The ASUS Transformer has to be one of the most sought after tablets currently on the market, its great price combined with superb build quality AND the optional docking station makes it a great deal. When this 10 inch tablet is paired up with its keyboard it does look like it could be a netbook from ASUS and it weighs in at around the same weight at 2.8 pounds and is 1 inch thick.
Its thinner then your average netbook and offers a similar 9 hours of battery life and took 2 1/2 to charge compared to the iPad 2 which takes 5 hours to charge (iPad 2 battery life is 10 1/2 hours in case you were wondering). The Transformer measures 10.7 x 6.9 x 0.5 inches, which is about the same size as the Acer A500, but a little larger than the Motorola Xoom (9.6 x 7.5 x 0.5 inches).
Its thinner then your average netbook and offers a similar 9 hours of battery life and took 2 1/2 to charge compared to the iPad 2 which takes 5 hours to charge (iPad 2 battery life is 10 1/2 hours in case you were wondering). The Transformer measures 10.7 x 6.9 x 0.5 inches, which is about the same size as the Acer A500, but a little larger than the Motorola Xoom (9.6 x 7.5 x 0.5 inches).
The design of the tablet is very sleek with its texture brown back which is finger print resistant and very elegant. We liked that the bezel incorporated the same brushed metal as the lid which allowed the screen to remain finger print free when just holding it. The touch screen was very responsive and the browsing experience was among the best compared to the other android 3.0 tablets.
The big question is always applications and the most interesting pre-loaded app was MyNet, which lets you stream multimedia across your home network using DLNA. The ability to access attached storage drive to stream movies, music, and photos makes the tablet more usable.
Polaris Office a great inclusion since I had to purchase OfficeHD for my xoom at $14.99. This is a word processor that it lets you make simple changes to text, color change, lists and inserting images. Very handy and actually saves you money since you would need to buy this program if you were to use your tablet for any type of note taking or productivity.
MyContent is ASUS’ version of Dropbox and works the same as you can upload files to the cloud and sync them across multiple platforms. The service is backed by ASUS webstorage and is free for the first year (2GB standard, unlimited after registration). After that there are several plans (all unlimited for the U.S.) ranging from a month-to-month fee of $4.99 to a two-year plan at $69.99.
Looking at the a few of the standard apps like the music player and browser but the one that disappoints the most is the eBook reader. It really doesn’t impress compared to the stock inclusion of the other Android 3.0 tablets on the market.
We’ve done a size comparison to the Acer Iconia, iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab, but comparing it to the Iconia we’ve decided that the Transformer comes out a head. We’ve also got a walk through of the pre-installed apps and a Quadrant benchmarks in the video below. We haven’t been able to get our hands on the docking station, its on a 20 day back order so we’ll be sure to do another review when we’re able to pick up that piece of hardware for $149.00. You’ll also see that this is a very stylish tablet with wide viewing angles, a Tegra processor so the graphics performance and general surfability all for a CHEAP price of $399.
For the price we have to say the Transformer is the best Honeycomb tablet currently on the market.
Source: youtube via petitpetit via netbooknews
