Table of Contents
Last Updated on March 29, 2020
Design
Asus has decided to offer its fans both budget and high-end tablet versions this year. This model is still affordable, but equipped with components that are worthy or your attention and money, that is, if you aren’t looking for a premium tablet only. This is a model with a 10-inch screen that measures a total of 9.54 x 6.46 x 0.28 inches and weighs no more than 17.3 ounces. Compared to the iPad Air 2, it is only slightly heavier, almost unnoticeable. The ZenPad Z 10 has a metal frame with a glass strip located at the back. Its elegant and stylish design will conquer you immediately. As for the connectivity, it recharges using an USB-C and can connect with headphones using a jack. There are power and volume buttons on the right and a SIM card slot and a 64GB microSD slot.
The front-facing camera is positioned in the middle of the upper bezel and navigation buttons that can be seen at bottom are very much like those that you can see on Samsung models. The traditional home button might be useful to students and seniors, as it is difficult to press it by mistake, as it usually happens with touchscreen buttons.
Display and Audio
The 9.70-inch IPS LCD screen with a resolution of 2048 x 1536 is a joy. If you play with it for a little while, you will observe that the colors are intense, due to the fact that the saturation levels look similarly to those of an AMOLED screen. Watching videos on this screen is comfortable and relaxing. The only thing that might be a bit disturbing is the reflectiveness of the screen. This means that the images will fade in direct light, so it is recommended to use it indoors or under shade.
The speakers mounted at the bottom and deliver beautiful sounds, but not when at maximum. Also, the quality depends a lot on the source of the sound. If you want to watch movies or videos on YouTube, trust us when we say: you will enjoy the sound. When listening to music, though, the sound starts to distort after 60% volume. When headphones are connected, everything changes. You can instantly access the DTS Headphone:X experience appeals to the 7.1 channel virtual sound. Therefore, if you want to enjoy both the quality of the screen and the sound, we recommend to use headphones when watching video content.
Performance and battery life
If the sound was quite disappointing on the ZenPad Z 10, the way this tablet works, its smooth operation and fast responsiveness totally compensate. The tablet is equipped with a hexa-core Snapdragon 650 and has Adreno 510 GPU. Whether you want to write, work, play games, read or surf the web, you will notice that multitasking is done easily on this device and that it moves fast and smoothly. The 3GB of RAM are also responsible for this success, apart from the processor. Thanks to this pair, apps have low loading time. Playing games is an equally satisfying experience. Obviously, you must limit yourself to light to medium heavy games, as this isn’t a gaming tablet and it will never reach that kind of performance.Two games that it can manage perfectly are Hearthstone and Sky Force.
A surprising aspect is the high capacity of the battery and the amount of time that it lasts. Having a 7,800mAh battery, this tablet is a hero. With light operation and some video watching, the Z10 battery dies after nine days on WiFi. When tested on LTE and WiFi, the total time decreased to seven days, which is still an amazing performance. Therefore, if you always wanted an affordable tablet that has a good battery, this is a great option for you.
Should you buy the Asus Zenpad Z 10?
The ZenPad Z10 is the newer version of the ZenPad 3S 10 and makes a huge difference. Its performance is sky-rocketing compared to the previous model, its build is impressive and it screen is very attractive. Overall, it is an affordable, but underrated tablet. As for the software, it made quite an impression on us.
It is easy to be impressed by the software, too. Everything runs smoothly and you can perform almost any task on it. Its screen is large enough for comfortable reading, video watching without straining your eyes, surfing the web and using almost any app that you can use on advanced tablets.
The Z10 has a lot to offer for its price. The only frustrating thing that we could detect was the fact that the speakers aren’t very good at high volumes and that there is no split-screen function.
So who should buy the Asus ZenPad Z 10? Anyone who wants an inexpensive tablet that has a stylish design, a nice user interface and great performance can enjoy this device. It will be a frustration for audiophiles, but other than that category, it is recommended for students, regular content consumers and even seniors who want to navigate the web, read and get some online entertainment.