ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 21, 2011 4:00 AM ESTFinal Words
ASUS delivered three things with the Eee Pad: a very competitive price point ($399), a surprisingly useful (albeit pricey) dock, and a good display. The price point alone is enough to make the Eee Pad the Honeycomb tablet to get assuming you don't need integrated 3G or LTE connectivity. The Eee Pad is comfortable to hold and use and despite the lower price point you don't feel like ASUS has sacrificed much at all to make it. The display has similar characteristics to what Apple ships in the iPad 2. Overall from a hardware standpoint, the Eee Pad is solid.
The Transformer dock is an extremely tempting addition to the Eee Pad, I only wish it were cheaper. When in use the dock extends battery life by 64%, pushing the Eee Pad past 15.5 hours in our general WiFi test. ASUS tells me that the Transformer dock will be compatible with all Transformer branded tablets in the future. I can imagine a thinner Kal-El based version must be in the works at this point.
Tight integration between the keyboard/trackpad and Honeycomb makes the Eee Pad Transformer one part tablet and one part Android netbook, and the whole thing works a lot better than I expected it to. When you need a netbook form factor, you have one, and when you just want to kick back and relax with a tablet you've got that as well. The experience isn't quite fast enough for me to replace my notebook, but I can see where things are headed.
I actually believe the dockable tablet is indicative of where the netbook (and perhaps ultra portable notebook) market is going. Give me some more (or faster) cores and an OS even better suited for notebook duty and the line between a tablet and a netbook becomes quite blurry. I finally understand why NVIDIA opted for four cores in Kal-El and why Microsoft keeps looking to Windows 8 to be its tablet strategy. Windows 8 tablets will be Windows 8 netbooks; they'll just be modular.
The biggest issues here are software related. Honeycomb has matured significantly just with the 3.0.1 update, but there are still dock and camera behavior issues that need to be worked out before ASUS takes the Eee Pad to market. I feel like Honeycomb got a worse rap than it deserves, but there are real issues that need addressing here. I lost a couple of pages of this review thanks to an unexpected hard lock and a reboot while typing this on the Eee Pad. For casual use it's not an issue but the platform isn't mature enough for real work yet.
So why do companies keep introducing tablets with known software issues? I always remember what AMD's Eric Demers once told me: the best way to lose a fight is to not show up.
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DesktopMan - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 - link
Why no gaming benchmarks? I think they're important to show what a poor performer the Tegra 2 GPU actually is.spambonk - Tuesday, April 26, 2011 - link
Owners are saying a new firmware update is rolling in at the moment, fixing the video camera stutters.Ramshambo2001 - Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - link
Does downloading a third party app fix the issues with the camera?Ramshambo2001 - Monday, May 2, 2011 - link
Awesome review, I just ordered mine yesturday. Found a $40 off coupon for Target from fatwallet.com! Crazy awesome deal for $359!techwafer-tech - Thursday, May 5, 2011 - link
You can buy it at Target. When you add the Transformer to your cart and use the promo code TCA27BAR, you can knock $40 off the price. Check <a href="http://www.techwafer.com/2011/05/05/asus-eee-pad-t...weeweeman - Thursday, May 19, 2011 - link
This is a IPAD2 killer and this has now already dropped in price! It is currently sub £400 on Amazon! - http://amzn.to/jLbPxqA-Griffith - Friday, June 3, 2011 - link
I do not generally write reviews but this tablet is worth it. I have owned(and returned) and Motorola Xoom and have tested the Ipad 2. BOTH are nice devices for sure but a tad bit overpriced and I am not a huge fan of the boring iOS customization options. For $399 (Asus Transformer 16gb version) you get the 10 inch tablet, you get the Tegra POWER, the nice sound and the latest Android tablet operating system (honeycomb) which is the perfect combination.Device feels very solid in hand, not too light, not too heavy, all of the apps from my previous Mytouch 4g work on the tablet and it functions very well. Battery life is GREAT, I set it to leave wifi on permanently without disconnecting and took it off the charger at 9pm yesterday, used it to tweet, browse and type a paper while listening to non stop music until about 1-2am. Woke up today at 9am, my new emails were synced and gtalk was running.....STILL had 69% left. It is now going on 1pm, i haven't used it much besides for my alarm clock and listened to another 10 songs and tweeted while i got ready for class and its sitting at 63% now.
PROS:
- Great Battery Life (Without the Keyboard dock's extra power source)
- Nice weight, does not feel cheap
- Android 3.0 for tablets is a great step forward to set it apart from everyone else just using the phone OS
- SPEED
- Can handle ALL tasks( Recreation, Games, Music, Work documents, homework, etc) My laptop has been put to rest since owning a table.... R.I.P.
- PLENTY of apps for everyone and everything you are interested in.
- Google talk video chat works like a charm
- Cameras take good quality pictures
- EASE OF USE
Cons:
- Not a fan of the placement of the speakers since they put them towards the bottom. My hands sometimes blocks them while holding the device but i can still hear the music just fine(even though not as loud)
- The charger is kinda short, that is acceptable but it seems like when you plug the Tablet to the computer it stops charging when you have the screen on, i found that a little strange. Safety reasons? im not sure.
Final Verdict: If you want a GREAT tablet that is affordable, has video chat, music, games, apps, full internet browsing abilities and PLENTY of customization options then this is your device! Easily replaced my new laptop, much lighter, better battery life and can do the same things...literally.
*** P.S. If you will buy this Tablet I suggest you have compare price before you decide at --> www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Foffer-listing%2FB004U78J1G%3Fie%3DUTF8%26ref_%3Ddp_olp_new%26condition%3Dnew%23&tag=othersitecomment-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=390957
aphonic - Saturday, June 11, 2011 - link
I've never felt the need to comment even as a reader since basically inception..because the reviews are always great.. as is the tech info. This is no exception, but I wanted to put my $.02The tf is a device that could have solved some problems..however, it is clearly beta from head to toe. It's an incredibly frustrating device to use. Unresponsive is being kind. 3.1 didn't solve the issue, the trackpad being unable to disable touch click makes it useless. One cannot even type a reply like this in the browser with the hard keyboard due to tremendous lag (including alternate browsers, though opera is better)
it's a real shame this wasn't a more considered device prior to release.. and imo, since asus as speculated the sequel in q4, don't pay to beta test honeycomb and their product. This is simply not a product ready for prime time. Some of the blame lies on asus, some on google, but either way, by the time things are resolved, there will be much faster hardware.. wait six months.
austrien - Monday, July 11, 2011 - link
Can the USB cable on this unit be plugged into a USB connector that plugs into a car's cigarette plug for charging and if so what would be the time involved?Bearocalypse - Monday, July 18, 2011 - link
I'd take it travellinf