It's a thoughtful compromise. That said, Honeycomb's added complexity and sophistication is a double-edged sword. To Google's credit, Android 3. But as much as iOS gets push back from users who find it insultingly simple, Android Honeycomb is at times needlessly secretive. A task as simple as opening the lock screen plays out like an IQ puzzle. Home screen customization is broken down into separate categories for widgets, app shortcuts, and app-specific shortcuts, such as browser bookmarks and Gmail labels.
There will be users who are going to rejoice in the flexibility and options on offer by Honeycomb, but there are bound to be just as many who are turned off by the complexity. We're just thankful that users now have more options when it comes to tablets. As one of the first Honeycomb tablets to use a non-Google Experience version of Android 3. Right on the home screen, there's a current local weather display and an e-mail counter, displaying the number of new e-mails in your Gmail account. The home, back, and recent apps buttons have had their art altered slightly from the base Honeycomb experience.
Also, Asus added an additional choice to screen timeout times. Previously they maxed out at 30 minutes, but now have the option to never timeout. For someone who runs a lot of tests on tablets, this is a welcome addition. The look of the software keyboard has changed as well. The Transformer uses light-gray buttons instead of dark gray, and keys are slightly wider. Instead of three rows of keys, we conveniently get four, providing no need to toggle back and forth between letters and numbers, although you will need to toggle the special characters screen.
It was nothing that was repeatable or too consistent, but it occurred enough times that we feel compelled to mention it. Performance Both OS-navigating speed and app-launching speed were just as fast as on other Honeycomb tablets; however, the weather widget on the Transformer made screen transitions slightly choppy. Once we removed the widget, things smoothed out nicely. Speaking of colors, the display is extremely bright and crisp.
Like every other glossy slab out there, the Transformer picks up a good amount of fingerprints and becomes a mirror outdoors. Although, that could have just been the Lady Gaga music selection.
The PlayBook and iPad 2 still hold the title of best tablet speakers, but these will absolutely do for personal listening. Also, as you will see in the sample video below, the microphone quality is extremely poor.
On a brighter note, the autofocus was actually quite speedy in comparison to some of these other Honeycomb tablets. The front-facing 1. It also took markedly better quality video than the Acer and it actually seemed to keep up with me in my new, rather fun, yet nauseating spinning test. So, unsurprisingly, the day-to-day performance was on par with the others. For the most part the tablet was snappy, but there was some slight lag when I had a number of applications running.
That said, apps opened quickly for the most part and a local p video played back without incident. Flash sites were a bit flaky to load, but once the dust settled, the tablet had no problem mustering up the strength to play videos in the browser.
The latter one is particularly useful and it blends beautifully with the Ice wallpaper. Speaking of that background, it took a while for me to realize, but the water level actually lowers as the battery does. Sadly, the novelty wore off a few hours in when I started to notice it slowing things down. The biggest adjustment ASUS made is to the onscreen keyboard.
On top of those, ASUS has preloaded the following apps to, you know, enhance the Honeycomb experience. This has a similar look, but getting useful content was much easier. Asus has gone with the standard Included is Bluetooth V2. GPS is included in the Eee Pad, however, according to the official specs. The TF comes equipped with a 5 megapixel rear camera and a 1. Compared to other tablets, the TF produces too warm a picture red tone that doesn't quite reproduce the feeling of the scene being photographed.
You're mostly likely better off with a compact digital camera, with which—thanks to the MicroSD card reader on the tablet—you can quickly transfer pictures over onto the Eee Pad Transformer. Practically for pocket change, you might have to get an SD-to-MicroSD adapter for your pocket camera.
The Eee Tab Transformer will be available with and without the keyboard dock included. There's also, of course, the option of buying the dock at a later time—but the price of the dock alone is unknown as of now. Purchasing the keyboard dock separately, however, will likely bring the total cost up higher.
So, what does the keyboard docking station add to the Eee Pad TF? Each of the batteries—the one in the dock and the one built into the tablet itself—has a capacity of Asus, however, claims only an increase from 9. The dock is connected to an electrical outlet via the docking connector port, identical to the power connector found on the tablet itself which is however occupied when docked. The screen supports multi-touch gestures but doesn't respond to any ordinary pen or pointer because it relies on electrical feedback coming from your fingertips.
As already discussed in our extensive tablet comparison , it's common for tablets not to register swipes across large parts of the screen the first time around, making it sometimes necessary to repeat the motion. The Apple iPad is a bit more responsive in this regard, however. Nevertheless, the Transformer TF is quite sensitive to the touch and responds rather well. The virtual keyboard layout s available include one from Asus, which differs from the standard Android layout in that it includes a fifth row with numbers.
Naturally, the Asus layout therefore takes up more vertical space on the screen than the Android layout. What's more, the 19x11 mm keys are a good deal wider—albeit "stumpier"—than the 15x13 mm standard.
The numbers in the top row of the virtual keyboard are, of course, very convenient. It's a bit irritating, however, that you have to switch to the secondary layout to be able to hit the " " button. We felt rather unencumbered in typing on the virtual keyboard and didn't even have to resort to using the pre-installed Swype function. Whether Swype will come pre-installed on consumer models of the Eee Pad Transformer is unclear, though. Those kranking out essay after essay, answering an endless stream of emails or chatting through all hours of the night will likely find themselves more comfortable with the docking station keyboard.
In this case, it's best to go for the all-inclusive tablet-and-dock package. The Eee Tab Transformer is fully equipped with an accelerometer , a tilt sensor and a digital compass.
The tablet can therefore respond to changes in position and orientation—handy for lots of applications. The sensors responded quite well in games we played on the tablet, the only complaint we have would be with the Android screens, especially when adjusting the orientation from landscape to portrait or vice versa.
When the screen contents shift here, it looks rather choppy and really could have been configured to look smoother—this should be attributed to the coding of the operating system itself and does not reflect the potential of the hardware in place. The resolution of x pixels is pretty standard for tablets of this form factor.
The aspect ratio of makes it a good deal more horizontal pixels to work with landscape view than the Apple iPad x, Still, at a brightness distribution value of The maximum screen contrast of is far above average for notebooks but just below average for tablets black level 0.
It has a track pad with "mouse buttons," just as you'd find on a laptop. It also contains an extra battery that charges the tablet's battery, two USB ports for connecting peripherals and a slot for SD memory cards, used in most digital cameras. I tested the battery life by playing a high-definition video over and over again, with the screen set to medium brightness. I got a respectable nine hours from the tablet alone and 13 hours with the keyboard attached.
That compares with 10 hours for the iPad 2. The screen uses the same technology as the iPad's, making it easy to read from any angle and in any orientation.
It is slightly larger than the iPad's and has a slightly higher resolution. The Transformer has two cameras, as we expect from this year's tablets. The picture quality is so-so but more than adequate for videoconferencing through Google Talk. Of course, you could get an iPad and an accessory keyboard instead. There are good reasons for doing so -- I'll talk more about the software below -- but let's stick for the moment to discussing what's good about the Transformer.
The iPad doesn't make any particular accommodation for a keyboard.
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