Should I factory reset my tablet?

So I picked up this Samsung Galaxy S3 running iOS 6, right? And I'm trying to do a factory reset—just wipe the slate clean—but it’s being super stubborn. I've been digging through YouTube tutorials, and they all say you gotta jam the power button and volume up at the same time. So, that's exactly what I did. But instead of anything happening, I just get stuck on this black screen with a tiny little icon sitting there doing nothing. It’s just... frozen. Like, totally stuck.
Anyone have any clue what's going wrong here?--

So from (and every video) it looks like once this pops up, you're stuck having to mash power + volume up just to get into recovery mode to run a reset.

Can't you just do a standard factory reset through the settings menu? It’s basically the same thing, just without all the button gymnastics.

Whenever I can't figure out how to do a standard reset, I end up digging through the manual, but it doesn't say a single thing about finding it under settings (iOS 6)
I've got my phone where finding that option in settings is a breeze, but on this tablet? It's like looking for a needle in a haystack

Settings > Backup & reset > Factory data reset.
Anyway, you could just Google "Android 4.2 factory reset" (or whatever else you need help finding). Since it's an ASUS, there isn't some crazy custom UI that makes it act any different from any other Android phone or tablet running the same version.

Sweet, I actually pulled it off! Gotcha one more question though. This tablet is running Android 4.2.2 and I'm wondering if there's any way to bump it up to a newer version? I was digging around on Google and stumbled upon this, but man, the quality is so terrible I can't make heads or tails of it.

That link you dropped? Total scam site. It's just a bunch of garbage designed to trick you into clicking spam links. Check out this video.
There hasn't been an official update since then, and honestly, if I had to guess, nobody's bothered making a custom ROM because that tablet isn't exactly a cult classic.