ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 21, 2011 4:00 AM ESTMore than Meets the Eye
Alongside the original iPad, Apple sold a keyboard dock for users who wanted to do a lot of typing on their new tablet. The keyboard dock turned the iPad into a mini iMac running iOS. What the iPad keyboard dock lacked however was a pointing device—all navigation still had to be done via the touch screen. As Apple has correctly pointed out in the past, the notebook usage model doesn't work very well if you have to keep reaching across your keyboard to touch the screen.
ASUS expands on the idea of a keyboard dock with the Eee Pad Transformer dock. The $149 add-on adds not only a keyboard, but a trackpad and integrated 24.4Wh battery (the same size as the unit in the Eee Pad itself). You are getting a lot for your money, but given how cheap the Eee Pad is, a $149 accessory will always be a tough sell.
The dock is made of two pieces—a half metal/half plastic base and an all metal hinge that houses the dock connector. Simply slide the Eee Pad into the hinge, lining up the dock connector and its two latches, and press into place to dock the unit. If you do it correctly you'll hear a nice click as both latches grab on to the Eee Pad. There's a silver eject slider switch for removing the Eee Pad from the dock.
When you dock the Eee Pad two things happen. The dock immediately starts charging the tablet as soon as its battery life drops below 100%. Only after the dock's battery has been exhausted will the tablet's internal battery begin discharging. Note that even on tablet power alone, the dock's keyboard and trackpad will continue to work.
Android isn't aware that there's a second battery at work here, and sometimes this dock-charging-the-tablet process trips up the battery status indicator in Honeycomb as you can see from the screengrab below:
Confusing the battery status indicator aside, the dock works as expected as a giant external battery. You do get some indication of battery discharge on the dock itself through a blinking LED, however what it really needs is either a software reporting mechanism or a string of LEDs to accurately communicate how much power you have left on the dock.
Charging works the same way. Plug the dock in and it'll charge itself then the tablet. There's enough current drawn to charge both the dock and tablet in tandem so you'll actually feed both, although the dock will charge quicker.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
127 Comments
View All Comments
Elrondolio - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
None of these shots are exactly close... even something as exotic as the Noktor 50 f/0.95 (in practice, a somewhat pedestrian lens up to f/2 or so) can focus in far closer than the shots, around 2". Its certainly possible these were taken north of f/2, but the bokeh on them is very nice (north of 7 blades, I'd expect).whiteonline - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
I don't know. Looks like a bit of post processing effects. Look at the last photo with the power cable; the focus is a horizonal line, not radial. And very sharply changes between in and out of focus.strikeback03 - Wednesday, April 27, 2011 - link
as he has mentioned having Nikon SLRs in the past, I checked the minimum focus distance for 50 and 85mm lenses available for Nikon at B&H. The 50s are all in the 45-50cm range, and the 85s are 85-100cm.Yes I would expect the lens does was designed for nice bokeh (curved aperture blades, etc)
MrCromulent - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
I guess 720p and 1080p playback via HDMI won't be a problem anymore for Honeycomb tablets, will it?IronPalm - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
I ordered this tablet just see how well I can use flash based dashboards on it, I then saw a Xoom and was wondering if I should cancel my order.Compared to what I've read recently this review was done well, a refreshing change, as others have said a great review.
Now the only thing i'm wondering is how the user experience compares to an ipad (e.g. the touch sensitivity etc). I noticed there was a bit of lag on the Xoom, but I haven't noticed that playing with display ipad's in tech stores.
I hope this isn't a repeat of an earlier episode in my life...I wanted an iPhone, but didn't really want one, so I got one for my wife. After playing with it (to update software of course) I was impressed by the touch screen. My resistive WM 6.5 didn't cut after that. I dropped it by accident around the time when the HTC HD2 came out with it's capacitive touch screen, great I though, just what I'd been looking for. Unfortunately not all capacitive touch screens are equal.
kmmatney - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link
The iPad does have flash, to some degree:http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/10/ipad-gets-flash...
don't know if a flash-based apps would work, though
Wanderer200 - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Very nice extended review, thumbs up!but i was wondering about one thing:
"The price point alone is enough to make the Eee Pad the Honeycomb tablet to get assuming you don't need integrated GPS"
Because on the Asus website the specs say is does have GPS and in other review i saw google maps in action... so i assume is does have GPS?
I also read about the firmware upgrade wich is downloadable right now, it fixxes some of the issues you encountered with the transformer (like the camera green screen) did you try to upgrade your firmware?
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
I've corrected the review - GPS hardware is present in the Eee Pad Transformer, although some apps require that you are actively connected via WiFi in order to use GPS.I updated the firmware on our review sample, however there are apparently one or two more revisions left before systems go on sale next week. I should have updated software soon.
Take care,
Anand
jbh129 - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
At this point, there is no legitimate reason to buy a tablet that is not an iPad.eddman - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Steve, is that you?