Asus just dropped a gem of a budget tablet on US soil.
The newly-arrived, $199 Asus Zenpad S 8.0 is one of the lightest tablets on the market. At just 0.69 pounds (315 grams), the Android 5.0 device features a gorgeous black leather patterning design.
The Zenpad, which is housed in a metallic frame, is 0.33-inches thick with rounded edges that Asus claims provides a more comfortable grip. Housed within that frame are six speakers and a superb 2048 x 1536 resolution screen.
The Zenpad's screen-to-bezel ratio is 76.5%, meaning you're getting an almost cinematic experience when viewing content – rather than viewing a whole chunk of border and very little display.
Under the hood
Asus claims the Zenpad gets up to 9 hours of battery life. It's packing a 64-bit, 1.83 gigahertz Intel Atom Z3530 Quad-Core processor and up to 2GB of RAM.
The tablet maxes out at 32GB of storage, so you'll need a little extra space elsewhere to store the photos you'll take on the 8 megapixel (MP) rear camera. There's also a 5MP front-facing camera for all you selfie enthusiasts.
Luckily, Asus has made up for the lack of storage. The Zenpad comes with Micro USB and Micro SD slots, as well as 100GB of Google Drive storage for two years.
Light and sweet
The Zenpad's 0.69 pound weight puts it in the same class as the industry-leading 8-inch tablets, like the Dell Venue 8 7000 (0.68 pounds) and Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4 (0.65 pounds).
Asus unveiled similar versions of the ZenPad in 7- and 10-inch frames at Computex in June.
