# Asus Eee Pad Transformer



## cliche guevara (May 7, 2011)

Just had a play with one of these and I have to say I was very impressed. Its a good size, seems to be very well built and plenty slender. The keyboard attachment is excellent and replaces a netbook very well.

Anyone had a play yet?


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## editor (May 7, 2011)

No yet but I like the idea of the thing.


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## cliche guevara (May 7, 2011)

I'm seriously tempted. £429.99 with the keyboard isn't a bad price, and you get a sixteen hour battery life! Can;t see many downsides tbh, other than the fact that it doesn't seem to have a dedicated GPU which is such a minor point it's barely worth mentioning.


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## Bob_the_lost (May 7, 2011)

TBH a dedicated GPU would be a rarity on a laptop that price.


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## Throbbing Angel (May 7, 2011)

^^^this

and

16.5 hrs - bloody hell!


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## Kid_Eternity (May 8, 2011)

Battery life is without doubt the killer 'app' for anything mobile...


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## Crispy (May 8, 2011)

The graphics are part of the nVidia Tegra 2 system-on-chip and it's more powerful than the ipad1, which can already do graphics like this:







so I wouldn't worry about the horsepower.


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## cliche guevara (May 8, 2011)

That's what I wanted to hear 

Going to sell my rarely used DSLR to part fund this purchase I think.


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## editor (May 10, 2011)

It's just picked up a rave review:



> ...The tablet is very fast and extremely responsive. Multitasking using Android 3.0 is impressive, and it was very easy to switch between running apps quickly and without fuss. There was no lag at any point, save for a few quirks with the mouse cursor.
> 
> The keyboard is also a fantastic addition, and anyone wanting to get hold of this tablet should definitely consider spending the extra £50 or so on the keyboard dock. It adds extra functionality and another six hours of battery life into the mix.
> 
> ...




http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc...ablets/asus-eee-pad-transformer-954145/review


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## Lord Camomile (May 10, 2011)

Ooh, my laptop is totally borked, so I've been looking to get something new. Want to use it heavily for audio editing though, so while I could easily get a portable harddrive I'm not sure this would have the processing power.





> NVIDIA® Tegra™ 2 1.0GHz dual-core CPU



That said, I know fuck all about the mechanics of computers 

Will be keeping an eye on this one though


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## Crispy (May 10, 2011)

It'd have the hardware, but not the software. It's still too early for serious content creation on tablets


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## Lord Camomile (May 10, 2011)

Could I not just add the software, like Audacity or... y'know, one of the other ones? I carry Audacity around on a USB stick, so could just use it off that.


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## editor (May 10, 2011)

This appears to do basic audio editing: http://tapemachine.samalyse.com/


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## Crispy (May 10, 2011)

This runs Android, not Windows or Linux. It's not a "PC" and does not run any PC software.
Android is particularly poorly served by music/audio creation apps.


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## Lord Camomile (May 10, 2011)

I'm going to have to do more reading, aren't I? As ever, should just stay well out of tech conversations... Cheers for the advice though 

As you were.


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## fractionMan (May 10, 2011)

As soon as you can mix on something like this, I want one.


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## Crispy (May 10, 2011)

You can on the ipad already, with the proviso that you output and monitor in mono

Tbf, you can on android too, but not with a tablet screen optimised interface as yet.


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## fractionMan (May 10, 2011)

yeah, I heard about that.  What's the app called?


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## Crispy (May 10, 2011)

The big one is Djay: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/djay/id382604769?mt=8
This looks pretty cool, but it's not out yet: http://ipadmixr.com/its-real/


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## Throbbing Angel (May 10, 2011)

editor said:


> It's just picked up a rave review:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 


> Battery life itself is a major positive – 16 hours with the dock gives you a lot of options, and far outstretches any tablet we've seen. That said, it won't charge over a USB connection with your computer, you'll need the bundled mains adapter for that.


to be fair - the tablet part of this combo has an 8hr battery life only and this is extended to 16 only when you plug in the dock keyboard thing

This said - what is effectively a laptop with a 16hr battery is impressive - but I'm sure some think it is a 16hr battery on the tablet


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## cliche guevara (May 10, 2011)

Google handed out Honeycomb Samsung 10.1 tablets at I/O today, I'm hoping that will give the Honeycomb development community a nice boost.


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## editor (May 10, 2011)

Throbbing Angel said:


> to be fair - the tablet part of this combo has an 8hr battery life only and this is extended to 16 only when you plug in the dock keyboard thing
> 
> This said - what is effectively a laptop with a 16hr battery is impressive - but I'm sure some think it is a 16hr battery on the tablet


8 hour battery life for a cheap tablet is very good - and a 16 hour battery life for a cheap netbook is fucking awesome!


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## UnderAnOpenSky (May 10, 2011)

editor said:


> 8 hour battery life for a cheap tablet is very good - and a 16 hour battery life for a cheap netbook is fucking awesome!


 
Whilst it's good value for what it is, I'd not exactly call it a cheap netbook!

Still it's a very interesting concept, I'll be quite tempted when the platform has matured a little bit. Shame it's got no USB ports though.


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## cliche guevara (May 10, 2011)

It has two usb ports


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## Kid_Eternity (May 10, 2011)

editor said:


> 8 hour battery life for a cheap tablet is very good - and a 16 hour battery life for a cheap netbook is fucking awesome!


 
380 quid is a cheap netbook?


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## editor (May 11, 2011)

Kid_Eternity said:


> 380 quid is a cheap netbook?


It is for one that turns into a tablet and offers 16 hours battery life!


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## editor (May 17, 2011)

One rave review:



> Drawing out a verdict on the Asus Eee Pad Transformer isn’t as tricky as it might seem - we love it. There are places where things could be improved on the tablet front - wider video support, increased uniformity across Asus’ app offerings - but some of the current Honeycomb limitations (e.g.: number of optimised apps) we can’t fault Asus for.*
> 
> We did have issues with the keyboard. Again, we’re sure that Asus will work these problems out, and judging by the comments on forums across the internet, these problems aren’t universal and Asus are aware of them. Given that the keyboard dock is an accessory (it’s not as though the operational problems make your tablet useless) we’re happy to give Asus the benefit of the doubt here: you might be looking to just buy the tablet on its own after all.*
> 
> ...


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## Throbbing Angel (May 17, 2011)

editor said:


> It is for one that turns into a tablet and *offers 16 hours battery life!*


...when it is in laptop mode - which is frakkin awesome as you say



editor said:


> One rave review:


 
it looks like a great device in those piccys that accompany the review

It is definitely 'on my list' seeing as the battery on my Lenovo is now near b0rked (19 months @ 5-10hrs use most days) and I'm always loathed to spend over a ton on a battery, thinking that it'd be better put toward a new device along with the ebay price of the Lenovo.....

I was thinking iPad 2 and hold onto the laptop for syncery/storage - nice Apple BT kybrd in tow, best of both worlds and 10 hours of use.

This looks like a real contender, though.

Anyone know what the office software of honeycomb is like? That'd be the deal breaker for me.


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## cliche guevara (May 17, 2011)

Throbbing Angel said:


> Anyone know what the office software of honeycomb is like? That'd be the deal breaker for me.


 
Android has Google Docs now, the suite is pretty good. Integration with Outlook is getting better too, Google Calendar Sync meets all my needs.


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## Throbbing Angel (May 19, 2011)

and can you use GDocs offline on Android?

I want a simple word processor with some formatting capabilities and sometimes spreadsheets and that is it other than a browser I guess


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## cliche guevara (Jun 18, 2011)

Picked up a transformer with the keyboard dock yesterday 

So far I'm loving it. Had a couple of force closes during the first few hours which was annoying, but then updated to 3.1 which seems much more stable. 

I'm absolutely loving Honeycomb optimised apps like Google Earth, Google Mail, BeyondPod HD, Plume and Reddita, and can't wait for more.

Battery life is phenomenal, it had 30% out of the box and I played with that non stop for a good four hours before I had to charge it. A stroke of genius feature is that the tablet charges from the keyboard dock, effectively doubling the battery life of the tablet if needed.

My only slight niggles so far are that there aren't currently too many Honeycomb apps, but that will change with time. I'm also struggling to find a decent PDF viewer (adobe is so slow) or a decent video player.


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## Bob_the_lost (Jun 18, 2011)

I've got one, it's awesome. The lack of Honeycomb apps and specifically widgets is a let down but it's really good as it is.

The pdf readers are crap, the adobe one doesn't remember your place (  ).


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## cliche guevara (Jun 19, 2011)

It seems to be a choice between perfect quality and slow loading with Adobe, or shit quality and speedy loading with Polaris.


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## lobster (Jun 19, 2011)

I came across a blog post on a Ipad, I think this also sums up the android pads...



> But be realistic, not everything is perfect. You can see that it is a commercial platform. There are lots of apps that cost money. Often that’s not a lot, only a few dollar, but if you don’t want that, you are stuck with lower quality, reduced functionality or nagging ads. Also the level of settings is very, very low. Ever seen a mail app where you can count the amount of settings on two hands? I know the amount of settings runs in parallel with the amount of features.



For a mobile phone, android/iOS is great as you don't really need pc complete features on such a small screen but on tablets I think people are starting to see the limitations...

I came across another post 



> Hi all,
> 
> Anyone know of any projects / methods to install Fedora on a tablet like the iPad or an android tablet?
> 
> ...



A few people did reply, saying that its not likely to happen because the ARM platform is not standardised like a pc....and told to get a windows tablet and install linux on that.


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