Despite the emergence of tablets in the country, only a few can rival the Apple iPad. What we have here is the Asus Eee Pad Transformer which is one of the first 10.1-inch Android tablets to be available in the country to compete with the iPad.
It may not look as sexy as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 that we have before but this one has a few tricks on its own that’s worth considering. One of which is the keyboard dock (hence the name Transformer) which we unfortunately don’t have for this review. It essentially turns your tablet into an Android netbook that can almost double its battery life and give you the keyboard you would often miss from a touchscreen device.
We’re going to take a closer look at the Asus Eee Pad as a tablet form here and see whether it should be high on your list if you’re looking for an Android tablet.
Design
Admittedly after seeing and holding the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, the Asus Transformer suddenly feels like the toy that got neglected. It was wider, thicker and holding it in one hand in landscape mode seems unwieldy. Something you might not want to brandish in public if somebody else is holding a slimmer tablet.
It has a unique coppery finishing though if you want to be noticed from the sea of black and white tablet. Contributing to the extra girth are speaker placement on both ends of the tablet.
Because of its width, it’s meant to be used in landscape mode (portrait just looks awkward). On the left is the power and volume buttons. On the right is the 3.5mm audio jack, a miniHDMI port and a microSD slot which is quite rare in quality tablets. Underside you will see the proprietary port for charging and data transfer. No microUSB port here.
You can see the lens of the 5 megapixel camera on its slightly curved, textured back. The textured finish makes it less slippery when handling and the wide tapered edges somewhat eased the thickness of the device.
