1-on-1 with Asus EEE Pad Transformer

THE local distributors of Asus finally got their shipment of the Asus EEE Pad Transformer, and CF King Enterprise is offering the 10.1-inch tablet with dock for $899.

Pricey, yes. But CF King said that in its initial shipment of 20, more than 10 have already been sold of the Transformer, which Asus said in a press release, is facing shortages over the world because of "unexpected demand".

I've previously reviewed Asus' tablet line-up for 2011, but last weekend was actually the first time I put my hands on the tablet complete with dock, and with already high expectations, the hands-on experience didn't disappoint.

First impressions

When I asked to try out the tablet, it was handed to me in the form of a netbook. The tablet was mounted securely on the dock, the two individual pieces clasped together in a clamshell, making it easy to mistake the whole thing as a netbook.

As I've mentioned numerous times, Asus' build is solid, the keyboard dock is locked in with two hinges, assuring users that they can afford to be a little careless with it and that the tablet won't fall.

Upon opening, the dock showed a full-sized keyboard with a one-button trackpad.

The trackpad immediately activates a hidden cursor on the tablet, which is connected to a dock via a 40-pin connector, and supports multi-touch.

Two-finger left or right swipe acts as your finger going through the various home pages on the tablet. Responses from the dock to the tablet is instantaneous, unlike Bluetooth support keyboards.

The keyboard offers almost every key you would find on a 14 or 15-inch notebook, although it doesn't feel as good as other Asus keyboards, it's enough to get the job done when you need it on-the-go.

Dock functionality

Besides the usual keys, the dock also has the Home, Back, Menu, Search buttons that come with your tablet. Which helps remind you that you are in fact on a tablet and not a small laptop. Besides that shift +, different numbers allow you make shortcuts so you can work even faster.

Above the numbers, there are buttons which control brightness, launch the browser, switch on Wi-Fi or bluetooth, mute and unmute sound, just to name a few.

These extra keys really help complete the experience because I was moving really fast from task-to-task when I became accustomed to it.

The main reason of having the keyboard dock, besides extending your devices battery life to 16 hours is to conveniently work on your documents. The Asus Transformer is equipped with Polaris Office and will get the job done for word processing or spreadsheet purposes.

As for the ports, you'll get an SD card reader, Micro SD, a couple of USB ports that can be covered up neatly when not in use, HDMI, audio and mic — the whole package. In fact, the only thing missing from a traditional netbook will be a LAN port for wired internet.

The Tablet

The focus has been on the bundled-dock because it's really hard to find a good one that connects seamlessly to the tablet. But the tablet on its own is not too shabby either.

At CF King, it was already running Android 3.1, an updated Honeycomb, instead of the 3.0 which was supposedly causing difficulty for early Transformer users.

I liked how in landscape mode, the tablet had speakers on both sides, producing a reasonably good stereo sound.

The included apps were minimal, not too much junk that you wish you got rid of, but enough for your basic needs.

It has a standard Android tablet 5.0 megapixel rear and 1.2 mp front facing camera, although taking pictures with something that is 10-inches large feels kind of silly.

The ever-important display can be viewed from wide angles and is responsive.

I browsed sites using the store's Wi-Fi briefly and scrolling was smooth and as for the contrast, it was good indoors (I didn't take it out in the sun).

All-in-all, if you're in need of a netbook, the Transformer should be given consideration as I'm not too sure CF King is selling the tablet on its lonesome.

The Brunei Times