Asus Releases ZenPad Flagship With USB Type-C And A Few Modifications

At Computex, Asus displayed its upcoming Zenpad tablets, showing off an array of new features. At the time, those devices were still under development, but the specs have now been finalized, pricing has been set, and you can purchase the flagship ZenPad S 8.0 Z580CA now.

Many of the aspects of the Zenpad remain unchanged from what we were shown at Computex. The core hardware, including the Intel Atom Z3580 CPU, the Imagination PowerVR G6430, and the 4 GB of RAM remain. Asus brought a few minor changes to the system, though, such as moving to a 15.2 WHr battery as opposed to a 15 WHr battery as previously stated, netting a minor increase in battery life. The software also saw a change, as the final version got the ZenUI.

The cameras on the devices are what see the majority of changes. Previously, Asus stated that it would have a 5MP front camera and 8MP rear camera. The company opted to downgrade these cameras to 2MP front and 5MP rear cameras. Reducing the quality of the cameras doesn't help improve any aspect of the tablet, so these were likely cost cutting measures.

To help compensate for this feature reduction, Asus included its Tru2Life+ technology. This technology analyzes images before they are displayed and attempts to improve them by adjusting the contrast and sharpness. Although your pictures will still be a lower resolution than the other cameras were capable of capturing, this technology should help to compensate for the change.

Probably the most notable feature of the Zenpad S 8.0 Z580CA, though, is the inclusion of a USB Type-C port (although we're not certain if it has the slower 5 Gbps speed or if it has the 10 Gbps provided by USB 3.1 v2.)

The Zenpad S 8.0 Z580CA is available now from various retailers with an MSRP of $299.

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Michael Justin Allen Sexton is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He covers hardware component news, specializing in CPUs and motherboards.
  • BulkZerker
    It was all fine and great till I read intel Atom.

    I'll pass.
    Reply
  • Darkk
    It's nice to see a new tablet to finally include USB Type C. How much savings of reduction of MP for the cameras though? Probably won't matter much since who is going to walk around taking pictures with a large tablet? I've seen em' and it's bit ridiculous.
    Reply
  • rwinches
    The Z3580 is a lower binning Pentium.

    The clock is lower for the CPU and iGPU but so is the wattage (just over half) so great battery run time.

    This model Atom has both memory channels working so it runs 64 bit Windows, while the Z3735F in my X205TA has only one channel which can support 2 GB runs 32 bit Win.

    The older Atom series like in my netbook LT4004u with N2600 is a different animal but with a six cell battery has decent run time but not when compared to my ASUS X205TA

    BTW that old netbook which came with 1 GB mem was slow but the recommended swap to 2 GB sped it up. But after I upgraded 7 home premium I decided to see what would happen if I tried a 4 GB stick even though 3 GB was the max 32 win would support. It gave a big boost to perf over all but that reserved 1 GB gave a little more memory to the iGPU so the win experience number increased .2 for graphics.
    Reply
  • OneFai
    It does sound good except it is a bit too small for me. I like to read pdf on tablet. Anything less than 9 inch is just difficult. I do like the stylus option since I want to annotate pdf files with handwriting. So far, I don't see any good options except Surface or Samsung S pen.
    Reply