When an ASUS ZenPad 8.0 Tablet was delivered to me for free

2015 was a great year of blogging for me. A lot of first-time things happened and most of them weren’t expected.

• My first travel post of the year on Nainital got featured in OutlookTraveller.
• The blog got mentioned in holidify as one of the top offbeat travel blogs in India
• I attended my first FAM- Drove the Tata Bolt to Neemrana Fort- thanks to BlogAdda
• Two video blogs- Colgate Magical Stories and Close Up Cupid Games- both of which won me prizes- courtesy IndiBlogger
• I attended IndiBlogger’s #BNLF event, the largest blogging conference in an airplane
• Several mentions of my blog posts on BlogAdda’s weekly selections including this ‘deadly’ post getting featured as one of the top 12 posts from 2015 on BlogAdda

The biggest surprise came when around mid-December I received an email from a PR company in Mumbai claiming to be representatives of ASUS and willing to give me an ASUS ZenPad 8.0 in return for a review on my blog. Like many other emails of a similar kind, I ignored this completely thinking it was yet another spam mail. 'I have never done any tech-related blogging, why would anyone even consider reaching out to me for a tech-review? I thought.

Couple of days later, I got a reminder email and it was then that my interest was piqued. I still wasn't sure about the credibility of the sender and thus replied asking for a telephonic conversation to clear my doubts. I got a call from them soon enough, a brief conversation followed and I provided them with my office address for the product to be delivered.

Two days later, when I reached office, there was a package waiting for me that didn't have a sender’s address mentioned. I carefully opened the package until I was sure that this was exactly what it was supposed to be and not something else. It took me a good 2-3 days after that to believe that I had actually received a brand new tablet from ASUS free-of-cost for a review on my blog.

As I opened the entire package that evening at home, I took ‘unboxing’ pictures. If this has to be a review that I do, I ought to do it seriously and in the best way possible.

For the initial 3-4 days I found the tablet superbly irritating to use. I realised soon enough that it was the change in Operating System that was causing me the trouble. I am too used to iOS to adjust to Android. I have never used Android before and so, the apparent user-friendliness has taken me nearly two weeks to get used to. My detailed review of using the ASUS ZenPad 8.0 along with the Audio Cover that came with it can be read here.

I have been using the tablet (or phablet?) for a little over two weeks now. The 16 GB memory is filled with TV shows and films and primarily I use it every morning and evening while commuting to and from work. Although there are a few shortcomings which find a mention in my detailed review, the overall experience has been good. Check out these unboxing pictures of the ASUS ZenPad 8.0 and Audio Cover:

My hands-on experience and review of the ASUS ZenPad 8.0 with Audio Cover can be read here.