[Q] (request) ASUS Eee Transformer section

Asus Transformer section coming this week!

Would we consider adding a forum for the Transformer? Seems like a lot of potential with that tablet...

edit...
does anyone know how many +1s it takes for a forum?

Visual360 said:

Thanks for the quick reply. I Have my xoom, and really loving it, but I'm just not too happy with the screen especially next to my iPad.

Thank you again, will wait patiently. LOL.

Oh, one thing I like about the xoom is the built quality, and the smaller bezel. What's your opinion on the built quality of the transformer?

thx!

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Build quality is pretty good. It is plastic on the "outer" bezel on the front and the whole back, so if you can hold it just right there is a tiny bit of give (which doesn't bother me - give means if it bounces off concrete it won't bend/break as easily as something with 0 give at all). The outer rim is metal, which gives it nice strength.

The whole thing feels really well built, everything lines up nicely and if milimeter perfect.

The screen can be read outside - I was able to read it in direct sunlight, although it wasn't too easy (it was much better than trying on my nexus one though). Out of direct sunlight it's great (although you may need to turn the brightness up manually as auto brightness isn't as bright as I would like).

One note on the speakers as it was something I was concerned about - the grills are on the side which means they can be covered easily - no problem though as teh speakers are more than good enough and I can't hear a difference between me covering the grills or not. The extra bezel on the sides which are plastic are really useful as you can hold the tablet just holding those bits, helping avoid any smudges on the glass part of the screen.

pics are here! (I've missed one side as i can't get it to focus - it's just a speaker grill, volume rocker and power button - there are plenty of good pics online).

Sorry for the blurryness of the pics, wanted to get these up quick so no time to find my tripod...

stuntdouble said:

A few more points people might find interesting or want to know.

-The pad is detected in windows just like any mass storage device, so allows normal drag and drop, as well as the syncing with the asus software.
-The charging cable isn't very long but it's long enough (about 1m).
-It doesnt feel as heavy as I was expecting... its not light... just not heavy either.
-Really dont like the default keyboard. This is just personal taste issue. It still functions fine. And is easy enough to change it.
-The screen is 'sticky'. Not sure if it's just me sweating, or just some sort of alcohol solution that needs to evaporate more or something after peeling off the protective coverings.
-Runs 720p/1080p flawlessly.
-Doesn't seem to trickle charge via usb cable.
-Came with a 25% charge.
-Sound quality via speakers is pretty good.
-Camera quality isnt bad. Not nearly as bad as I was expecting after seeing human_errors shots earlier. Ill post a closeup pic. (edit: no i wont, cant find a place to upload full file to with max quality)

Have the same problem as human_error with the mynet app in Spanish. =/

I'd load into the bootloader if I knew of any way to reset the device afterwards, because I dont want to open it up and invalidate the warranty removing the battery. Any suggestions?

Added pic of the default keyboard.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Haven't had too much time to play with it cos I had to go to work )) but agree about the screen, it is a little sticky, but I've been playing with it for about an hour now and the responsiveness seems to be getting better. My initial thoughts on the Transformer/Honeycomb:

- just on an aesthetic level, love the copper colour/styling of the device, gives it a unique look that distinguishes it from the other tablets out there.

- agree about the keyboard, not a big fan of it, particularly the backspace key, and it does feel a little laggy, in fact all the keyboards feel a bit laggy at the moment, maybe I need to reboot or try another keyboard. I've signed up for the new Swiftkey beta (split keyboard for tablets) so I'm hoping to try that out soon.

- Actually feels lighter and thinner than the ipad (first generation) to me, though obviously it is wider given the aspect ration. It feels more natural to hold it in landscape mode than portrait mode.

- love, love the Gmail app, the Gallery (automatically populated with Picasa pics), the customisable homescreens, the system of notifications, these all blow the ipad out of the water.

- tried out a few apps that came from my phone, most of them seem to scale reasonably well though there are obviously spaces where they don't take advantage of the bigger screen. Seesmic (Twitter), Kindle, Mobisle Notes all seem to work fine. Words with Friends though is pretty dreadful and there are some issues with BBC iplayer as well (basically there doesn't seem to be any way to actually play the shows)

- the screen really is gorgeous, much better than the ipad screen, so much crisper. However, it really is a fingerprint magnet, only being using it for a few hours and its already pretty smudgy

- the Tegra 2 works its magic, for the most part the OS zips along opening and closing stuff, having things going on in the background. Very little lag.

- the browser is awesome, much closer to the desktop Chrome than any phone/tablet browser I've tried so far.

- navigating round the OS is not quite as intuitive as using the ipad, but I suppose that's the price you pay for having more control i'll learn.

- overall, really, really happy with the device. I still have my ipad and I was going to weigh up the two devices to see which one to keep, but I think I'm going to keep the Transformer, having all that Google/Android love in one place just makes it a much more compelling device for me. Time to sell the ipad to pay for the damn thing now!

Will update with more thoughts later.

Thought I'd let everyone know the microSD slot is in full working order. Just took the mixrosd card out my phone , put it in the transformer and it was able to read it fine. The sdcard location in the OS is the on-board storage, but at a higher level there is a 'removable' directory which contains the micro SD card info.

Now we can go tease the xoom users about the working microSD slot

**edit**

If anyone still doesn't believe me there are pics here: http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=12732915&postcount=185. It works for read and write too.

Sent from my Nexus One using XDA Premium App