[Review] Asus Transformer #review #asustransformer #android

 

• I like the colour. The chocolate bronze.
• I like the texture to give better grip.
• The form factor - Widescreen is much better I feel than the ipad design. I read a lot of ebooks and so the ratio is great for that.
• The dock is nice and secure. The keyboard is well made and already I have learnt most of the shortcuts.
• I actually like being able to type with it and then reach out and touch. Seems very natural.
• Android gui is a dream. The Music app is good to look at.
• Flash. I actually hate flash but at least I can use it on sites that are into that crap.
• The dock battery system - I can also recharge my phone from it!
• Apps! I don't get Apple being scornful of droid apps. So what if there are only a few optimized for tablets. Droid apps scale very well. Tweetdeck is great on the asus. Also Pulse is a joy to use.
• MyZine - neat little widget - weather - email - books - calendar - web - music, all summarized for you. ALso photos are shown in a cyclicing manner.
• Polaris suite - This is great. I feel like I can now type anywhere and look at data for research.
• My Library - great at handling rather difficult pdfs.
• Honeycomb in general is a joy to use.
• Brilliant screen. I would say better than an Ipad when I have played with one of those.
• Easy for a new user - my wife has a mac, and an iphone. But using the Asus was quite easy, and the keyboard makes things easier and more comfortable.
• My boss had a look and now wants one!
• MyCloud - unlimited asus cloud storage for a year? Yes please.
• The camera is ok, but not quite up to the standard on my sony X10.
• Expandable memory - sd cards galore (micro port and standard port) and 2 usb ports!

 

So as of yesterday I am an owner of the Asus Transformer. As always the person delivering it was surprised when they looking for my flat. Again a symptom of it being a fairly new block of apartments.

So I got the box, opened it and was first met by the tablet, and then under it the dock.

First impressions? Well it was like opening something very industrial. Where ever the boxes were stored on transit had made the Asus very cold to the touch.

The device itself is very sturdy, clean lines, good size bezel to rest fingers at when holding it. The finish is great, even it is plastic (I honestly could have been mistaken that the entire thing is metal). The screen suffers from glare a bit - maybe a screen protector would help?

The mouse pad is also a pleasure to use, but a pain when touch typing. But this is a common issue of netbooks in general. You end up moving where you are typing by accident.

So overall I am very pleased. It combines everything I have wanted (pdf reading, text editing, web, email). Now hopefully soon tethering it to my phone will become a bit easier, and then I will be very mobile (the asus is wifi only - I prefer this as you can lost on your data usage with such a beast). Even my wife wants one now.

I'm sure I will say more in the future on this device (stability, mobility, apps, battery life).

 

Expect this to be used during gaming a lot!