Follow the Eee from PC and where does it go? Well, there’s only one place the rat race is heading, and that’s to tablet land. When you arrive you might have to search a little, because the Asus Eee Pad Transformer isn’t shouting from the rooftops. Let’s face it; this little number doesn’t need to.
This tablet is a logical evolution of the Eee PC T91MT, which was a netbook with some tablet-like elements; namely the touch screen. The most striking similarity is the swivel screen – that when attached to the keyboard dock, allows for 170 degree viewing.
But let’s back track a little: keyboard dock? Yes, the Eee Pad Transformer is in fact a hybrid computer; a tablet with an attachable qwerty keyboard that has embedded in its unit two USB ports, an SD card reader and extra battery life. So, what you have is a comprehensive multi-media tablet running Android 3.0 Honeycomb (3.1 is rumored soon), that converts to a fully comprehensive notebook when you need to dive into those data heavy, offline tasks.
Tablets haven’t really pitched well for the professional market, and those that have tried are accused of some basic flaws; inaccessible or unresponsive onscreen keyboard and/or poor battery life.
Asus have gone all out and produced a tablet that quietly rivals the best the market has to offer for the multimedia-web browsing tablet user, as well as the professional I’ll-never-give-up-my-notebook user.
While this may not be the sexiest name in computing, this offering is the best in its class.
Some other interesting features:
1.2MP front facing and 5MP rear facing cameras that record HD quality. HDMI output for streaming your latest Netflix selection on your HD TV.
16GB of onboard memory and up to 16GB of expanded memory plus 32GB cards will be supported with the next OS upgrade. 1 year of free and unlimited online storage with Asus, giving users a substantial intro to cloud computing.
Flash 10.2 giving you the entire internet, including all those pesky ads and intro pages that we skip anyway.
Five customizable home pages allowing you to arrange apps and content as you need to. Each home screen gives you a launcher – allowing quick access to other pages, and a search field – allowing you to quickly locate individual apps or files.
And under the bonnet we have the NVIDIA Tegra 2, the “world’s first mobile super chip” for the fastest, most visually-rich tablet experience so far. The major selling point of the Tegra 2 is its excellent multitasking capability.
So, if you’re Mr. Professional who’ll-never-give-up-his-notebook, and tolerate the pausing and stuttering of your beloved Windows machine – you don’t have to tolerate it anymore. You can smoothly run multiple applications to your heart’s content, without having to fill the time your Windows machine spends stuttering by making a cup of coffee. When do you get to make a cup of coffee? Don’t worry about it, there’s an app for that.
The Asus Eee Pad Transformer is currently Amazon’s No. 2 best-selling tablet and is available from $499.00.
About the Author:
This post was contributed by Marie-Paule Graham who writes on behalf of Broadband Genie, the independent mobile broadband comparison website for the latest in netbooks, tablets and smartphones. To keep up to date with the best deals available in the UK, be sure to follow us on Facebook or Twitter.
