ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 21, 2011 4:00 AM ESTThe Camera
I don't expect that most tablet owners really care all that much about camera image quality, however if you're going to include the feature it's bound to be judged. The Eee Pad's 5MP rear-facing camera is pretty standard fare for a Honeycomb tablet. Images are captured at 2592 x 1944 and compressed down to 1.2—2.1MB jpegs depending on the scene.
Image quality is fine for use online but nothing spectacular. Most images captured are reasonably sharp in the foreground but not very detailed in the background. Images can look hazy depending on the lighting conditions. The front facing camera is similarly standard, comparable to the Xoom:
The camera app itself is stock Honeycomb. It takes just under 2 seconds to launch and up to 2.8 seconds to capture an image once you hit the shutter button. Occasionally (even with the latest software update available to me) the camera app will show me a green screen instead of the output from the camera sensor. Reopening the camera app always fixes the issue.
ASUS has a serious issue when it comes to video recording. For some reason video recorded using the rear camera on the Eee Pad is captured at a much lower than real-time frame rate:
This issue exists regardless of capture quality setting (High, Low, YouTube). The front facing camera captures video smoothly but only for the first couple of seconds, at which point captured video pauses entirely. Clearly the camera software needs serious work.
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Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
I just confirmed with ASUS, the US version does have GPS hardware. Maps seems to require an active WiFi connection to use GPS however, which is why I originally assumed it wasn't present. My mistake, I've corrected the review :)Take care,
Anand
Ananke - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
If the US version has no usable GPS, it is worthless at the $399. It may be considerable purchase at $299. Asus shall make no such mistake, it would be marketing suicide. Besides, they have only a month window in US to penetrate the market. In June, once Samsung and Co come with competing products, it is going to get ugly. There is no time for mistakes.Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
That was an error on my part - sorry about that! There is GPS hardware in the Eee Pad Transformer.Take care,
Anand
Ananke - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Thank you Anand, for clarifying this. Your review is excellent, btw. I also wish all the best to ASUS - they are the first and only for now with a quality tablet that actually makes sense to own and use.swaaye - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Android needs to improve a bit before I think it's ideal for this kind of thing. Their GUI acceleration is still seriously lacking and it makes the stock browser slow even on these somewhat powerful devices. My EeePC 900 on XP with a pathetic Celeron 900 and GMA 900 browses faster than the Xoom in my experience.I think the only advantage to Android is touch input in tablet mode. But there is a real load of disadvantages to it.
Ikshaar - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Hmmm someone changed the text in the review... from not having GPS to no mention at all.Does anyone know if this has GPS or not ?
MilwaukeeMike - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Yes. :)Ikshaar - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Thanks. Cool. I see now the other comments... I guess we all posted at once.Now I wonder if this works with the WiFi tethering on my phone (Nexus), so I can get maps even when in the middle of nowhere.
I am as mad as hell - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link
Oh uh, more confusion upon us.. just head over to Engadget.com !They just mentioned that the Transformer has only a A-GPS, not a GPS!
So what is it now?
qhinton - Monday, April 25, 2011 - link
I assume you live in milwaukee. Have you heard of BEST BUY carrying this.