Gadgetory

This video is brought to you by Lyve. Lyve Home is a drive that saves photos and videos from all of your devices including phones, tablets and computers. Instead of having to manually sort all of your pictures or use an online service you can keep everything safe on your Lyve Home and access it from anywhere! All you need to do is download the Lyve app and your pictures and videos will automatically be backed up on your Lyve Home! Lyve is the ultimate solution for every photo hoarder and the Lyve app works even without a Lyve Home so be sure to check out the link in the description to download the free Lyve app to get all of your photos and videos in one place! Hey guys this is Austin. Is a $100 tablet worth it? Packing a quad core processor, seven inch IPS display and full Windows 8.1, the HP Stream 7 looks like a serious competitor coming in at just under $100. Jump over to the Android side and you’ve got the Asus MeMo Pad 7. Internally it’s very similar but it comes in a sleeker design and is running Android 4.4 Kit Kat. While Android on tablets is nothing new being able to run full Windows 8.1 on a $100 tablet is a big deal, not even counting the included one year Office 365 subscription which is nearly worth the entire cost of the tablet on its’ own. What’s most impressive is just how well everything runs, resolution and specs aren’t too far off from a lot of laptops so doing things like browsing the web is downright snappy. There are quite a few decent apps in the Windows Store but you can also download normal programs like Chrome and VLC. The biggest bottleneck is the single gigabyte of RAM which while it’s fine for most Windows 8 apps can be a real problem when you’re using the normal desktop. Having the option to use that desktop is a big plus for me but at the end of the day this is still a PC with all the pros and cons that come along with that. The MeMo Pad gives you a much more traditional tablet experience with Android Kit Kat. Asus has their Zen UI skin on it but thankfully it’s not intrusive, you’re getting a close to stock experience which is impressively smooth. It slows down a bit when multitasking but in normal use the Atom is more than fast enough to keep up. Android has quickly become a great option for smaller tablets like this and you’ll find a wide variety of apps including Netflix, YouTube and Kindle. While both tablets are about the same thickness the MeMo Pad feels much nicer in the hand with a tapered edge. It reminds me a lot of the Nexus 7 in design which is a good thing, it’s usable in one hand without being too heavy or slippery. It does take a bit to get used to the power button being below the volume rocker but it’s not a big deal. On the other hand the Stream 7 can’t quite measure up. It’s not really much thicker but it’s squared off and quite a bit heavier making it a bit more awkward in the hand. Unlike the color options of the MeMo Pad the Stream is made out of a fairly cheap feeling black plastic. Turn both tablets on however and things are much closer. They both sport seven inch screens with resolutions of 1280 by 800 which is more than good enough at this price point. You can use either completely happily but the display on the Stream is the real surprise. While there’s some backlight bleed the colors are vibrant and the viewing angles are solid. The MeMo Pad might not quite match up but Asus includes an app called Splendid to really fine tune the colors on the panel which is an awesome inclusion. One area where there’s no competition is in speaker quality. The Stream has a single speaker which is not only quiet but very tinny. On the other hand the MeMo Pad sounds perfectly fine, miles better than the Stream. While the display on the Stream is nicer the hardware of the MeMo Pad really does feel like a step above anything you would expect to find at this price point. Inside both tablets are rocking a quad core Intel Atom paired with 1GB of RAM and in Geekbench they match up nicely with the Nexus 7 and aren’t too far behind the HP Stream 13 laptop. In the graphics department it’s the same story, these are about as fast as it gets for a seven inch tablet not even considering price. The Stream comes with 32GB of storage compared to sixteen on the MeMo Pad however Windows eats up a lot of that with only 15GB of free space out of the box. Both sport MicroSD card slots to expand the storage however it’s hidden behind the back cover on the Stream which is incredibly frustrating to try to pry off. The biggest area where the budget prices are noticeable is in the memory. While 1GB of RAM is fine for Android it’s really doesn’t quite cut it for Windows. You’ll run into occasional slowdowns and crashing especially with desktop applications that really aren’t meant to run on such little RAM on the Stream. It’s definitely not a dealbreaker but for games like Minecraft it becomes a real bottleneck…well that and the lack of a keyboard or mouse. The MeMo Pad is easier to work with for gaming as basically any Android game should work fine. You don’t quite have the same flexibility as on the Stream but it’s more than good enough for some casual gaming. While having full Windows on a $100 tablet is awesome I would spend a little bit of extra money to get the MeMo Pad, it’s just a better tablet overall. So what do you guys think, would you ever pick up a $100 tablet? Definitely be sure to let me know in the comments below! Anyway guys thank you so much for watching and I will catch you in the next one.