Now that Docks are arriving, what are your impressions?

[Blairware]

Coming from a TF101 OG Transformer, I was concerned that the dock would be perhaps not up to my expectations, considering the thinner design. For starters, it was only offering a single USB port, to the two on the OG Transformer, and while the first version was reasonable to type on (and hugely better than ANY soft keyboard) the new one was described as having less key travel, and and while no reviewer seemed to have major issues, and I wasn't seeing glowing reports either.

I just got my dock, less than 10 minutes ago, I and I am typing this on it right now, and and for me, and if not for everyone, it BLOWS AWAY the OG Dock. First and foremost is how it is to type on. It issignificantly better for me, and the two fingers tango I do. I am not a touch typist, in spite of 20 + yeaars in IT and support. I have to look at the keyboard, but let me just say the they keys and the travel? They could have been designed by a German engineering firm, for a BMW or Mercedes. They feel awesome! Even with the lag we see on web applications (same as OG, though FW revisons almost completely eliminted it, I suspect ICS will squash any remaining lag, coupled with the right build from ASUS.

Apart from typing, the design? I am glad it doesn't have to do any wireless, cause its aluminum back and front LOL, and looks like a billion bucks. Closed, the TP feels like a solid chunk of aluminum, and I mean SOLID. The touch pad is terrific, I LOVE the way they eliminated the "buttons" in favor of a dividing line, and in spite of it's obvious relationship to the OG, this is better in every way. I was a bit worried, but not anymore. I give this thing a 9.5 score out of ten.

For peope on the fence about getting the dock, run, don't walk to the thread that explains how to get these in a few days from Best Buy, using OMS. The DOCK ROCKS!!!

Curious to see how folks coming to the Prime as first Tablet, or replacing something other than the OG Transformer feel about the dock. What does everyone else think?

NOTE: For those that missed it, don't forget to take out the plastic tabs at the base of the tablet screen, they MUST be removed before placing it in the dock. Also, if you are feeling a slight current "buzz" when touching the metal lightly, unplucg the power supply from the wall, and turn it upside down (so the word "Asus" is upside down. This is the only workaround I m aware of for the issue.

Lastly, can asus get rid of the goofy notification that says

"Docking connected. Use Keyboard to type words" ​

I know what they are trying to say, I.E. Don't use the soft keyboard (duh) what do they think we would use the KB for than to type words? As a $150 back scratcher? Really unnecessary notification.

 

[soulctcher]

I actually received my dock a week before my tablet. Both were ordered from BB back a couple days after the first pre-orders showed up on their site. (You had to go hunting to find the dock, but it was there.)

I've got zero problems with the dock or the tablet in daily use. I would agree that the notification should either be eliminated or at least be allowed to be closed. The extra battery life it provides the tablet is fantastic. The key travel isn't that bad; I expected worse.

My only peeve is I wish the right shift was wide like the left. I find myself hitting the damn up arrow every once in awhile by accident.

 

[tdp252]

Love it

The battery life when coupled with the dock is practically an eternity.

I also really like the Android specific hot-keys. ASUS did a great job picking the common actions and making them into a hot-key. I can tap a button to instantly get into "settings" as one example. It's just amazing.

With the introduction of the following three features this really becomes an enterprise class solution for mobile computing:

1) ICS support of VPN IPSec Groups
2) Ability to encrypt hard drive contents. (no not bootloader, user data)
3) Fully functional Keyboard

Who needs to carry a bulky laptop at that point. I could do almost all of my business travel with this thing and then ditch the keyboard when I get home.

 

[theoilman]

don't have mine yet. how is it for those of us who ARE touch typists?

(I see my dad going at it with 2 fingers, but he grew up before PCs. I don't get how anyone under 40 isn't a touch typist these days!)

 

[soulctcher]

don't have mine yet. how is it for those of us who ARE touch typists?

(I see my dad going at it with 2 fingers, but he grew up before PCs. I don't get how anyone under 40 isn't a touch typist these days!)

I know what you mean, but I'm under 40 and can touch type over 60 wpm in the best conditions.

I have rather large hands for a keyboard that small and as I mentioned, the only key that bugs is the right shift. Everything else is pretty good.

 

[jfortier777]

I want to know what happened to the low range speaker they said was going to be in the dock...

I was kind of looking forward to it.

 

[theoilman]

I know what you mean, but I'm under 40 and can touch type over 60 wpm in the best conditions.

I have rather large hands for a keyboard that small and as I mentioned, the only key that bugs is the right shift. Everything else is pretty good.

ok good to hear. I almost always use the left shift anyway.

 

[Magnesus]

It was only a rumor. And such solution would probably be hard to create because you shouldn't connect audio equipement "live" - you would have to turn off the audio amplifier in the tablet before connecting / disconnecting the dock to avoid surge (is it a good word? dictionary was not helpful...). Unless the speaker had it's own amplifier, hm...

 

[monkeydog]

Got my dock a few days ago and I love it. The keyboard is a little cramped but after 5 to 10 minutes of use you'll be adjusted to it and typing as though it is a regular sized keyboard. Also I discovered that ctrl + V actually pastes! I haven't found any other common shortcuts like that, if anyone knows any please post them. ctrl + f unfortunately doesn't start a browser word find but you can just hit the option list and start one up pretty easily.

The battery life is amazing. I spent about 6 non stop hours yesterday listening to pandora with a bluetooth headset while constantly browsing reddit and chatting on windows live messenger through the beejive app. At the end of the 6 hours my tablet still had 75% battery left but the dock was completely used up.

This is how the dock battery works... when your tablet reaches 70% charge the dock will begin relaying power to the tablet and recharge it up to 98% or so. Once there the dock will stop relaying power and wait until the tablet falls to 70% and repeat the process until the dock is dead.

 

[wynand32]

It was only a rumor. And such solution would probably be hard to create because you shouldn't connect audio equipement "live" - you would have to turn off the audio amplifier in the tablet before connecting / disconnecting the dock to avoid surge (is it a good word? dictionary was not helpful...). Unless the speaker had it's own amplifier, hm...

Actually, the subwoofer wasn't just a rumor. I have it on good authority (very good, in fact) that there was going to be a subwoofer in the dock but that it was dropped prior to release. No reason why, but maybe this surge issue (or something else, of course) was the reason.

It was listed on some marketing materials at launch, and then dropped pretty quickly. Many sites still listed the incorrect specs, however, and so the idea lived on for awhile.

---------- Post added at 02:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:11 PM ----------

This is how the dock battery works... when your tablet reaches 70% charge the dock will begin relaying power to the tablet and recharge it up to 98% or so. Once there the dock will stop relaying power and wait until the tablet falls to 70% and repeat the process until the dock is dead.

Thanks for that clarification, I was wondering. I kind of like how the TF101 dock works, by keeping the tablet topped off at 100% until it runs out. I wonder what their reasoning is...

 

[HuskerWebhead]

I'm pretty happy with the dock. Certainly much thinner and lighter than the TF101. The only thing I wish they would have kept from the original was the covers for the USB port. Instead of the nifty little cover that snaps back in place there is a rubber stopper. It's petty to be sure, but I have a touch of OCD.

 

[demandarin]

have any of you tested out the USB host capabilities yet? what are things you hooked up and found to work instantLy? has anyone hooked up a wireless controller by putting receiving piece in USB port? I just want to know what kinds of things are possible with dock USB host capabilities. like what's the most device you hooked up to USB hub connected to prime dock and still worked without external power source needed.

 

[jptech]

don't have mine yet. how is it for those of us who ARE touch typists?

(I see my dad going at it with 2 fingers, but he grew up before PCs. I don't get how anyone under 40 isn't a touch typist these days!)

and how!

I learned to touch type to argue on irc when I was in high school like, uh, 16 years ago. I can't imagine an IT pro not touch typing. It makes you look dumb in the same way as when you meet a scientist who sounds like a hillbilly.

---------- Post added at 06:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:04 PM ----------

have any of you tested out the USB host capabilities yet? what are things you hooked up and found to work instantLy? has anyone hooked up a wireless controller by putting receiving piece in USB port? I just want to know what kinds of things are possible with dock USB host capabilities. like what's the most device you hooked up to USB hub connected to prime dock and still worked without external power source needed.

when I get mine, I'm gonna test my DWA-130 usb N adapter.

also gonna test my logitech unifying adapter and my g330 usb headset.

 

[aimfire72]

Got mine today, ordered from NewEgg on 1/3. Only played with it for a few minutes, but first thing I noticed is, the build quality of the trackpad is a little shoddy. It doesn't feel real solid in there, when I do a single tap in the main area it makes a little creak sound and pushes in a tiny bit. Also the paint around the edges of the trackpad looked a little scuffed in some spots - not a big deal, but kinda lame. Otherwise the dock is fine.

Anyone else have a slight creak when tapping in the main area or is it just mine? Maybe I'm just spoiled by Apple's trackpads, lol

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

 

[slugbug2010]

The damn thing is beautiful, beyond what I expected, far easier and more "natural" to use than I thought it would be, a match made in heaven for the tablet, when closed makes me feel like my tablet is safer and more secure, and doesn't seem like I've added any weight or thickness at all to what I already had.

me likes

I've been a little obsessed with keeping the Prime safe from scratches and now it seems like I have one big scratch magnet, so they are currently bundled together and wrapped in a very soft micro-fleece towel. I was using a sleeve from the OG for the tablet and that worked just fine but doesn't accommodate the addition of the dock at all. I'll be much much happier when I can find the perfect case/sleeve for them both to live in.

 

[aimfire72]

OK, played with it for about an hour now...
Overall I like it, but the trackpad is kind of junky, think netbook quality, feels cheap. It doesn't always register the two-finger scrolls, maybe partly because your fingers have to be about 1 inch apart. I remember the OG tf101 trackpad is the same way, it's too bad Asus didn't really improve on it.

Then again, I'm a Mac user, Apple's track pads are the best out there, so maybe it's not fair to compare, lol.

The keyboard itself does feel nice though, keys have plenty of travel to them. Found a few weird quirks though, using the YouTube app, the search field doesn't seem to recognize the space bar, so I couldn't enter spaces into my search queries. It works in the browser fine though. Also 2-finger scrolling doesn't seem to work in Opera browser, all it does is zoom in on the page. Works fine in Dolphin HD though.

Really looking forward to the ICS update next week, will be interesting to see if Asus also releases a dock firmware update as well.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

 

[Bimboy]

Keyboard dock is great, except for three minor issues for me:

- the right shift key is my default shift, for the way that I type. It's not in the usual position and it is tiny. So, I constantly hit the page up button by mistake when intending to make a cap letter. Biggest issue for me.
- you have to remember to disable the touchpad when typing most things. My thumb dangling over the spacebar would inadvertantly hit the pad, and change my cursor position while typing.
- there's not easy way to open the closed/docked TFP. The front seam is tightly closed. I'm sure I will get used to opening from the side though.

Other than that, I've gotten use to the slightly smaller key layout already, and I have decent sized hands.

Build quality is great, not scuff, as others mentioned had mentioned they had. The front by the trackpad is so thin, it's almost sharp though. I've also not had issues with reboots when docking/undocking, as another person mentioned. I did get a firmware update for the dock though.. dunno is that made a difference.

Highly recommended though. Very nice piece of kit.


Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using xda premium

 

[techjunkie9194]

The battery life when coupled with the dock is practically an eternity.

I also really like the Android specific hot-keys. ASUS did a great job picking the common actions and making them into a hot-key. I can tap a button to instantly get into "settings" as one example. It's just amazing.

With the introduction of the following three features this really becomes an enterprise class solution for mobile computing:

1) ICS support of VPN IPSec Groups
2) Ability to encrypt hard drive contents. (no not bootloader, user data)
3) Fully functional Keyboard

Who needs to carry a bulky laptop at that point. I could do almost all of my business travel with this thing and then ditch the keyboard when I get home.

VPN IPSec Groups tops my list. Just baffles me that this is even an issue. You would think it would be in both Google and Cisco's best interests.

Is the encryption located under Location and Security in settings different than what your after?

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk

 

[BongoBong]

Keyboard dock is great, except for three minor issues for me:

- the right shift key is my default shift, for the way that I type. It's not in the usual position and it is tiny. So, I constantly hit the page up button by mistake when intending to make a cap letter. Biggest issue for me.
- you have to remember to disable the touchpad when typing most things. My thumb dangling over the spacebar would inadvertantly hit the pad, and change my cursor position while typing.
- there's not easy way to open the closed/docked TFP. The front seam is tightly closed. I'm sure I will get used to opening from the side though.

Hopefully the left shift is decent. I only use the left!

I wonder if it's possible for them to implement an auto disable of the trackpad when typing? That would definitely be nice as opposed to having to do it manually all the time.

 

[Deltaechoe]

I got the dock on order from bestbuy (never knew about getting them to do "OMS orders"), I'll have mine in a week. Time to get my little dvorak stickers, I personally HATE typing on the touchscreen, even on the phone I don't like it that much (ICS voice typing saved my life in that case). Anyway, type slowly and lose a lot of screen real estate or type over 100 wpm and have better battery life and a full size usb seems like a no brainer to me.

Also, for people who are not touch typists, using a software keyboard isn't going to help you get past that much. Just don't look at the keyboard when you are typing and before long you will be able to type with your eyes closed and still even detect the mistakes you might make