Asus MemoPad 7 HD vs Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 Specs Comparison

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Asus MemoPad 7 HD and Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 are 2 of many Android tablets that made their first debuts back in 2013.

However, despite running on the same Android platform, each of these tablets is not on the same page here, in terms of hardware and especially software. But despite of that, they both are intended by manufacturers as media-consumptive devices.

(Asus MemoPad 7 HD vs Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 Specs Comparison)

Asus MemoPad 7 HD comes with the standard Android UI, of course with Asus’ own heavily-customized layer on top of it.

Meanwhile, Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 is more comfortable to run on a very light-weight UI, which contradicts with its flagship quality hardware, compared to Asus MemoPad 7 HD with its low-end internals.


But which one here is the most powerful tablet between the 2? Is Asus MemoPad 7 HD with its low-end specs are gonna suck for playing games than Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7?

Or otherwise, will Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 be blown out of the water by Asus’ tablet in the whole aspect?

Well, if you wanna know how the comparison of these 2 tablets goes, as well as my take on their gaming performances, without further ado, here check this one out, my comparison review between Asus MemoPad 7 HD and Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7.

Enjoy!


The first time Amazon made its Kindle Fire HDX 7 official in 2013, I was really blown away by this tablet, mostly by its specs.

I mean, how come an affordable tablet that cost only $229 could have such powerful high-end specs like Snapdragon 800, Adreno 330 GPU, 2GB of RAM and a full HD display.

Okay, I know that in that same year, Google also unleashed the second-gen Nexus 7 tablet that pack some high-grade specs in it, like a full HD display or 2GB of RAM.

However, the processor and GPU of this Nexus device, which are Snapdragon S4 Pro and Adreno 320 GPU, obviously are not on the same level with the ones found inside Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7.

So as a result, of course, Kindle Fire HDX 7 is a beast when it comes to performance. Not only is it great for enjoying movies, music or books, but this tablet is also an amazing device to play games. No doubt about that.

Meanwhile, the challenger for Kindle Fire HDX 7 in this comparison review, Asus MemoPad 7 HD, is probably not such an ideal tablet for gaming. But we’ll get more on that later.

Unlike Kindle Fire HDX 7 that looks so shinny with its specs, Asus MemoPad 7 HD is the other way around. Being a tablet that cost only $150 (when it first launched in 2013), now wonder this tablet is really low in specs and not on par with Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7.

However, despite being a low-end categorized tablet, Asus MemoPad 7 HD actually is not that bad especially as a media-consumptive device.

Its 720 HD display looks so bright and colorful (CNET), its rear-camera takes pretty good pictures (PhoneArena), and its performance is still sufficient enough to execute some basic daily tasks, like watching movies, browsing the web or even playing some casual games.

But of course, you cannot expect this tablet to be so powerful especially in handling heavy 3D games because that’s not gonna happen. You’ll get what you pay for. Asus MemoPad 7 HD is definitely not a powerful tablet for gaming.


From all the tablet manufacturers I’ve known so far, I think Amazon is one of the companies that has never been so aggressive with the design of its Kindle Fire tablets.

I’m not saying that all Kindle Fire tablets look ugly and have horrible designs, but in my opinion, most of Kindle Fire tablets look really generic just like any other regular Android tablets out there.

There’s nothing special about the designs of Amazon’s tablets that make them look unique and stand out among the competition around the market.

But I think it’s still acceptable because probably Amazon wants to keep focusing on making great media-consumption tablets for users so they can easily enjoy media entertainment contents like movies or books from the get-go.

The tablets that are really easy to use and don’t require some complicated learning curves.

Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 is no exception here.

Similar just like the predecessor (Kindle Fire HD 7), this 7-inch tablet still inherits that boxy looking design with rounded rectangular corners. Meanwhile, the entire side of this tablet, back and front, is dominated with dark-themed color.

The same thing also happens to Asus MemoPad 7 HD. So this Asus’ tablet has nothing to write home about here in terms of design.

In fact, according to CNET’s video reviewer on YouTube, this Asus MemoPad 7 HD looks a cheap with its glossy plastic finish.

Not to mention, at the top and bottom sides of this device, there are also some sharp edges that kind of make this tablet feel uncomfortable to hold in the hands. And this totally ruins the whole experience of using this device.

However, this probably is still acceptable because Asus MemoPad 7 HD is one affordable tablet that used to cost $150 when it first came out.

So you cannot fire your complaint about its cheap looking design and low build quality. You get what you pay for.

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Asus MemoPad 7 HD

Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7

No SIM Released July 2013 7.0 inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 800 x 1280 pixels (~216 ppi pixel density) Quad-core Mediatek MT8125 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 CPU PowerVR SGX544 GPU 1 GB RAM Android OS, v4.2 (Jelly Bean), upgradable to v4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) microSD card slot for up to 32 GB Internal 16 GB 5 MP rear-facing camera with autofocus 1.2 MP front-facing camera No GPRS No EDGE Wi-Fi 802.11 No Radio GPS Java MIDP emulator Bluetooth USB Non-removable Li-Po battery

Released 2013, October Micro-SIM 7.0 inchIPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors 1200 x 1920 pixels (~323 ppi pixel density) Fire OS 3.0 Android OS, v4.x Jelly Bean customized Mojito UI Quad-core 2.2 GHz Krait 400 Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 Chipset Adreno 330 GPU No micro card slot 16/32/64 GB Internal storage 2 GB RAM 1.3 MP rear-facing camera (720p video recording) No front-facing camera Wi-Fi 802.11 Bluetooth GPS No Radio microUSB v2.0 Accelerometer, gyro Sensors HTML5 Amazon Silk Browser No Java Non-removable Li-Ion battery Talk time: for Up to 11 hours

The price difference of both tablets really represent to the internals found inside these 2 devices.

So as a tablet that costs $229, of course Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 gets much better treatment here than Asus MemoPad 7 HD, especially in terms of hardware specs.

And that’s true because Kindle Fire HDX 7 tablet comes with some flagship high-end specs, like: a full HD 1920x1200 pixel display, Snapdragon 800 processor, 2GB of RAM and Adreno 330 GPU, which mostly are found on many flagship tablets in 2014.

So no wonder if this tablet is a much better powerful performer here than Asus MemoPad 7 HD especially in terms of gaming performance. But we’ll get more on that later.

Meanwhile, as a tablet that used to cost $150 when it first came out in 2013, of course Asus MemoPad 7 HD looks less superior than Kindle Fire HDX 7 in hardware department.

Its 7-inch screen is only sporting lower 720p HD resolution (1280x800 pixels), it only has 1GB of RAM and its gaming performance is also not that great.

However, despite being a less powerful tablet than Amazon's slate, there are actually some great things on Asus MemoPad 7 HD that interestingly make it slightly better than Kindle Fire HDX 7.

First of all, Asus MemoPad 7 HD comes with the expandable storage via microSD card for up to 32GB, while Amazon’s tablet doesn’t have it.

And then, Asus’ tablet also has a camera on the back, which is nowhere to be found on Kindle Fire HDX 7. And we know that the existence of a rear-camera is really vital on any tablets.

So Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 may look powerful with its performance and display, but the absence of microSD card slot is totally a huge bummer here, especially for users that want to put many of their favorite movies and games on their tablets.

And the non-existence of a rear-facing camera makes it less appealing here because most of users out there love to take photos or record videos even with their huge-sized tablets.

But even so, I think the powerful gaming performance on Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 and its sharp full HD display still make it up for the absence of microSD card slot and a rear-facing camera on this device.

So if you’re only looking for a great media-consumption and gaming tablet, and you’re also not a really huge fan of photography, then Kindle Fire HDX 7 can still be great choice for you.


As far as the screen sharpness is concerned, of course Kindle Fire HDX 7 totally blows Asus MemoPad 7 HD out of the water here given that its 7-inch screen is sporting the higher full HD resolution (1920x1200 pixels), as opposed to the 720p HD display found on Asus’ tablet (1280x800 pixels).

However, according to what I’ve seen one video review from CNET (on YouTube), the display of Asus MemoPad 7 HD surprisingly looks great with well-saturated colors, despite being a low-end tablet.

Besides, I think it’s a great decision by Asus to go with this resolution because its not-so-powerful processor can perform much faster and smoother without squeezing a lot of power.

And this is totally the opposite with Kindle Fire HDX 7 that comes with high-end processor and GPU inside, which are more than sufficient to handle 1080p resolution and even up to 2560x1600 pixels resolution.

On software side, both Asus MemoPad 7 HD and Kindle Fire HDX actually fall in the same category here. I mean, their Android software are fully-customized by both manufacturers.

So their UIs are not the pure stock Android UIs and there are some customizations going on especially on their visual interfaces.

However, unlike Asus’ tablet that comes with heavily-customized UI, the UI of Kindle Fire HDX is actually the light-weight version of stock Android OS with less features and less visual customizations from the standard UI.

And that's because Amazon wants to make this tablet run fast and smooth, plus more efficient with the use of battery.

So if you happen to like all the elements on the stock Android UI: like the standard homescreen, widgets and all the standard Android features, then you must say 'sayonara' to them because you will no longer see many of those features here on the UI of Kindle Fire HDX 7.

But the good news is, there are still some standard Android elements found on Kindle Fire HDX 7, like drop-down window/setting, app drawer and you can also put the shortcuts of your favorite apps on the homescreen.

In terms of battery life, I think Kindle Fire HDX can deliver much better longevity than Asus MemoPad 7 HD. And that’s clearly because this tablet comes with simpler and light-weight UI than the one found on Asus’ tablet.

So even with its higher resolution display, Amazon Kindle Fire HDX can still get you through the day on a full charge. I’m actually not surprised if this tablet has great battery life because I’ve known that most of Kindle Fire tablets are really solid in battery life.

Anyway, according to battery benchmark test held by some tech website, this Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 is capable to survive over 8 hours and 30 minutes in moderate use. And this is the opposite with Asus MemoPad 7 HD that only lasts 6 hours and 10 minutes in the same moderate use.

But the good thing is, Asus MemoPad 7 HD comes with battery saving mode that provides you some specific options of settings in order to minimize the use of power by controlling its screen brightness, internet/WiFi connection, wallpaper, etc.


Unfortunately, despite its sharp display, powerful performance and solid battery life, Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 is still lacking on the sector of photography.

And that’s because it has no rear-facing camera, as opposed to the Asus MemoPad 7 HD that has it with its 5MP shooter. The good news is, there’s still a front-facing camera found on Kindle Fire HDX if you want to do selfies or video calls.

Meanwhile, the rear camera of Asus MemoPad 7 HD surprisingly is pretty good for taking photos and recording videos.

And that’s based on a video review from PhoneArena on YouTube. Unfortunately, there’s no LED flash on this device, so it’s probably not really ideal to take photos at night using this tablet in low-light conditions.

The photos will lack sharpness, noise everywhere and pretty much they are not worth showing off.

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If playing games is your top priority when buying a tablet, then your best shot here is definitely on Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7.

And that’s obviously because this Amazon’s slate is powered by an extremely powerful Snapdragon 800 processor, accompanied with a strong Adreno 330. And thanks to its huge 2GB of RAM, gaming on this tablet is definitely smooth without any lag whatsoever.

So you can expect games like Asphalt 8: Airborne, GTA San Andreas, NOVA 3, Modern Combat 5, Need for Speed: No Limits or Gangstar Vegas to work seamlessly on this Amazon's device and they all will run perfectly even in full highest graphics.

In Antutu v4 benchmark test, this Amazon’s tablet managed to score decent 32.835 points. Meanwhile, in Quadrant, 19.924 points were grabbed by this tablet, beating Asus MemoPad 7 HD by a huge margin with its low 3.821 points, which is no surprise here given that Kindle Fire HDX 7 is one powerful tablet with flagship quality processor and GPU.

On the flip side, Asus MemoPad 7 HD managed to get 1570 point in “3D Mark Ice Storm 2013 (Ice Storm Extreme)” benchmark test, which is very low compared to HP Slate7 Extreme that grabbed 6454 points in the same test. And that’s not surprising because HP’s tablet is equipped with a very powerful Tegra 4 processor.

These benchmark tests actually represent to the real world performance of Asus MemoPad 7 HD. And that can be seen when this device is thrown with some heavy games like GTA III, ShadowGun Deadzone, Dead Trigger and GTA Vice City.

When playing GTA III, this game ran relatively smooth even in high graphics setting. The same happened to other 2 games: Dead Trigger and ShadowGun Deadzone, which also performed well on Asus MemoPad 7 HD, even in high graphics.

This is actually expected because Asus MemoPad 7 HD is equipped with PowerVR SGX544 GPU, the same GPU found inside iPhone 4. So it’s not surprising to see these games run smooth on this Asus’ device.

Unfortunately, when handling GTA Vice City even in medium graphics, this game ran really slow and laggy on this device, which is such a shame because this game is just an older game.

I believe this tablet will also suffer a lot to perform well when playing much heavier games like GTA San Andreas, Modern Combat 4 or NOVA 3, which are really heavy in graphics and require powerful graphical performance.

So between these 2 tablets, of course Kindle Fire HDX 7 is my top recommendation here if you’re looking for a reliable gaming tablet that can play almost any games on Amazon App Store.

No single doubt that Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 is a top notch performer for gaming.

However, despite being a powerful gaming device, this Kindle Fire HDX 7 is still lacking in terms of storage space.

And that’s because it has no support for expandable storage via microSD card slot, compared to Asus MemoPad 7 HD that supports external storage for up to 32GB.

So if you still want to stick with this Amazon’s tablet, I totally recommend you to pick up the biggest 32GB model as this variant will provide you with much bigger storage space especially to keep all of your favorite games and media files alive.

Meanwhile, Asus MemoPad 7 HD is definitely a NO GO if you’re looking for a great gaming tablet. But you can still choose other powerful but affordable options like, Google Nexus 7 (2013), HP Slate7 Extreme, Nvidia Shield Tablet with Tegra K1 or Xiaomi MiPad I.


Okay, we’re finally here almost at the end of this comparison review. So which one is the best gaming tablet in this review? Which one is the best in the whole aspect? Is it worth it to buy any of these devices especially for playing games?

Well, I think it’s not that hard for me to recommend you Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 instead of Asus MemoPad 7 HD if you’re on the street looking for a powerful gaming tablet.

There’s no single doubt that this Amazon’s tablet is really superior than Asus MemoPad 7 HD when it comes to gaming performance.

As a matter of fact, Kindle Fire HDX 7 is still one of the best and most powerful gaming tablets on the market right now. So you can play almost any games that are available on Amazon App Store.

However, there’s still one thing missing on this Amazon’s tablet. Actually 2, and they are the expandable storage support and a rear-facing camera. And these 2 features have become really vital on most of tablets out there.

On the other hand, Asus MemoPad 7 HD comes with the support of microSD card slot for up to 32GB as well as a rear-facing camera, which takes decent quality shots by the way (according to PhoneArena).

So you’re gonna have very huge storage space and you can also take some great pictures and videos out of this tablet.

Not to mention, the 720p display of Asus MemoPad 7HD amazingly looks pretty nice with well-saturated colors. So it’s going to be a pleasing experience to watch movies, play games or check out photos on this device.

However, as an affordable low-end tablet (which cost $150 when it first came out in 2013), of course you cannot count on its performance especially to play some heavy games like GTA Vice City, GTA San Andreas, Modern Combat 4 or NOVA 3 because these games would just run slow in full graphics.

Asus MemoPad 7 HD definitely leaves a lot to be desired as a gaming tablet. And this is the opposite with Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 that is so extremely powerful for playing games.

It also has a much sharper display and a huge RAM. So its higher more expensive $229 price tag totally represents here on its powerful performance and high-grade specs.

The decision of buying any of these tablets actually will come down to your personal preference and especially budget.

I mean, if you’re on a tight budget and you only have below $150 in your pocket, then Asus MemoPad 7 HD can still be a pretty good tablet for you to watch movies, browse the web, read books, take photos, record videos or listen to music.

However, if your first intention here is to buy a powerful and reliable gaming tablet, then Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7 is definitely your best destination here.

But I strongly recommend you to pick up the 32GB variant because Kindle Fire HDX 7 doesn’t have microSD card slot support. So with bigger 32GB internal storage, you can keep many of your media files or games on this device without running out of storage space.


Asus MemoPad 7 HD

Pros:

• It has microSD card slot and a rear-facing camera
• gorgeous and well-saturated display
• pretty decent rear camera
• good for watching movies, browsing the web or reading books
• useful features on its customized UI

Cons:

• less powerful for playing games, especially the heavy ones
• cheap looking design
• it only has 1GB of RAM
• it only comes with 720p display

Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 7

Pros:

• a sharp full HD display
• powerful for gaming
• easy-to-use straight-to-the-point UI
• easy access to buy media entertainment contents from Amazon
• huge 2GB of RAM
• solid battery life

Cons:

• There’s no expandable storage
• there’s no rear-facing camera
• generic looking design

Have any question? Leave your comment here!