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As part of its ZenFestival 2015 event held at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium in New Delhi, India, Taiwan-based PC and smartphone maker Asus has launched a couple of mid-range tablets in the country as part of its ever-expanding ZenPad portfolio. The ZenPad 7.0 (Z370CG) and ZenPad 8.0 (Z380KL) were both showcased earlier in the year at the Computex trade fair in Taiwan, and were announced in India late last month. Now with the launch of these devices on Thursday, India seems to be one of the first markets to have gotten the latest range of ZenPad-branded tablets from the company. The company also launched a number of new ZenFone smartphones at the event on Thursday. Asus is expected to make the newly-launched smartphones and tablets available globally over the coming weeks and months.
Coming to the devices that have been announced in the country, first up, the smaller Asus ZenPad 7.0 (Z370CG) features a 7-inch display with Corning Gorilla Glass protection and a pixel resolution of 1280 x 800. The tablet is powered by an Intel Atom x3-C3230 SoC, which comes with a 64-bit -bit quad-core processor clocked at 1.2 GHz and a Mali 450 MP4 GPU. The device comes in two different variants with an option of either 1GB or 2GB of RAM along with either 8GB or 16GB of internal storage that can be expanded by up to 128 GB with the help of a microSD card. While the 1 GB RAM variant of the ZenPad 7 comes with a 5-megapixel rear camera and a 0.3-megapixel front camera, the 2 GB model will have an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 2-megapixel selfie-shooter on the front. Connectivity options for all the variants include 3G and 2G network support along with Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, and Micro-USB. The pricing for ZenPad 7 starts at Rs. 11,999 ($190).
On to the ZenPad 8.0, which comes in two different variants with different processor options. While the less expensive one is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 410 (MSM8916) SoC, there’s also a Snapdragon 615 version which will presumably cost a bit more. The rest of the specs remain identical. The device – as evident from its name – comes with an 8-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. The many variants of the device come with either an 8 or a 5-megapixel primary camera and a 2-megapixel rear camera and supports LTE connectivity. The tablet comes with a 4,000 mAh Li-Po battery, which will deliver up to 10 hours of battery backup, according to the company. The device has a price-tag starting at Rs. 14,999 ($240). All the tablets come with Android Lollipop pre-installed with the company’s trademark Zen UI on top. The devices will go on sale later this month on Flipkart and company authorized retail stores. The ZenPad 8 is pictured on top, whereas the ZenPad 7 can be seen below.
