ASUS recently refreshed its 7-inch MeMO Pad 7 tablet with Intel’s new Atom Z3745 Bay Trail-based processor. Having overcome its rocky start, the latest generation of Atom processors is building a reputation for power efficiency and computational chops. Despite its early days in ill-fated netbooks, today's Atom looks to be a good fit for tablets and smartphones and sports new-found graphics horsepower that is up to the task for these types of devices.

We checked out the ASUS MeMO Pad 7 ME176C, which comes in at a relatively affordable $149.99, in light of competing tablets in this category...