I was sent this Asus Zenpad 8.0 by the company to review it. Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect from the tablet but I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised.

This new tablet launched by the company has an 8-inch screen with a 1200x800 pixel screen. The outer body has a very metallic look to it. I was actually surprised to find out its plastic because the tablet has some weight to it. Both the power and volume buttons are on the right while the headphone jack is on the top. You need a micro SIM for the tablet and the battery cannot be taken out.

Cost – 14,999 INR

The tablet is very sleek with a metallic tone to it. I specially loved the back cover, there is a very thin metallic strip which gives the device a sharp look. There are no actual buttons on the tablet, its all touchy-touch. The camera design reminds me of my iPhone.

What set this tablet apart for me was its Audio cover. It looks like a normal leather tablet cover but it actually has speakers in it. So when you fit this cover on your tablet, the speakers on it get activated. This could be very helpful when you want to watch a movie but you don’t want your bulky laptop on. There is no syncing needed for the cover because of the direct connection. But the cover doesn’t actually come with the tablet, you have to buy it separately and it costs around 3000 INR.

The tablet has a 1.4GHz Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 SoC with a 2GB RAM and 16 GB internal storage. It has Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and a 4G support.

It runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop with a ZenUI overlay. There are many different apps provided by Asus to help you out for things like data transfer and phone transfer. It’s good but nothing really life changing.

I haven’t inserted any sim card in the tablet yet so all these observations are based on how it worked with my Wi-Fi. To test the performance of Asus Zenpad 8.0, I brought the big guns. Basically, I downloaded Candy Crush and played it. Candy Crush crashes on a lot of phones but there was absolutely no lagging on this one. I might have even downloaded a hack to get through level 245. You'll never know.

The ZenPad has 1280×800 pixels LED IPS display, with Asus’ Tru2Life technology. Honestly, I found the display a bit dull. Even with full brightness, it looked like something was missing. At first, I thought I was just comparing it too much with my iPhone but then I brought out Motorola G 3, and the tablet still looked dull in front of it.

But all that changed when I started watching HD videos on it. The clarity was just amazing. I think I would be watching a lot more on this one.

The company claims that the tablet has over 9 hours of battery backup with 4,000mAh battery but since I didn’t put a SIM card, I really cannot comment on it. For me the tablet worked for 2 days without charging.

The ZenPad has a 8MP main camera and 2MP front camera, both without any flash, which is definitely disappointing. The pictures in sunlight come out good but the indoor pictures are a bit grainy. In fact, I found a bit difficult to focus images.

But I absolutely loved the camera interface of the tablet. There were so many options including time lapse, slow motion and gifs. The front camera lets you set a quick timer and it also has a beautification feature, which might make you look pretty but it didn’t help me.

Let’s do a quick recap of all the features

I think the Asus Zenpad 8.0 is a great budget buy. It does have some shortcomings but there are some great qualities about it too. For me, its going to be a great stand by multimedia device that I am going to take on my trips to watch movies and read books.