Quick Review: Asus Zenpad 8 Z380M

I’ve been using the Asus Zenpad 8 Z380m for a little under 2 months now, and I have to say I really love it. I had been using an Acer 8 inch tablet for the previous 2  years. Well, sort of. The first one I purchased had bad lines in the screen. The second had the same issue. Both were immediately brought back the same day. Gave it one last shot. That one was OK. Then, it died, and would not boot to the start screen, no matter what. Sent it back for repair. They didn’t repair it. Sent it back again. This worked fine for a bit, then had same issue. This time doing a hard reset worked. But, it meant reloading everything again. Happened a 3rd time in October, so, I had enough, went looking for a replacement.

For what I use a table for, I refuse to spend a lot of money (I’m also a cheapskate, to a degree. Or, frugal. Whichever) on something I do not use a ton. $150 was about my limit. I did a ton of research on tablets, and this looked great. Unfortunately, Best Buy never had them in stock, though I did get to try one in store. I’m big on trying something like this before buying, and I checked a bunch. 8 inches seemed just right. 10 inches seemed a bit big. I have a laptop for that.

Here a few details

• Touch Screen 8″ IPS WXGA (1280×800) 189 PPI
• MTK 8163 Quad-Core 1.3GHz, 2GB DDR3L
• 16GB EMMC, Android 6.0 (Marshmallow), 802.11abgn, 2MP Front & 5MP Rear, Bluetooth 4.0
• 10 finger multi-touch support, Corning Gorilla Glass1
• Anti-fingerprint coating
• Android 6.0 (says 5.0 at the Amazon link, but, is 6)

What I really liked here is the quad core processor. 1.3 might not seem like much, but, for what you do on tablets (and smartphones), it is better to have the 1.3 with quad core than a fast one with less cores, especially since Android 6.0 seems to use more ram. My Galaxy S5 has quad core 2.5mhz with 2gb ram, and is always pushing 80% ram usage, and gets bogged down.

The Asus seems to run around 50% ram a lot. 548 MB is used by system 187 MB is the Cache RAM and around 1.2 GB of free RAM is available when no Apps are running on the device. In practice, many of the apps I use on both tablet and phone often load faster on the Asus. Could be due to over 2 years of using the Galaxy 5 (no, not giving it up. Works fine, have replacement batteries. I will never buy another phone that doesn’t allow replacing the battery). The games I play load very fast.

To me, the screen looks great. I did put a screen protector over it, easier to clean fingerprints. That Gorilla Glass seems to attract it. It’s not the highest resolution, but, did I mention it cost $129? It costs $129.

I like the Asus size and shape, very comfortable for typing with thumbs. It is responsive, and the ZenUI, the modifications Asus made to Android and the way it looks, is very user friendly. I usually add GoExtreme Launcher for all the customization of the way the device looks, but, felt no need.

The only downsides I found are

1. Does not fast charge. It uses USB2.0, so, slightly faster charging, but, my Acer had 3.0, and was much faster. Oh, well.
2. Apps have to be on the device, not on an added memory card. So, a few big apps/games and you are killed.

Though it has WiFi N, it doesn’t have the fastest connecting. I have 200mbs speeds, and it typically averages around 62mps. Others who have tested get in the upper 80’s to low 90’s. Really, though, 62 is more than enough for what I do.

The battery last more than long enough between charges, even with some heavy game use (I’ve been getting a bunch from Amazon Underground, puzzle/adventure games). You probably didn’t even notice that for 3 days in November I did all my posts on it when I visited the parents for my Dad’s birthday. Didn’t feel like bringing the laptop.

It has a bunch of fun things you can do, like finger and motion gestures. Haven’t played with them a lot, but I do have it set up so that if I double tap on the screen it wakes up. And the Wifi reconnects very fast when it wakes.

The sound is pretty good for the size and price. I’ll crank it while taking a shower using iHeart Radio. The GPS is pretty accurate.

The camera is only so so, but, then, I didn’t get it to take pictures.

All in all, it is a great value for $129.