My initial thought on this was that Woot was taking advantage of unsuspecting, uninformed Christmas shoppers, but a quick Google search indicated the price is in line with other sources. Personally, I wouldn’t buy this for just the cost of shipping. This is a 5 year old tablet running Android 4.2 and is not upgradable, at least not without rooting it. It might work for Grandma to play solitaire, but it’s pretty limited now in my opinion.
I purchased the 7 inch version of this almost 5 years ago refurbished from Woot. It is old enough now that the majority of the apps that I have wanted to install are not compatible according to the Google Play Store. This include the e-reader system used by my local public library. The last couple apps that i have installed I had to side-load because of this limitation. It isn’t much more than a paperweight most of the time now.
I have become hesitant to buy anything from Asus anymore, and I DEFINITELY won’t buy anything factory refurbished from Asus. Since this has a 90 day Woot warranty, I’m guessing it was 3rd party and not Asus refurbished, so that may be better. Mine was factory refurbished. Out of the box, the power button was flaky and it stopped working at all within a week. It had the Asus 30 day refurb warranty, so I sent it to Asus at my expense and it took almost four weeks to get it back. Customer service was sub-par. I was supposed to be able to track the status of the work on the Asus website. I had it back (actually, they replaced it with another refurb unit) but the website still showed it was in the process of being repaired. A little over two years ago, the main board failed. I wound up getting a used one off of eBay and swapped it out myself.
I bought a refurbished Asus laptop from Woot a couple months before the tablet. Within 6 months, I was replacing the touchpad and keyboard with a used eBay part because the touchpad was unreliable. The replacement was an improvement, but it is still the worst touchpad I have ever had on the seven or so laptops I have had between work and home.
If I were to buy another tablet, I’d look for something newer for a few more bucks.
Thanks; do you think it’s feasible to use this for simply reading ebooks with whatever is installed? I have no experience with it, but the 10" screen is very interesting for reading PDF and other formats.
Again, thanks for the candid review.
I have the Kindle app on mine, but I don’t remember if it was pre-installed or if I added it. I don’t know at this point if it is the currently available version or if it just hasn’t upgraded lately. I would guess that it works, but I haven’t gotten into the Kindle system. There was a lot of other bloatware for newsfeeds and such that I just ignored. My public library has e-books available though an app called Libby, by Overdrive. It requires Android 4.4 or higher. I figure that is why Play won’t install it. Other apps that i have tried have components that want to use location services or something like that, which it doesn’t have the hardware for. I wish I could use Libby. it would be MUCH easier to read on my 7 inch screen than my phone’s 5 inch one. I also use the Netflix app, but I don’t know how close to current it is, either.
Hope this helps.
One more thing…
For the price difference, personally I would go for the Fire tablet under the Woot Computers tab today. Much newer, slightly faster processor, double the storage, current Bluetooth support, Better Wifi security support. I know the Amazon app store is much more limited than the Google Play store, but it looks like they have Netflix and Overdrive (not necessarily Libby, but same company).
Good luck whichever way you choose.
Yeah. For the price, a Kindle Fire tablet would likely be better for most users even though they don’t come with access to the full Google Play market.