The latest touch-screen tablets are packed with enough functionality to make you think twice about getting a new laptop computer.
On any of the newest tablet devices, you can do just about everything you do on a laptop or desktop PC, and with ease: check your e-mail, surf the Web, use Facebook, watch YouTube videos, listen to music, organize your photos — the list goes on and on.
But there is one argument for sticking to a laptop. An iPad or Android slate won’t cut it if you type a lot. Tapping virtual keys on glass can never replace the tactile feel of a real keyboard.
Photo courtesy of Asus
Taiwanese manufacturer Asustek Computer Inc (Asus, 華碩電腦) wants to give you both. The Asus Eee Pad Transformer is a touch-screen tablet with a detachable keyboard that doubles as a battery dock.
The design is not groundbreaking by any means, but Asus has come up with a fairly solid product.
The Transformer runs on Android 3.1, nicknamed Honeycomb, which is Google’s first dedicated OS for touch-screen computers.
Photo courtesy of Asus
It’s a big improvement over Android 2.2, which was designed for smartphones but has been the standard OS on Android tablets until now.
Honeycomb’s interface is more touch-friendly and responsive than that of its predecessor, and the new OS finally gives manufacturers a chance to make a decent competitor to the iPad. There are still some kinks to be worked out (more on this later), but it’s a step in the right direction.
Asus seems to want to attract potential iPad 2 buyers by offering slightly lower prices than Apple’s star device. The Transformer with 16GB of storage costs NT$14,900 (NT$17,900 with keyboard), while the 32GB version runs for NT$16,900 (NT$19,900 with keyboard). Separately, the keyboard costs NT$4,500.
Photo courtesy of Asus
IT’S A TABLET
The Transformer can’t match up to the elegant simplicity of the iPad, but there are a few things to appreciate about Asus’ new touch-screen slate. The 10.1-inch, 1280 pixel by 800 pixel screen is nice — the colors are vibrant and videos look great. It’s also reasonably light, weighing 680g (similar to the first iPad).
The device sports a slick look, housed in a dark brown shell made of metal and plastic. The back of the tablet is covered with a vinyl-like material emblazoned with an intricate pattern that helps you keep a firm grip.
Photo courtesy of Asus
But the Transformer’s biggest strengths are its apps and how well the operating system works.
Upon receiving a test model from Asus, I downloaded the Android versions of Facebook, Dropbox and Evernote, all of which worked without a hitch during the week I used the device, except for Facebook, which crashed every now and then. The device also passes the Angry Birds test — Angry Birds Rio was fun to play with on the wide-screen format.
The Transformer comes with all the basic software you’ll need, including Polaris Office, a decent word processor and spreadsheet program, and an array of Google apps. The Gmail app differs from the Web version, but makes perfect sense, Maps is excellent, and Google Music is simple and easy to use.
Asus also offers an app that connects you to its paid cloud storage services (offering free service for a year). For avid readers, there’s Asus’ MyLibrary, as well as Amazon Kindle and PressReader, an app that lets you download PDF versions of newspapers from around the world.
Navigating Honeycomb’s interface on the tablet felt like a breath of fresh air compared with Android 2.2. There are no physical buttons, just three touch-screen icons placed at the bottom left of the screen: a back button, a home button and a button for recently opened apps. In the top right corner, there’s a small button so you can access all of your apps and another button so you can add widgets to the home screen. In comparison to the iPad, navigating on the Transformer feels a little fussy with all the buttons and five different home pages, but it’s not hard to get used to.
The Honeycomb OS handles notifications very well — much better than Apple’s iOS devices, in fact. When an app update is needed or an e-mail lands in your inbox, for example, a small tag pops up in the right corner of the screen and disappears, leaving a discreet icon in the taskbar tray as a reminder. When you’re ready to view the e-mail or check what needs to be updated, tap on the icon to view the notification or simply tap the “X” to make it disappear.
Honeycomb also allows easy access to Wi-Fi and other settings by tapping in the right corner, under the digital clock. This is helpful if you are always logging on to new wireless connections or often change your system settings.
IT’S A LAPTOP
When connected to the keyboard, the Transformer looks like one of Asus’ standard Eee PC netbooks. It works surprisingly well as a laptop — using it is truly a matter of plug and play.
That is, once you actually get the two parts to attach. It takes practice to get the tablet to smoothly snap onto the keyboard’s hinges. When you get it locked, it feels secure, but I wonder whether there would have been problems with the spring-loaded hinges if I had used the device longer.
The chiclet keyboard is nearly identical to Asus’ laptop computer line, with a few modifications to accommodate the Honeycomb OS. There are smartly chosen buttons for the home screen, volume, screen brightness and search, among a dozen others.
There are also two USB ports built into the keyboard that play nicely with the OS. I was half-expecting the normal Windows experience: waiting for the computer to install new drivers for whatever thing you just plugged into the USB slot. But not with the Transformer. The test model I used barely raised a fuss when I plugged in a USB drive. I was able to view my files right away. Same thing when I plugged in a mouse — it worked without a hiccup, and a cursor popped up on the screen immediately.
The cursor also pops up when you touch the trackpad, which is spacious for a netbook-sized keyboard and allows for two-finger scrolling. This feature works nearly as well as it does on a Mac (it surely beats any laptop with Windows) and is especially handy when surfing the Web.
There’s one very annoying problem with the trackpad, though. It’s easy to accidentally touch it with your palms while typing, which might send the cursor to a completely different part of the page you’re working on or viewing. This kept happening as I was typing parts of this review.
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
The Transformer also has room for improvement on the hardware front. It needs a better microphone — the person I was video-chatting with couldn’t hear me very well on both Fring and Google Talk. The speakers are loud enough, but sound tinny, especially when listening to music.
Other shortcomings have to do with Honeycomb. The Web browser tended to slow to a crawl or crash on pages with a lot of Flash animation and graphics. Honeycomb supports Flash video, but I found it to be hit and miss.
Honeycomb’s recent apps button is a welcome addition, as it lets you multitask, or switch between apps quickly. Tap the button, and a scrollable screen pops up, showing you all of the apps you have open. But one problem is that there’s no way to shut down apps from that screen, as you can in Apple’s iOS. Having too many apps open can slow down performance, and I wondered if that was the cause of the occasionally dragging performance of the Transformer.
BEST OF BOTH WORLDS?
Without the keyboard, I managed just over five hours of battery life on the Transformer over four days without charging. That time consisted mainly of surfing the Web, checking e-mails and writing notes for this review. Instead of turning off the power, I put it on standby when I wasn’t using it.
This highlights one advantage to having the keyboard. When fully charged, the keyboard extends the battery life of the Transformer — I got nearly nine hours of use without charging.
In one sense, the Transformer is the budget laptop we’ve been waiting for, albeit a little late. It’s fast, at least compared to laptops with similar hardware running Windows, and it comes with a set of full-featured, ready-to-use software. As a tablet, it’s not likely to convert iPad users, but it will certainly please Android devotees looking forward to the future of personal computing.
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