Asus has a lust-worthy 7-inch tablet coming that’s priced at just $249
Posted on 11. Jan, 2012 by Paul in Tablets
Asus MeMO 370T tablet hands-on by Engadget.com
Would you believe that for just $50 more than the $199 Amazon Kindle Fire tablet you could get a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 powered 7-inch Asus tablet in 2012? Yeah you probably could have guessed that the Kindle Fire wouldn’t always be the best value, the tech industry is fast moving and the tablet market isn’t any different.
At CES 2012 Asustek Computer Inc. of Taiwan in partnership with NVIDIA revealed the 7-inch Asus MeMO 370T Android tablet. The 7-inch Asus MeMO 370T is going to be launched in 2012 for only $249 and include high-end features like a quad-core processor, a WXGA (1280×800) resolution IPS display, front + rear cameras, microSD, micro-USB, micro-HDMI, 1GB of RAM and the latest version of Android OS (Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich for now).
The new Asus MeMO 370T tablet features a sleek design that puts to shame the 7-inch tablet that Asus revealed but failed to release last year, the Asus Eee Pad MeMO. Design wise the new MeMO 370T goes well with the recently released Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime. In my opinion the new Asus MeMO tablet is one of the best looking 7-inch tablets released thus far, and it’s also the most highly specced out model yet.
Android Community has taken some hands-on photos like from CES 2012 and in their report they said the MeMO 370T is made from a hard plastic instead of brushed aluminum like the Transformer Prime. Asus reps. told AC that the MeMO 370T will be launched in early Q2 2012 (sometime after March 1st most likely).
Watch out, everybody
With an aggressive pricing strategy Asus is really putting another Android tablet makers on notice for 2012, they’re here to play. Although I don’t think many Android tablet makers doubted Asus’ abilities when it comes to putting together a tablet, the Taiwanese company did have quite a bit of success with the first generation Asus Eee Pad Transformer tablet which introduced the concept of tablet/laptop hybrid computing to Android.
The promise that will come to fruition after all
I had my doubts about NVIDIA CEO and co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang promised that we would be seeing $299 Tegra 3 quad-core tablets soon back in November of 2011 (a short time after his company had officially unveiled the Tegra 3 ARM processing chip). However it would appear I was wrong in assuming that Huang was simply blowing smoke. Asus has revealed a tablet that they plan to sell for below the $299 that was promised by Huang, that is something I couldn’t believe in 2011 given how high priced simple dual-core tablets were no matter the screen size.
Who will be first to match Asus?
The Android tablet market has been a real dog fight and in 2012 things are only going to get more competitive. With Asus offering up the second generation Transformer tablet with a new thinner, lighter design with faster internal components and now the first $249 Tegra 3 powered tablet being unveiled Asus could be very tough to beat.
However I think that in 2012 Amazon will release either a second generation Kindle Fire tablet or launch a new more powerful Android tablet that’s larger than 7-inches with a price tag that’s around the $200′s. Amazon in my opinion is the most fit to compete when it comes to price, and for style and features the folks at Samsung should be able to give Asus a serious fight.
Other than Amazon and Samsung Asus isn’t like to receive much competition from anyone else in my opinion.
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Google pursuing a ultra-cheap 7-inch quad-core tablet with Asus? | Tablets Planet
04. Mar, 2012
[...] Both Androidandme.com and CNET’s reports, when combined, fit the description of the Asus Eee Pad MeMO 370T which was revealed at CES 2012 by Asustek.Google can’t wait any longer to get a Nexus tablet [...]