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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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?