Asus Zenpad 8: the best value of its generation?

While I've liked some of the designs of Dell's recent Android tablets, their pricing has been more iPad-territory than Nexus-7 territory. Same with the pricing of the Nexus 9. And I'm a cheapskate. But it looks like one OEM has finally brought good value to Lollipop tablets, and perhaps not surprisingly, it's Asus.

$199 gets you:

8" 2048 x 1536 (4:3 aspect ratio)
32 gb onboard storage with microSD expansion
2 gb RAM
Intel Atom Z3530

BestBuy listing (I'm not affiliated with them and am just posting this for reference)

Am I missing something horribly bad about this tablet, or is this just just a value proposition that no other tablet offers right now?

 

It's not bad, ASUS software isn't the greatest, but it works. Zen UI takes a little getting used to. The Intel chipsets aren't the greatest for gaming but will also suffice. If you just want a high resolution tablet that won't lag and doesn't have absolutely trash specs, then this is a good buy. 8" is in that strange twilight zone of being more expensive than 7" tablets but straddle the 10" price point almost. Indeed I still think the Nexus 9 is overpriced by at least 50 dollars, and to compel me to buy one would be to drop it to 250. Too many compromises IMO on that tablet, plus middling HTC build quality issues.

 

Yeah, I don't know anyone who actually likes Asus software better than vanilla Android (or better than well-executed OEM software like Motorola's), but with those specs and that price point, I'm willing to be forgiving.

I think the Nexus 9 is very overpriced, especially with 16 gb of non-expandable storage on the base model. I'd like to see the Nexus 9 selling at $325 or so with 32 gb storage on the base model (while lower is better from a consumer perspective, I think it would be "fairly priced" at much higher than $250).

 

I bought my fiance's daughter an ASUS MemoPad 7 HD (Intel Z3745 1.33 quad core, 1 GB RAM, 16 GB, 1280x800 screen). It honestly isn't bad. It looks like a skinned Android but it doesn't have the bloat of say TouchWiz. Of course it's a little overdone, but I respect ASUS kept alot of stockish looking Android in. Oh for the price ASUS is great, no doubt about that. The Nexus 9 is hands down overpriced. My benchmark is the Nexus 7 2013 for 179.99. For me, I don't see why the 9 is worth 80 over the Nexus 7 (even if they did drop the base N9 to 250). 325 is only 25 less than what I paid for my Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 (sure it still retails for 500+). I feel Google is getting pressure from HTC to make $$$, thus the price point it is being sold at. I feel as a 275 dollar product, it offers alot of value, but Google seems to be shying away from uber cheap, great hardware philosophy.

 

yes, your missing the fact that the Z-stylus will work with that tablet!



also have you seen this?

http://liliputing.com/2015/07/asus-zenpad-s-8-tablet-priced-at-299-4gb-ram-64gb-storage.html

 

I did see the Zenpad S as well, though a good tablet at a $199 price point is much more appealing to me than a very good tablet at a $299 price point.

 

I think it really boils down to what you find important in a tablet. For me, I went with the Galaxy Note instead of the normal Tab because I wanted a high resolution screen. I also wanted the S-pen feature which only the Note had. If a more expensive device has something you need, and then I think it would be worth spending a little more if you plan on keeping the device. I've found sometimes buying the best "value" leaves some people not too happy.

 

Absolutely agree; that's why I said "for me" instead of "for everybody"

I mainly use a tablet for web browsing, media consumption, and casual gaming, not productivity work. For my usage pattern, the Zenpad S definitely isn't 50% better than a regular Zenpad.

 

Asus Zenpad is a good deal, but which panel is fragile. i send mine for repair last week.

 

New Asus press release about the Zenpad 8.

https://www.asus.com/us/News/QVbqeN16rX8roSIB

 

Apparently the SKU you linked is also an S model. I saw one review putting the battery life in their pros list and another in their cons list, while both overall scores were far from negative. There aren't a whole lot of reviews out, but I'm guessing the SKU will greatly affect your experience with this tablet. At $199 it does look good on paper and Asus have been on a roll lately when it comes to offering high value propositions in the mobile segment, so I reckon you'd be happy.

http://www.phonearena.com/news/The-...high-res-display-Intel-Moorefield-CPU_id71420
http://www.droid-life.com/2015/07/13/asus-zenpad-s-8-0-hits-best-buy/ <- Check out the comments section on that one.

Perhaps Asus' tablets are the most polished and best-known ~$200 tablets in Western markets, but there certainly are other interesting high-value devices being made primarely targeted at Asian markets. Check out Xiaomi, Teclast, and Cube for instance.

 

Another not super positive review on the higher end unit: http://www.anandtech.com/show/9555/the-asus-zenpad-s-z580ca-review

Another interesting tablet if you can find it is the Nokia N1. It's basically the $299 Asus with half the RAM and NAND, and also drops GPS and microSD. But you get a much better build quality with a solid aluminium chassis. MSRP is $~250, but it's been as low as $209: http://www.eglobalcentral.com/nokia-n1-32gb-wifi-silver-en.html?gclid=CJLgwd7o1McCFcNhfgodKjwB3A
Technically this is a China and Taiwan only product, so there might be a risk in buying it outside of that region.

Asus also has a version in the UK that is at similarly specced and priced to the N1, so maybe we'll see a world wide release at some point: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Z580CA-1A031A-ZenPad-Z580CA-Storage-Android/dp/B010Q2RZX6. To me this would be the value tablet to get.