Don't let its cheap plastic build fool you: While the $ 150 MeMo Pad HD 7 may look cheap and toyish, this tablet offers big performance and a great feature set at an extremely attractive price point. For anyone interested in casual web browsing, movie watching, and reading, it may even be one of the best 7-inch tablets available.
At 0.7 pounds, the MeMO Pad weights about the same as the new Nexus 7 (also made by Asus). Its easy-to-hold IPS 1,240 x 600 display has crisp, vivid colors and wide viewing angles, make it perfect for casual gaming and watching movies.
Inside, you'll find a powerful MediaTek quad-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz, which allows for fluid multitasking even with a dozen apps running in background.
I reviewed a version of the MeMo Pad HD 7 with Android 4.2.1 onboard, but Asus says newer models should come upgraded to 4.3. While customization of the interface is light and almost hidden, you can still adjust pretty much every aspect of the tablet you can think of.
The most interesting feature is the so-called floating apps. Tapping on the left button of the Android navigation bar lets you activate a menu of functions that can be launched on top of whatever app you already have on the screen, even over playing videos. You can fire up apps like the calculator, "AudioWizard," unit converter, watch and compass, calendar and mail, a small video player, and then display them all together with no need to multitask from one app to another. There's even a small pop-up browser that lets you perform a quick search online before getting back to your previous activity. If you want to spend more time on the web, you can simply throw your mini browser to Chrome and get a full screen experience in milliseconds.
Pinching the home screen lets you select different profiles and add new customizations. What I really loved was the options ring that pops up from the home button. By simply holding your finger on the home icon for a couple of seconds, a bunch of shortcuts to apps and widgets emerged from the system bar. These included Google and Voice Search, an app tray and function locker, as well as eight more fully customized slots for your most desired shortcuts.
The HD 7 comes also preloaded with the "Asus Applications Suite," which provides useful tools like a to-do list, file manager, calendar, "Power Saver," and "App Locker. The latter lets you password protect specific apps. You can also set a Parental PIN code to keep certain applications on the tablet off limits, a helpful feature if you let your kids use your tablet.
On the entertainment side, the MeMO Pad features titles to draw or gather your pictures around single events. This includes a new version of "BuddyBuzz," a sort of social hub that collects all your updates, favorites, and interactions from your social networking worlds.
There's also a bunch of exclusive functions that sweeten the pot. With "Splendid" you can control the screen's color temperature and saturation. A "Mirror" function launches the front camera and offers you … well, a fake mirror. You can even customize the music output setting for up to six different profiles — everything from Power Saving to Gaming Mode — to enhance your multimedia experience.
Speaking of music, there's a single speaker grill placed on the back of the MeMO Pad HD 7. While it includes two physical speakers, the implementation still hampers stereo separation. Given its location, it's also easy to accidentally cover the grill with your fingers.
As for the camera, well, hopefully you're not buying a tablet to snap pictures. Just like many other tablet makers, Asus has equipped the MeMo Pad with a mid-range 5-megapixels f/2.4 lens. It's enough for decent photos in bright light. But backlit subjects tend to blur and low-light photography will give you noisy shots.
The WeMO Pad may not be the most powerful tablet you can buy. And it definitely doesn't stand out in the design arena. But once you get past its cheap appearance, you'll find this 7-inch tablet offers up solid specs and an abundance of thoughtful features.
All photos: Maurizio Pesce/WIRED
Maurizio Pesce is the technology editor at Wired Italia. Follow him on Twitter.
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