Hasta La Gadget!

To some extent, ASUS is a victim of its own success: it gave the budget tablet category a boost with the original Nexus 7, and it now faces a legion of competitors in that space. The company is taking a two-step approach to maintaining its relevance. The new Nexus 7 tackles the higher end, with top-tier specs that include a 1080p display and wireless charging. Right now, though, we’re more interested in ASUS’ low-end solution, the MeMo Pad HD 7. While it’s one of the cheaper name-brand tablets at $150, it promises some of the quality we typically expect from more expensive products. But is the HD 7 good enough to fend off other entry-level tablets? And can it attract customers who’d be willing to pay the premium for a new Nexus 7′? Let’s find out.

Filed under: Tablets, ASUS

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You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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Do you remember a point in time when phones (this was in an age where smartphones do not yet exist, and Nokia was sitting pretty atop the mobile phone market with their ginormous share) started to become smaller and smaller in size, and if I am not mistaken, Panasonic did carry the tag of having the smallest phone in the world at one point in time, while Nokia and their collection of 88XX handsets dominated the high end phone scene. Well, it seems that the opposite has happened with smartphones – the bigger they get, the better they are, with phablets making quite a splash recently. ASUS, a name that is associated with motherboards as well as an inkling of a US smartphone debut next year, is said to be working on an extremely thin tablet which will be revealed sometime down the road.

As at press time, the Sony Xperia Tablet Z is the thinnest tablet in the market, measuring a mere 6.9mm thin, although Tech2 did report that ASUS will be churning out a tablet that is even thinner than that – we are talking about just 6mm thin. I would loathe to have something so thin, as placing it in my bag, I might forget that it is there and apply unnecessary pressure which could crack the screen if I am not careful.

Like It , +1 , Tweet It , Pin It | ASUS Could Deliver Extremely Thin Tablet original content from Ubergizmo.

ASUS has enjoyed a variety of successes with its Android tablets, perhaps most notable among them being the Transformer series and the Nexus 7. Despite this, it has little presence in the US’s smartphone market, something the maker aims to change in the coming months. Speaking to the folks over at All Things D, ASUS’s chairman said the company is looking at entering the stateside smartphone market in 2014.

ASUS has been particularly active with pushing its Padfone and FonePad, the first of which features a fairly impressive 4.7-inch smartphone that docks into a 10-inch slate, making it a complete tablet rather than just a handset. The FonePad is the inverse to that gadget, being tablet-sized with cell phone functionality, allowing for users to make calls.

While both devices are nice, they’re of the hybrid variety, and overall the smartphone aspect of the maker has been slight in the United States, though other markets have seen some impressive handsets from the company. Some reports began to surface this afternoon that the company will be changing this next year, something that was collaborated by statements made by ASUS’s chairman Jonney Shih in an interview.

According to Shih, ASUS has been networking with US retailers and carriers, something it says is a necessary component for experiencing success in the market. While not impossible, the maker certainly has its work cut out for it at this point, with Samsung and Apple both having a massive presence in the market, and with LG, HTC, Sony, and other companies battling to dominate the rest of it.

The 2014 timeline doesn’t seem set in stone, with Shih saying that 2013 isn’t a likely candidate for an entrance in the market, and that 2014 is instead “more reasonable.” Whatever the company does bring to market, it could very well be a high-end offering, if its recent devices are any indication. Rounding out the interview, the chairman hinted that there’s more coming in the Transformer series.

SOURCE: Android Community

ASUS plans to enter US smartphone market in 2014 is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Who knew affordable tablets could be so good? That was our reaction after reviewing the original Nexus 7 when it went on sale last year for $200; at the time, comparably specced products were going for at least $100 more. So, when this year’s follow-up came out at a slightly higher price ($229 and up), we were a little concerned the higher cost would dissuade penny-pinching shoppers from taking the plunge.

After we got a good look at the spec sheet, though, we quickly forgave Google and ASUS for their decision. For the money, you get a gorgeous 1,920 x 1,200 IPS display, 2GB of RAM, a rear camera, a quad-core processor, wireless charging and the latest version of Android, Jelly Bean 4.3. Now that we’ve had the opportunity to take the new and improved Nexus 7 for a spin, we’re ready to tackle all the obvious questions: is this still the best budget tablet on the market? How does it compare to the iPad mini? And does the spec sheet actually reflect real-world performance? Let’s find out.

Filed under: Tablets, ASUS, Google

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