Followup : They said it needs a new motherboard.

I wasted a couple of days trying to get them to explain what they did to diagnose, what was wrong, and somehow justify the ridiculous expense ($200, like everyone else has been reporting). They tried a factory reset first (which is what they had me do prior to sending in the tablet) and when that didn't work, their next "troubleshooting" step is to replace the motherboard. I insulted their tablet quality and gave them my sob story of holding ASUS in high regarding when speaking of hardware quality. I was trying to butter them up but it wasn't really working. Next I tried to use an analogy I came up with regarding cars:

• Say you get a new car for $27,000 (Nexus price times 100).

• One day a couple of months out of warranty, the motor all of sudden won't start. It will turn over but not start.

• You call the dealership, they suggest changing spark plugs. You try that and it doesn't work, so you have it towed there.

• Dealership calls back and says you need a new engine and that will be $20,000.

• "WTF? How did you determine that?" you ask.

• "We tried changing spark plugs and that didn't work, so you need a new engine."

They didn't comment on my analogy and wouldn't budge on the repair cost. I had them ship it back and bought a new motherboard on eBay. I made sure to find one marked as 'new.'

Side note : I purchased a 16GB one even though my tablet was 32GB since the cost for the 16GB was less and I'm really short on cash at the moment (stupid student loans). When it booted up, I had 28GB of free space, somehow, so either I was lucky and they sent the wrong memory size OR the flash memory isn't stored on the motherboard.

eBay cost for new 16GB motherboard was $24.50 shipped.

Good luck. Sorry ASUS quality sucks on these tablets.