Until now, rumours had it that ASUS was working on an economical Nexus 7 alternative. Also, the tablet was rumoured to be priced at around $99. A benchmark test revealed that the device is based on a 1 GHz processor along with Mali 400 graphics and featured a screen resolution of 1024 by 552 ppi.
At CES 2013, ASUS has officially revealed the rumoured economical Nexus 7 alternative dubbed as Memo Pad at a price of $149. The Memo Pad is a 17.8-cm (7-inch) tablet PC and runs on Google’s Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system. Powered by a 1GHz VIA WM8950 CPU and a Mali-400 GPU, it features a 10-point multi-touch LED-backlit display with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. ASUS boasts that the tablet has 140-degree wide viewing angles with 350-nit brightness.
With the Memo Pad, ASUS is not too much keen on delivering award winning performance. The company just wants to give the best experience at a very economical price point of just $149. According to ASUS, “Our focus for this device is on delivering excellent performance per watt and a smooth and fluid user experience at an extremely affordable price, NOT on winning benchmarks.”
ASUS Memo Pad offers up to 16GB of internal storage, which can be expanded up to 32GB via microSD card slot. A suite of ASUS applications are also pre-installed, including SuperNote Lite, BuddyBuzz, ASUS WebStorage with 5GB of online storage space, ASUS Studio and WebStorage Office. The Memo Pad will be available starting this January in selected markets from authorised ASUS resellers.