[gbl08ma]

The funny thing is, a week ago I bought a 7.5"" 1200x800 tablet with just 2GB of RAM and 32 GB flash (see the similarity?), the difference is that mine is a even cheaper device (~$150) from an unknown Chinese brand, has an apparently slightly weaker Bay Trail CPU, and comes with Windows 8.1 - properly licensed as now Microsoft does it for free for small tablets, but it's by no means a "signature" device. The out-of-the-box experience was much, much, much better than the one from the article. The touchscreen not only worked, it still works fine, even for hitting small menu items or quickly typing on-screen. Sleep/resume (actually, InstantGo) doesn't have any problems, except you can't turn off the screen without desktop apps being suspended, which is annoying in the case of music players - but this is actually a problem with all devices supporting InstantGo.

There have been updates to fix early problems, which were already pre-installed on mine. I'm so happy with it, I don't think I'm buying an Android tablet so soon (having great multitasking alone is worth it). Another thing that surprised me, was that there wasn't any OEM bloatware.

Say what you will about Microsoft (and I usually say very bad things, and will keep saying), but it seems they really got Windows 8.1 right on tablets (the problem is desktops).

If an unknown brand can make a device with the same specs as the mentioned Asus, for a lower price, and still have the device work much, much better, why can't Asus? The "underpowered"/"underpriced" justification some people give here in the comments doesn't quite make it... I have had Windows 8 running on single-core 512 MB RAM VMs just fine, and these devices have four times the RAM and cores.

[mahouse]

By my experience on cheap chinese Android smartphones, I don't think it is surprising at all to see a lack of OEM bloatware.

[userbinator]

I have one, and it also has stock Android not unlike what's installed on the Nexus devices. I think this is mainly because these OEMs, who are trying to save expense wherever possible, are not going to do anything beyond making what Google provides run on their hardware, and this often involves just copying the reference platform provided by the SoC maker.

(The stories of them arriving with malware are likely from someone further down the chain of distribution installing it, and not the OEM itself.)

[ams6110]

The bloatware tends to be installed by wireless carriers and mainline re-branders (e.g. HP), not back-alley Chinese OEMs. If you're buying a no-name tablet and you're not in a Verizon store, it might very well be fairly clean.

[lost_my_pwd]

If you don't mind sharing, what tablet did you buy and from where?

[gbl08ma]

I didn't say the model and maker of the thing on purpose, because I wasn't advertising/advocating for it, and also because when it comes to cheap devices like this, all you can get is pretty much anecdotal evidence (e.g., the touchscreen on mine works fine, but a few have come out with broken digitizers/too noisy power adapters). The general opinion on the tablet seems good, though, and the thing in question is a Voyo A1 Mini. Mine is the newer, slightly cheaper/less powerful 5V-powered Z3735F variant (vs. 9V Z3735D), bought on Amazon.de - but you can get it cheaper from Chinese-device-focused sites, just watch out for import taxes and the like.