If you know the history of the first Nexus 7, you'll know that it didn't begin life as a collaboration between Asus and Google. Google apparently saw Asus' Eee Pad Memo ME370T at last year's CES and was impressed enough to use it as the basis for the first Nexus-branded tablet. The Memo Pad HD 7 shares quite a bit in common with its distant cousin, but there's one important difference: it costs $149. That's $50 less than the original Nexus tablet and $80 less than its successor.

We still think that the new Nexus 7 is the best small Android tablet available at any price, but if $229 is more than you want to pay, there are quite a few things to like (and a few things to dislike) about the new Memo Pad.

Body, build quality, and screen

Specs at a glance: Asus Memo Pad HD 7 Screen 1280×800 7" (216 ppi) IPS touchscreen OS Android 4.2.1 "Jelly Bean" CPU 1.2GHz quad-core MediaTek MT8125 RAM 1GB GPU Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX544 Storage 16GB NAND flash (expandable via microSD) Networking 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS Ports Micro USB, headphones, microSD card Size 7.75" × 4.75" × 0.43" (196.8 x 120.6 x 10.8 mm) Weight 0.67 lbs (302 g) Battery 3950 mAh Starting price $149 Other perks 2MP front camera, 5MP rear camera, power adapter

From the front, the Memo Pad and the 2012 Nexus 7 look just about identical. They each have a front-facing camera mounted in the center of the bezel above a seven-inch, 1280×800 display. The bezel width is the same on both tablets—slightly narrower on the sides than on the top and bottom—and an Asus logo embedded into the bezel below the screen is the biggest different between the two. Both screens are surrounded by very similar plastic rims, matte silver on the 2012 Nexus 7 but glossy black on the Memo Pad.

Flip the two tablets over and you'll find more obvious differences. The older Nexus 7 has a soft-touch plastic back with an attractive and nice-to-hold texture, while the Memo Pad uses hard, flat plastic in one of several colors (ours is a near-black dark blue, but pink, white, grey, and green are also available). The tablet has the 5MP rear-facing camera that the 2012 Nexus 7 lacks and also includes an SD card slot for expanding the storage, but the button and speaker placement is the same as last year's Google tablet. The Memo Pad is a little lighter than the Nexus (0.75 pounds compared to 0.67) but otherwise the two are comparable in height, width, and thickness.

The worst thing about the tablet is that it feels distinctly creaky and plasticky throughout—it doesn't feel terrible in the hand, but you can tell how much it costs by holding it in a way that is not true of the old (or new) Nexus 7. It's not too different from how the Hisense Sero 7 Pro feels. In fact, while I personally don't care as much for that tablet's brown-and-only-brown color, the Sero feels like the sturdier tablet, though it's a bit larger and heavier as a result. The Sero also has an LED flash to go with its rear-facing camera, while the Memo Pad has none.

As for the screen, it's again similar to last year's Nexus 7. It's a 1280×800, 216 PPI IPS display with good viewing angles and good (if slightly washed-out, compared to the new Nexus 7) colors. Unfortunately, it appears to suffer from the same problem we noticed in the Sero 7 Pro. There's a little more space between the front glass, which makes the panel "pop" a bit less (for lack of a better, more scientific word). Contrast, color saturation, and black levels suffer the most from this change—it's not something you'll probably notice if you don't have the two tablets sitting next to each other, but it's definitely noticeable.

Camera

The camera is definitely not great—it's fine for quick, unglamorous, utilitarian things like taking pictures of labels or QR codes. But taking actual photographs that you would want to share with other human beings is a shakier proposition. It does do a better job with colors and white balance than the 2013 Nexus 7 though.