Around the Holidays the age old question of what to get your loved ones always comes up. This year my personal favorite hardware manufacturer, Asus has a great contender for a useful gift, the Eee Pad Transformer TF101.
At first glance the Transformer is just another iPad clone and probably doomed to failure like so many others. Even a lot of the specifications are very similar:
Asus Eee Pad Transformer:
1GHz Nvidia Tegra II Dual Core CPU
1024 MB Memory
10.1” Multitouch Screen Display:
16 or 32GB Storage
1.2 MP Front and 5 MP Rear Camera
WLAN 802.11 b/g/n Wireless receiver
G-Sensor, Light Sensor, Gyroscope, E-Compass and GPS Sensors
Up to 10 hours of Battery life as tablet, 14 with keyboardBattery:
Apple iPad:
1.0GHz Apple A5 Dual Core CPU
512 MB Memory
9.7” Multitouch Screen (1024×768) Display
16, 32 or 64GB Storage:
VGA Front and 720p Rear Camera
WLAN 802.11 b/g/n Wireless receiver
G-Sensor, Light Sensor, Gyroscope, E-Compass and GPS Sensors
up to 10hrs of Battery life
So just by looking at it, the Transformer is actually a bit more powerful than the iPad2 is, however the Apple Operating System does run a bit more stable than the current Android 3.2 (Honeycomb) OS, but Google is rumored to release Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) sometime soon and it will be available for the Transformer as well. Google might give their Operating Systems silly names but it is almost up to par with Apple in only a fraction of the time it took Apple to get their OS to work right.
I personally have owned the Transformer for about 2 months now and I am very impressed. The Honeycomb OS works very well and fluid. Having Flash support is always nice so using the build in browser it’s hard to tell that you are not using a laptop running Windows or OSX.
Thank god for Gorilla Glass
The recent generations of touchscreen devices have featured something called Gorilla Glass which apparently is this magical stuff which makes it impossible to scratch those devices (no more stupid sticky glass protector things that bubble up over your screen). The Transformer has this stuff as well which makes it really resistant to scratches which is something I personally have been worried about.
I have owned a Motorola Droid X for close to two years now and the plastic bits and pieces are really banged up from change or keys flying around in the same pocket as my phone but surprisingly the actual touchscreen is in perfect condition. Apparently the Transformer is equally tough. Here is a little demonstration on YouTube for you: Asus Transformer Scratch Test
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUcJnwyCtes&feature=youtu.be]
Just to warn you, the last thing they tried might make you flinch a little.
Expandability
This is really the ultimate parting piece that sets the Transformer apart from other Android Tablets and even the iPad, the keyboard and expansion ports. The Eee Pad comes with a Micro HDMI Port so you can hook it up to your TV, a micro SD card slot, so you can expand its memory (I currently have a 32GB card in mine which is really handy for extra space for pictures and music).
They full qwerty keyboard includes a full SD card slot, two USB ports and an extra battery which extends the total battery life by about 4 hours when plugged in. The keyboard itself is probably what sold me on the Transformer over any other tablet. I personally cannot type on touch screens to safe my life, especially when you visit websites and have to type in passwords that include numbers and symbols it takes forever to switch around the keyboards. The Transformer eliminates this problem and when you don’t want to use the keyboard, one snap and it comes right off, and then it’s fantastic at doing all the things tablets do. I personally enjoy the Netflix app quite a bit and if you want to make your friends and family dizzy while using Skype by walking around, it does that very well too.
All in all I’d say the Transformer with the keyboard is the best possible balance between a full laptop and a regular tablet. It gives you the upside of the long battery live, no moving parts and quick use of a tablet and expandability and convenience of a laptop.
For questions leave us a comment or contact us. Or for the best Transformer Community on the web, please visit our friends at transformerforums.com for a great in depth look.