don't inter-operate that well together.
It would be interesting to know what the retail incremental cost of a Micro-SDXC exFAT enabled slot is compared to the cost of a Micro-SDHC slot.
Maybe Asus can't hit their target price on the HD7 with a modern Micro-SDXC slot. Or maybe they are taking a page out of Samsung's book (e.g. S4 Mini) and will under-promise and over-deliver by giving us the more modern slot in the end anyway.