ASUS Eee Pad Slider Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 4, 2011 6:48 PM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Eee Pad
- Tegra 2
- Asus
- Honeycomb
- Mobile
- Android 3.2
- Eee Pad Slider
- NVIDIA
Battery Life
The Slider's battery life just isn't as good as the Transformer. There's the obvious lack of a second battery holding the Slider back, but even compared to the Transformer sans dock I found the Slider wouldn't last as long on a single charge. The situation worsens when you slide out the keyboard. The Slider has to actively poll the keyboard for input, which in turn reduces battery life.
In our video playback test the Slider and Transformer were basically equal, however in our general use test (web browsing + email + music playback) the Slider only lasted 8.2 hours compared to the Transformer's 9.3. Obviously there are many variables that could be at work here. The big news is the impact simply having the keyboard open has on battery life. The Slider still lasts longer than most high-powered notebooks, but in the ARM-based tablet world it's below average.
Software & Performance
The Slider is running Android 3.2 putting its performance on-par with the Transformer. Back when Android 3.2 first came out we noticed a dramatic increase in GLBenchmark 2.0 performance scores, likely due to a GPU driver optimization. The move to GLBenchmark 2.1 appears to have reset that performance back to Android 3.1 levels, perhaps indicating the use of an app detect driver optimization in Android 3.2. The rest of the performance figures are pretty standard for a Honeycomb tablet. The 1GHz Tegra 2 performs no differently in the Slider than it does in the Transformer.
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Impulses - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
Very odd that there's no alt+tab functionality, since that's something that the Transformer has... Alt+tab on the TF works like WinXP, you just get icons, I wish it cycled thru Android's own recent app menu with previews but at least the basic functionality is there.lemonadesoda - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
12 years ago the Psion 7 netbook was launched. The ASUS Slider pays homage to that design. What a shame the slider isnt x86. I would love to run window on that!bhima - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
Nice video review. I'm impressed with your presentation style and content.lemonadesoda - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
Anand, it is great that you are doing these videos. It's a nice communication format. But please work on getting the videos and the presentations shorter and more punchy. You are in grave danger of having lost all respect for pace and timing, and risk being as dull and as boring as that new Apple CEO whatshisnameis.Set yourself a deadline of a 3 minute or 6 minute format and work to that deadline. A 21:41 video is unacceptable no matter how good the content might be! You killed the audience...
tech6 - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
Anand: I must say that I love the new video reviews - they are polished and informative and you deliver them perfectly. More please.tbutler - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
"I understand the appeal of tablets. Regardless of OS, they all provide a far more intimate experience when browsing the web and reading emails.""I'm actually very happy there is a reset button the tablet. As these devices become even more PC-like expect them to encounter the same sort of stability issues any hardware running complex software has to deal with."
With respect, I don't think you do fully understand the appeal of tablets - at least in the post-PC sense of the current iPad-driven tablet explosion. I disagree strongly with your contention in other tablet reviews that tablets will have to grow more PC-like, and the second quote is a perfect example of why.
While the ergonomics you describe in the first quote are a strong factor, I think a big reason the iPad has been the main success of this tablet wave is that *a lot of people are willing to trade functionality and flexibility for simplicity and stability.* Tablets that "encounter the same sort of stability issues" simply won't succeed in the market the iPad's defined, in my view. They may capture the attention of small groups of tech enthusiasts, but they won't have mass-market impact. Tech enthusiasts may be happy to put up with stability issues - and actually love complexity, in the sense of putting together an intricate system that works just the way they want - but most users aren't like that.
(I'm dubious about Win8's prospects in the tablet realm for the same reason - while Metro seems like a nice touch UI, it looks like it still carries the legacy baggage of Windows underneath the surface.)
The key here, I maintain, is that most users don't actually expect "post-PC" tablets to be everything and do everything. They're happy to have a large subset of common computing functions, done with a minimum of the kind of configuration, maintenance and stability hassles that you refer to above.
ed_ed - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
1. Very nice video review.2. Just noticed how fast the battery life indicator /animated wallpaper water thingy goes down on the slider only 20 minutes of doing nothing.
(Compare its position at the beginning of the video and at the end)
mlabrow - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
Umm, I don't think Windows is actually going to be the game changer you think it will be.They have stated that on ARM architecture's the only game is Metro apps. Metro apps are full screen, and ape the functionality you lament of other Tablet OS's. Showing the desktop is a bit disengenous since I'm not even certain they've indicated that it will be available as an app on non-x86 architectures.
If Atom hardware comes out that is competing head to head with ARM tablets, then obviously that changes things. But as things stand this second, if you were to somehow get Windows 8 onto a Slider, I don't think you'd have the multi-tasking dreamland your looking forward to.
Nihility - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
The ARM demo Microsoft showed had an ARM tablet running the Windows desktop. That being said, an ARM processor cannot run x86 applications. We also don't really know what Microsoft will end up doing with Windows 8, they might really dump the desktop in the final version (ARM).About the mutitasking: Metro does support the same split-screen mode that is shown in the screenshots. Presumably, you could have a metro chat app and a metro browser running side by side.
Personally, I'm hoping for low power x86 hardware in future tablets.
Drizzt321 - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link
So, do you think 16:10 is making a comeback? Any chance that laptops will start carrying 16:10 panels again? Since apparently there's a market for 16:10 hi-res panels again, maybe we can move back? I've always hated the forced move to 16:9 in laptops & desktops.