ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 21, 2011 4:00 AM ESTBattery Life & Performance
The Eee Pad has an integrated 24.4Wh battery as well as an optional external 24.4Wh battery courtesy of the Transformer dock. The tablet by itself has battery life similar to that of the Motorola Xoom, and shorter than the iPad 2. With the dock however we measured a 64% increase in battery life in our general use test. With over 15.5 hours of battery life on a single charge, a docked Eee Pad is pretty impressive.
ASUS tells us we aren't seeing a near doubling of battery life with the dock in use because of inefficiencies in the current firmware—something that could improve with the May firmware update.
Video playback battery life is identical to the Xoom. Remember NVIDIA's Tegra 2 doesn't completely accelerate the H.264 decode pipeline, so there's some software offloading that unfortunately keeps the Cortex A9s awake during our video decode test. As a result the Eee Pad and Xoom post lower-than-iPad results here.
With a 1GHz Tegra 2 under the hood, the Eee Pad performs just like a Xoom:
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stm1185 - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Great review. I don't see much current use for the transformer now, but the idea of having something as capable as my old 2.6ghz quad core Phenom tower, in a tablet/netbook, running Windows 8, that is just awesome. I can't wait to see what Asus, MS, and Nvidia or Intel come up with next year.damianrobertjones - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Asus EP121Acer 1820ptz
Dell latitude XT2
HP Elitebook 2740p
and many more... they are available NOW!
anishannayya - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
I own the x201T, and while it is a great device, it isn't meant for everyone (it is a convertible tablet PC). While it runs Windows 7, has multi-touch capable screen (and has multiple levels of pressure sensitivity with a stylus), gets 7 hours of battery life, and works like a conventional PC in other ways; it is also nearly 4 pounds with the extended battery and has a typically "large" 12.1" laptop form factor.The EEE Pad is designed for people who want a thin, lightweight device that is relatively mobile and offers ultra-long battery life. If you don't need to use Windows style applications (90% of consumers), then this device is more suitable than even a traditional PC.
spambonk - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
And all of them crap.TylerTech - Sunday, April 24, 2011 - link
I also own an x201 (work purchased it for a project) I always have a hard time finding a good use for it. If I was using the stylus to draw it would be perfect but I don't.I would rather have the transformer or xoom and use them as a reading device. I just hope they improve browser sync to the point where its seamless as mentioned in the review.
medi01 - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Turning notebook into a tablet and vice versa is a brilliant idea. I bet most manufacturers will follow.Spivonious - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
You do realize that convertible laptops have been around for 10 years, right?therealnickdanger - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Yeah, I owned a couple. Bulky, expensive, hot, poor battery life. Obviously they can do more work, but you pay for it in many ways. I've always been a tablet fan, but they have never been as simple and easy as Android/iPad.I'm still looking forward to sub-$200 pads. And if Microsoft can make Windows8 bridge the gap between regular PC work and content creation with the mobile content consumption models, then the world will be a perfect place.
Too bad the world is ending in 2012, so we'll only have a short time to play with it.
spambonk - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
You do realize they were rubbish?VooDooAddict - Sunday, April 24, 2011 - link
A well equipped tablet PC rubbish? ... No.Expensive? ... Yes.