The guys from ASUS got it perfectly right, when they design and released the Asus Transformer.
They got it right with the design and smart combination between a tablet, a good keyboard and docking station…and 16 hours combined battery life. You have to go to sleep before you finished the battery, yes kidding, but still impressive.
On top of that they got it right with the price (not in Australia – where everything seems to be more expensive without any reasons).
Buying from a $400+ for a great tablet is awesome.
Deals of ~550$ for tablet and keyboard are quite common – I could not resist and I ordered one.
It looks so perfect and the Android 3.1 is really promising and is Open Source.
Open Source is a magic word that will bury in the “I” and the “W”.Â
After a horrid decade of dominance of “W” and Microsoft who the heck needs the rise of the “I” or read it Apple.
Enclosed, proprietary OSes, over-praised hardware arrogant CEOs.
Enough about ‘others’, Asus Transformer has:
- NVIDIA® Tegra™ 2 1.0GHz dual-core CPU for excellent multitasking & 1080p video playback
- Android 3.0 Honeycomb O.S. with Adobe® Flash® 10.2 support*2
- Full QWERTY keyboard, touchpad input with Polaris® Office® for mobile productivity
- 16*1 hours long battery life for all day computing with docking station
- Brilliant IPS panel with ultra-wide 178? viewing angle made from scratch resistant and super tough glass
- One year of Unlimited ASUS WebStorage, two USB ports, SD and Micro SD card readers for easy sharing & storage expendability
- 3D stereo with max bass response with SRS premium sound
It has enough power under the hood to play nice games and do real multi-tasking.
But the thing that really makes me happy is the KEYBOARD and TWO in total SD plus Micro SD slots and TWO USBs. That’s quite amazing and transforms ASUS TRANSFORMER in a mini-laptop, because I believe it is already more powerful than a Net book.
It should have had also a mini-laser-projector sticking out from somewhere and then would have been the most powerful entertainment and business tool.
See, the laser-projectors are still not on the manufacturers agenda, but I assume will enter soon, once the camera(s) (face and rear) will be something common…
Enough dreaming, what about apps – good support, so far, from Android Market, but still a bit disappointed because nobody thought that would be useful to group apps per compatibilities – apps good for Android Phones and Android good for Android Tablets….not talking about a more detailed split per tablet name/type…..
Anyway, stock apps are good enough to cover all the immediate necessities…. beyond that EXPLORE.
I could say already, after a week, that games rules and office and CAD still suck, but we are watching and …..developing apps to make the experience more pleasant.
I was impressed with its stock BROWSER – responsiveness and hot buttons – when you press your thumb near any age – very handy for quick navigation.
A big disappointment was the Google’s Honeycomb developers decision to eliminate the posibility of creating……folders…….very strange….but you can find plenty of free apps on the Markets that could do that (I’m using Apps Organizer).
Anyway it looked awkward when I started to fill up my ALL 5 DESKTOPS with downloaded APP’s ICONS without a real possibility to group them in FOLDERS as I’m used to DO.
This should be a MANDATORY FEATURE not a reason to research the development BLOGs and FORUMs.
Overall, I’m impressed and really like the tool/toy…ASUS TRANSFORMER and I would put it on the wish list of any……anybody.
Cheers,
Nick