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Asus Eee Pad Transformer hits U.S. on April 26 for $399
The Asus Eee Pad Transformer will be officially arriving to the U.S. on April 26. Priced at $399 for the 16GB Wi-Fi only model, the Honeycomb tablet is one of the first to offer a 10.1-inch display while also meaningfully undercutting Apple's $499 price for the iPad 2 -- not the mention the Motorola Xoom, which starts at $599. That alone may be enough to make it worth considering if you are looking for an Android tablet, but spec-wise the Eee Pad is no slouch either.
It has a 10-inch 1280×800 IPS Gorilla Glass capacitive touchscreen display, a 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 5MP rear and 1.2MP front cameras, a Micro SD expansion slot and HDMI out. You'll also find speakers and audio jacks, USB 2.0, 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity, as well as a G-sensor, light sensor, gyroscope, e-compass, and Asus' "Waveshare" interface to stream media, buy books and access cloud storage.
However, the real differentiator is that the Eee Pad Transformer comes accompanied by an optional chiclet-style keyboard dock that essentially transforms the device into a netbook. Besides making the device much more convenient to type on and handle productivity tasks, it also extends battery from around 9.5 hours to 16 hours.
The dock will add an extra $150 to the cost, though, meaning the cheapest you could walk away for the whole part tablet and part Android netbook experience is $550. It may not be as powerful as a full-fledged notebook but it'll be interesting to see if the form factor catches on and how it will affect the netbook/ultra portable laptop market in the next few years.
AnandTech has posted a review of the tablet. A 32GB version of the Transformer will also be available for $499, and a 3G version will be released later this summer. Acer is also offering an aggressively priced tablet of its own; the 10.1-inch Iconia Tab A500 recently went on sale at Best Buy for $450 and sports comparative specs all around.
It has a 10-inch 1280×800 IPS Gorilla Glass capacitive touchscreen display, a 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 5MP rear and 1.2MP front cameras, a Micro SD expansion slot and HDMI out. You'll also find speakers and audio jacks, USB 2.0, 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity, as well as a G-sensor, light sensor, gyroscope, e-compass, and Asus' "Waveshare" interface to stream media, buy books and access cloud storage.
However, the real differentiator is that the Eee Pad Transformer comes accompanied by an optional chiclet-style keyboard dock that essentially transforms the device into a netbook. Besides making the device much more convenient to type on and handle productivity tasks, it also extends battery from around 9.5 hours to 16 hours.
The dock will add an extra $150 to the cost, though, meaning the cheapest you could walk away for the whole part tablet and part Android netbook experience is $550. It may not be as powerful as a full-fledged notebook but it'll be interesting to see if the form factor catches on and how it will affect the netbook/ultra portable laptop market in the next few years.
AnandTech has posted a review of the tablet. A 32GB version of the Transformer will also be available for $499, and a 3G version will be released later this summer. Acer is also offering an aggressively priced tablet of its own; the 10.1-inch Iconia Tab A500 recently went on sale at Best Buy for $450 and sports comparative specs all around.
User Comments: 11
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Wagan8r said:
THIS, is the tablet to get! The more I see of it, the more I want to get it. I just wish the keyboard wasn't an extra $150, but even getting the tablet alone is by far the best deal out there. I'm so happy that ASUS isn't being a douche with their pricing like the other companies.
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OOOOO GORILLLA GLASSES!!!
This is definitely what I just wanted to add into my collection!
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Trillionsin said:
bushwhacker said:OOOOO GORILLLA GLASSES!!!
This is definitely what I just wanted to add into my collection!
lol wat?
So, this does seem like the tablet I've been looking for as well. Has a RJ45 port! Dual-core.
Would be willing to pay more for a 1.5Ghz dual core, but eh... slight difference
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totaly agree
but im waiting on the Asus Slider
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trillionsin said:bushwhacker said:
OOOOO GORILLLA GLASSES!!!
This is definitely what I just wanted to add into my collection!
lol wat?
So, this does seem like the tablet I've been looking for as well. Has a RJ45 port! Dual-core.
Would be willing to pay more for a 1.5Ghz dual core, but eh... slight difference
On normal use, there's virtually no discernible difference between a 1GHz and a Tegra processor (except on processing benchmarks, of course). Much less between a 1 GHz dual-core and a 1.5 GHZ dual-core. Paying more for a one more gigahertz --especially since there's neither native nor third-party applications that use that processing power to that extent-- is just dumb.
This tablet I think hit the sweet spot. $350 would have looked a lot better, but $400 for the specs is a great deal if you compare it to the competitors. The detachable keyboard is a complete rip off though; how can a keyboard, semi-extendable battery cost about 40% of what the actual tablet costs? Ridiculous. That thing should cost 50-80 tops. Good thing it's optional though...
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Hm. I might be in the market for a notebook in the fall, this might make a tempting alternative, especially if they address the little bugs mentioned with firmware updates.
I'm sure there will be a slew of tablet releases when Windows 8 drops, but a girl can't wait forever.
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Wagan8r said:lawfer said:
On normal use, there's virtually no discernible difference between a 1GHz and a Tegra processor (except on processing benchmarks, of course). Much less between a 1 GHz dual-core and a 1.5 GHZ dual-core. Paying more for a one more gigahertz --especially since there's neither native nor third-party applications that use that processing power to that extent-- is just dumb.
This tablet I think hit the sweet spot. $350 would have looked a lot better, but $400 for the specs is a great deal if you compare it to the competitors. The detachable keyboard is a complete rip off though; how can a keyboard, semi-extendable battery cost about 40% of what the actual tablet costs? Ridiculous. That thing should cost 50-80 tops. Good thing it's optional though...
Most of that price is in battery costs. The keyboard dock has the same battery as the tablet. I agree though that $50-$80 would have been a sweet price.
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I like the hardware specs... nice big display, IPS panel, higher resolution than most other tablets... looks good. Price is decent as well, i'll be checking this out if it shows up at BestBuy.
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150 for a keyboard/dock a tad steep there.Ya the 50-80 seems about right.
But I like that tablet and the specs are good.The price is right on.
Hey Motorola this is the price area you should be selling some of your tablets at!.
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No usb host capability or bluetooth is kind of a bummer, but this is one interesting device. You folks whining about the keyboard/dock can relax. Chinese knockoffs are already in production, rest assured.
The price point is still a little high since you can get a dual-core Tegra tablet that runs gingerbread-based roms (and hopefully before long, HC) in the Viewsonic G-tablet for under $300 lately. Great perfomer and can be overclocked to 1.4 and tons of energetic support at xda-developers.com.
Add USB host and drop the price to around $350 and I would buy this.
Or I may just get the Acer Iconia A500, which justifies its $450 price with the same specs, but adding BlueTooth and GPS. You can then use a cheaper BT keyboard (less than $50) and a mouse (HDMI-out into a big LCD makes it a smoking home media PC.)
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Can these latest round of android tablets navigate a 'home' windows network and open a media file? I find that to be the biggest limiting factor with my Doid X.
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