Asus MeMo Pad 8 review

The MeMO Pad 8 is equipped with a quad-core 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z3745 processor and 1GB of RAM. Initially it was a little disappointing to see less RAM than on the Tesco Hudl2, with its more generous 2GB. We didn’t really feel the difference in general use, with the MeMO Pad 8 feeling responsive in all tasks. In fact, the MeMO Pad 8 displayed superior browser performance in our SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, recording a score of 598.8ms, a good 200ms faster than the Tesco tablet. We did, however, observe some stuttering on more complex websites when quickly scrolling around.

Gaming performance was also very good for a low-cost tablet. In our Ice Storm Extreme test, the MeMO Pad 8 managed 8,212 and in Ice Storm Unlimited it scored 12,042, which is above average. Its Ice Storm Unlimited score was still around 2,000 points behind the Tesco Hudl2, however.  The tablet’s Intel processor has good 3D performance, but there are currently some problems with compatibility. For example, we’ve encountered problems with Assassin’s Creed Pirates on other Intel-based tablets and here again we witnessed crashes on launch.

Asus has tweaked Android 4.4 KitKat with its own ZenUI skin. This includes changes to the lockscreen to bring you useful weather and calendar updates as well as shortcuts to useful apps such as the browser and email. ZenUI uses copious amounts of pastel shades for the UI that are easy on the eye. There are also shortcuts in the Quick Settings pulldown menu for useful apps such as the calculator and Asus’ own Quick Memo app.

The Camera app has also been replaced with Asus’ own and comes packed with features such as Time Rewind and animated GIF creation.  The tablet is equipped with a 2-megapixel front camera and a 5-megapixel camera on the back. Image quality was middling in our outdoor test shots with a lot of chroma noise in the shadow detail and an overall softness to the image. Low-light photography fared even worse. While the MeMO Pad 8 punched well above its weight elsewhere, the camera is distinctly what you would expect for a low-cost tablet.

The MeMo Pad 8 is a great tablet for little money. Its screen has good image quality, performance is strong and 9h 56m of battery is considerably more than that of its great rival the Tesco Hudl2. However, the Hudl2 is cheaper and has a Full HD screen for pin-sharp text, so remains our favourite budget tablet.