Asus and Verizon are now offering a follow-up to last year’s Zenpad Z8 tablet. The new model is called the Zenpad Z8s, and like last year’s model it’s an Android tablet with a 7.9 inch, 2048 x 1536 pixel IPS display and a $250 price tag.
But the processor, memory, and operating system have all been upgraded.
The Asus ZenPad Z8s features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor (up from a Snapdragon 650 chip), 3GB of RAM (up from 2GB) and ships with Android 7.0 (rather than Android 6.0).
Other features include 16GB of built-in storage, a microSD card reader, a 4,680 mAh battery, a 13MP rear camera, and a 5MP front-facing camera. It has a USB Type-C connector and headphone jack, a physical home button, and capacitive back and recents buttons.
The tablet supports Verizon’s LTE network, as well as 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2.
Verizon sells the tablet for $250 outright, or you can pay $10.41 per month over 24 months if you’d rather not spend that much all at once. Sign up for a 2-year data plan that covers the tablet and you can get the Zenpad Z8s for $150.
via GSM Arena
It’s very tempting but I think I’ll end up getting the xiaomi mi pad 3. This one has a better CPU and better support (at least warranty wise) but the xiaomi has 10 bit-hevc support from what I’ve been able to figure/find out. While Qualcomm is still reserving that feature for it’s high-end chips.
I agree with you on the 10 bit-hevc. I can’t see the difference on my tablet, but on my TV I can see the difference. As I save video files for displaying on both, my next tablet should support 10 bit-hevc. No more qualcomm tablets for me.
The Asus specs page doesn’t even mention a microSD
card slot, not how big a card it will support. Why can’t
manufacturers list complete specs?
They lost me at 16GB of storage.
Especially when android M and N make it difficult to grant write permission to apps for writing to the separate SD card. If Google fixed that I wouldn’t mind the 16GB internal.
It seems like a nice tablet, but does it really need those enormous bezzels?