Is the ZenPad S 8.0 (Z580CA) better than the iPad mini 4?

This could be a juicy battle royal in the  coming months. The summer is about to heat up a bit when it comes to the best of the best tablets on the market. Make no mistake about it, the ZenPad S 8.0 (Z580CA) is going to be the greatest of all Asus tablet offerings. It’s coming with a feature set that is fairly future proof, or at least as future proof as one can hope to be.

So during this summer, the iPad mini 4 rumors and speculation will heat up. The new iPads typically (always) come in late October with availability to buy in the first part of October. This put the Asus ZenPad unveils about 4 or 5 months earlier than the iPad mini 4.

Don’t fret though. Asus has often shown off some spectacular devices at Computex and brought them into market months and months later. We simply feel that the Z580C will be first, and the Z580CA will be for a bit later, perhaps as a counter measure to the iPad mini 4 release.

What we can say at this point is that the Z580CA is quite a bit better than the iPad mini 3 based on our preliminary comparison vs. article.

7 Comments

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  1. Martin June 25, 2015 at 5:12 pm #

    I really hope that you are wrong regarding your expectation that the Z580CA will be for a bit later. Wouldn’t they want to have their top offering on sale to compete with the Galaxy Tab S2?

    • Staff June 26, 2015 at 3:45 am #

      I agree with you on that. However, all evidence that we’ve found thus far show the Z580C coming out first. We haven’t seen the Z580CA at the FCC, unless we have missed something there. There’s nothing official from Asus suggesting the Z580CA will be a later release so it’s still possible. I do agree Asus should come out all guns a blazing with their hero model.

      • Dan EE June 26, 2015 at 7:03 pm #

        I think the Z580CA went through the FCC 5/13 as model P01M and was combined with the Z580C and one other. The reports list 3 different configurations. Two with touch pen, Two CPU’s are listed as CPU 1=Z3560, CPU 2=3530. A 4GB DRR option was listed.

        • Dan EE June 27, 2015 at 4:15 am #

          After looking at the test configuration some more, it appears that there are two configurations for the Z580CA. One has an AUO display and one has a Tianma. The touch panel has a 0.4mm element size which times 3 elements is 1.2mm resolution for the touch pen. Both are listed with a 8M and 5M cameras.
          The third config has no touch with a 0.7mm element size, 5M/2M cameras and the AUO display. This looks like the Z580C.
          EMMC sizes range from 8GB to 64GB. There are two 2GB/1600 listed, one 2GB/1866 and a 4GB/1866 listed. The 1866 speed DDR’s are most likely for the Z580CA.

          • Staff June 27, 2015 at 4:25 am #

            Very nice find! Thanks for posting!

        • Staff June 27, 2015 at 4:27 am #

          That’s interesting. Great find! I know originally the P01M ID was found to be associated with the Z580C. That would be sneaky (but a good thing) if the Z580CA was part of that submission.

          • Dan EE June 27, 2015 at 6:23 am #

            BTW: The only thing I don’t like about the Intel Z3560 is the fact that they are using the 4 core Power VR G6430 which is slightly dated. The current Mini 3 with the Apple A7 uses the same G6430. The Apple A8X in the iPad Air2 uses a custom 8 core GX6650 and has better power efficiency, higher clock speeds, UHD 4K and ATSC compression that the G6430 lacks. Software is still required for H265 or VP9 decode, but will be faster on A8X. If the Mini 4 uses the upcoming A9, it may have H.265 hardware decoding/encoding. Even if they go with A8 or A8X it will have better video processing.
            Do I need that much video processing for a tablet that I will not use for 4K or gaming? Probably not.
            I am a Android person and I have had great luck with every ASUS product I have purchased. My ASUS wireless router never needs a reboot, motherboards are solid. My N7 2013 is great. I am looking forward to the Z580CA.

            Note: Intel sold off their stock in Imagination Tech and will probably go to their own GPU’s in the future.

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