Asus Me176 MeMoPad Review & Asus X553M Laptop Review

I was recently loaned an ASUS ME176 MeMoPad (I wasn’t asked to blog a review – just to submit some feedback on social media). This was my first Asus product and I was very impressed with it. The turquoise blue ME176 model arrived in a neat little box and was ready to go as soon as I switched it on. It has a 7 inch screen, which I think is perfect for a tablet. If I wanted a smaller screen, I’d use my phone, if I wanted a bigger screen, I’d use my laptop. It only weighs 295g too which means it’s perfect to slip into my handbag and take everywhere with me. I sometimes forget I even have it in my bag… which brings me to my next point… Battery life.

The MeMoPad advertises a 9 hour battery life, but once when I “misplaced it” (left it in a side pocket of my handbag), I went to take it out 3 days later, and it still had a whole half of battery life remaining, despite the fact I had left it on. So I assume the 9 hour battery life, corresponds to constant use, because in standby mode, it lasts about a week!

The MeMoPad’s anti-fingerprint coating, means it still looks like brand new, after several months use. This includes when the children have gotten hold of it. I give it a quick wipe on my jumper and it’s shiny and new again.

Unlike other tablets, the ASUS switches on quickly and is really easy to setup and customise. I didn’t need to install many apps, as most of the apps I use on a daily basis were already on the MeMoPad. Apps open quickly and run fast too, which I expect is down to the speedy Intel Quad-Core processor.

I have a Samsung tab and an Archos tab and neither one seems to be as fast or as user friendly as the ASUS. I like the size, I like the way it operates and I like the funky blue colour. It has front and rear cameras too, so if my phone dies, I can still take pictures or video calls. This tablet does everything I need it to when I’m travelling or at a conference.

In fact, I was SO impressed by the ASUS MeMoPad, that I went out and bought an ASUS laptop straight after (a purple one). I chose the ASUS X553M which cost me only £249.00 in Argos and in the few months I’ve had it, I can’t fault it. I’ve had laptops from Toshiba and Samsung in the past and whilst the specification on this laptop was supposedly not as high, everything seems to work, I’ve had no problems with it and it is speedier and more user friendly than my previous laptops. My last laptop wouldn’t burn CD’s and wouldn’t play sound in Windows movie maker. The one before that crashed regularly and kept slowing down.

I mostly use my laptop for blogging, photo storage, video editing and social media. These are also what I use my tablet for. I’m not a heavy gamer or movie download buff, so I can’t comment on the suitability of these products for those purposes, but for what I use my laptop and tablet for, both of my ASUS products far outshine any of the other brands I have owned or tested.

This laptop never gets hot (it actually has an “Ice Cool” keypad which keeps the palm rest cool) and is lighter than my previous laptops, so I do tend to stick it in my changing bag if I’m going somewhere and have a lot of work to do. This laptop is also very fast, despite only having a dual core processor and it has 3.0 USB ports which make transferring data from my cameras lot faster. The ASUS laptop has also completely changed my perspective on video editing, which I used to find took hours and involved a lot of opening and closing different programs to try and make movie maker work. I can now transfer my videos from my phone, edit them on movie maker, add an endslate from powerpoint, music from my library and upload it all to YouTube so much quicker than I ever thought possible with my last laptop.

I would highly recommend both the ASUS MeMoPad and the ASUS laptop series and I also love that both come in a variety of colour choices. If you spend as much time using technology as me, why get stuck with black for everything? I love my turquoise memopad, purple laptop and gold phone!

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