When searching for the right tablet, there’s so many options out there that it’s often hard to cut through the clutter. With expanding features and a wide breadth of price points and options available, the market is always-evolving, and I’m always interested in checking out the latest. One feature that I’d not previously had on a tablet before is 4G LTE, and that just changed with the release of the new ASUS MeMO Pad 7 LTE, available exclusively through AT&T. This new, feature-packed, competitively-priced Android tablet just hit the streets a few weeks ago, and after spending some time with a a review sample, I’m ready to share some thoughts.
At this stage in the game, I should be looking for an all-encompassing tablet that “does it all,” but the thing is… despite how immersed in technology I am – I’m not a one-device guy, and I tend to be multi-platform and could be more organized (my principal scheduling tool is a dry erase board in my office, and blank paper — regardless of how many apps I could be using). Running Android Kit Kat 4.4 with the ASUS ZenUI, the MeMO Pad 7 LTE packs a 1.3GHz Quad Core Intel® Atom™ processor under the hood, a 1GB LPDDR3 memory @ 1600MHz, and has 16GB of on-board storage that’s expandable to 64GB via MicroSD. Figure in the Polaris Office, a decent camera and some really intuitive scheduling features (much like those on the MeMO Pad 8 I reviewed last year), and the MeMO Pad & LTE could steer me toward being a one-device guy. What particularly impressed me on this one though, is how it functions as an entertainment tablet.
While the usual apps all made their way in via Google Play (I loaded my essentials: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, etc.), the girls and I have been on a big STAR WARS kick lately (one that will likely last for years), so I downloaded my Digital HD copy of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK directly to my tablet, and we were playing the STAR WARS REBELS: RECON MISSIONS game, which is fairly processor-intensive. Not only does the screen look great (even Grandma complimented it), but the dual front-facing speakers with SonicMaster Technology sound fantastic. Add in the 10.5 hour battery, and there’s much entertainment to be had. I even multi-tasked, bouncing back-and-forth between apps, and checking out the new “…As Your Kingdom Falls” lyric video from Product of Hate (which I edited/directed).
And, while Wi-Fi connectivity is preferred for those data-intensive entertainment options and streaming video, I put the 4G LTE to the test just to see how well the MeMO Pad 7 LTE could hang – and it did well.
I even loaded up a couple of kid-friendly apps for The Rock Daughters to dabble with, and this new tablet handled the kids with ease as well.
There’s a lot of bang for a relatively small buck, and that makes it easy to deem the ASUS MeMO Pad 7 LTE “Rock Father-approved.”
Available for $74.99 USD as part of an AT&T 2-year contract, and $174.99 USD as part of the AT&T GoPhone plan
Bonus: Here’s even more on the specs, direct from ASUS:
