ASUS Eee Pad Transformer TF101-A1 10.1-Inch Tablet Computer (Tablet Only)

 

 

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Been using this pad for 4 days now and I'm loving it. Here are my thoughts regarding several aspect of the device.

Things to note:
1. Price: $400 is freaking amazing! I never bought an iPad or similar device because of the price. I almost did several times but I could never justify it due to the price. I wanted 64gb but there's no way I'm going to shell out 800+ for it. Companies pushing their entry level devices for $500 and up to $800+ for their higher level device are crazy. Yes, they will sell to folks who can afford it (or think they can afford it) but they are not the majority. There are so many of us riding the fence because justify spending that much money. At $400, the decision to buy is a lot easier.

2. Display: The screen is amazingly clear and crisp. No eye strains whatsoever watching 720p movies. Lots of online reviewers stated that the display is fantastic and I completely agree with them.

3. Horse Power: Playing 720p movies with no stutter or tearing. I haven't tried 1080p yet because I don't have a large enough micro SD card. My brother reported that he got bad stutters running 720p when he tested it but we attributed that to his slow micro SD card. I've also read some reviews online regarding stutters; however they were unclear on what media software being used or whether they were running the movies off the main memory, micro SD or streaming from their PC. I'm using RockPlayer and there is no trace of any stuttering.

Moving icons around or flipping screen is a bit slower than my brother's iPad. Nothing detrimental or annoying though considering the difference is only a fraction of a second. Since the Android desktop is way more complex than Apple's desktop of simple icons, I'm going to forgive Android for being a smidge slower.

4. Battery: It's good. Exactly as they claim. I use it sporadically all day and it still has enough juice to run a movie before bed. Plug it in for the night and it's good to go for morning. Recharging speed is fast too. Two or three hours is good to top it up. The only thing that I'm still concern about is how long the battery life span. Apple is really good with their devices because their battery last forever. I'm hoping that the eee's battery can still hold its charge after a couple of years. If not then I'm hoping that the battery can be replaced easily. I guess I'll know in a year or so.

5. Flash: I'm loving that I can run flash in a browser. Most flash games are playable except for ones requiring a mouse pointer. Some buttons in flash games/app are really hard to press especially the ones along the bottom of the screen. Many times, I end up pressing the home button by mistake and accidentally ending my game. Boo. I suspect this is a software issue so it's not really a negative for the pad. Once the software is polished, I'm sure these minor issues will go away. To avoid the problem, changing screen orientation resolves the matter.

6. Expandable Ram: I popped in 16gb micro SD at a cost of $30. When I get the keyboard, I'll pop in another 32gb for a combine total of 64gb. Total price will be about $620. It's still 200 less than an iPad2 64gb and I have a keyboard with backup battery and 2 usb ports. Going back to what I said about not being able to afford $500+. In this case, I have the 'choice' to upgrade when I want to upgrade the storage. It's easier to spend $400 now, then $30 6 months later for the extra ram instead of being forced into a static 16gb, 32gb or 64gb for a ridiculous amount.

7. Body Construction: The body is fairly solid but not as solid as the iPad. It does seem like the body will 'give' as they say if you twist and bend it with some force. Since I'm not intending to use this device as a hockey stick or a football. After all this is a fragile high tech electronic device and I intend to treat it as such. Some may complain about the back not being metal but I prefer the hard plastic textured finish. You have a good grip on the darn thing. I don't like the smooth metal back because I've accidentally thrown my iTouch across the room a few times because the damn thing is so slippery.

8. Software: I keep hearing how Apple will always rule because of its gigantic list of apps. Going into this, I didn't think this would be a problem because most staple apps will be available (i.e. Browser, Picture viewers, music player, movie player, and others). I use these staple appls %90 of the time. Yes, Apple has 30 billion apps but do we really need 50 thousand apps that do the same thing? There are a lot of garbage apps in iTunes so volume doesn't really mean quality. I was actually surprised at the number of apps for Android. I went in thinking there would be a dozen or so useful apps. To my delight there are already thousands. To make things even better, there are tons of free apps. Angry Bird is free! So far, I've been able to fill up the last %10 useful apps that I needed for free! I got dozens of free games, book readers, file managers, media players, RDP applications, browsers, etc... What more can a boy ask for? I'm sure I'll need more but if it's useful, someone will replicate it across platforms. They did with Angry Bird so that makes me happy.

This Asus pad comes specifically with MyCloud, MyNet and MyLibrary. I can't get MyNet to see my network due to my evil router. Supposedly it allows you to access all your musics, photos and videos on every device that it finds in your house. I'm sure it'll be cool once I exorcise the demon from my router. MyLibrary is a nice little book manager and reader. Simple enough. MyCloud is my favorite. It contains several nice features but the one of interest is "My Desktop". With it I can remote control any PC in the house. Setup took not time at all on each machine. It requires you to select a password and reboot each pc once. On the pad, I enter the IP address and password of each machine and done. You can play a movie remotely on your PC and it will show up (with sound) on your eee pad. I played some movies and the quality is actually pretty good on the pad. There is a slight delay and the video is a bit fuzzy due to the resizing of the screen so that it would fit on the eee's display. I can probably play games on my pc via the pad too. Haven't tried but can't see why it wouldn't work as long as the game is in window mode. With this setup and the keyboard, I can easily do work from the eee pad.

9. Multitasking: Awesome! There's a little virtual button on the lower left side that will show you the last 5 running applications. With that you can flip back and forth between applications. I can chat with my bro over IM while running several apps at the same time. There is a taskbar showing the time, battery life, running apps, SD, temperature, home button, back button, multitasking button, menu button. Any android device will have this; however I'm getting it for $200 less the Xoom.

CONS:
1. Camera: It's not really good. Too grainy and motion is blurry. I tried video conferencing with my brother. My picture looks a lot cleaner than his since he was using a macbook with an older built in cam. Even then both his and my video weren't bad. It was completely viewable. Lots of people harp on this shortcoming but I don't get it. I didn't buy this pad to take pictures or movies. I have my Canon T2i for that. Same reason why I didn't buy my car for its awesome professional recording studio sound system. It's a car. It does a lot of things but primarily it's a tool that successfully takes me from point A to point B every time.

2. The edges are shape and can cause your hands to hurt after holding it up for awhile. I thought my brother was being prissy when he told me this but after using it for awhile, I have to agree with him. I'm hoping that someone will release a slip cover that will make this problem moot.

3. Weight: It weights about the same as the iPad2 which in my opinion is still a little bit too heavy. It appears light at first but you will get arm fatigue after awhile. This isn't really a negative for this device specifically. Every tablets will have this issue with the exception of the Playbook (which is much smaller) but you're losing a lot of screen space. If they can lower the weight to exactly a pound, it would be perfect.

4. Glitchy software: Shocker, eh? After using it for awhile, the pad slows down a bit. I just do a force reboot and everything is fine again. This is an Android OS issue and nothing really about this pad. I suspect you'll get the same result from other Android OS devices until the OS has a chance to mature. Some times when flipping applications from landscape to portrait (and back), the application flip but does not scale appropriately. It appears to be half flipped and totally not usable. This only occurred for specific applications so it may just be problems with the app or the OS and not really anything about the pad.

5. Short recharge cable makes it impossible to use while recharging. This appears to be a proprietary cable because USB extension cables will not work. Tried several to no avail.

6. Power button is right next to the volume buttons. I wish it was up top away from the volume buttons. I turned it off %50 of the time when adjusting volume.

7. Accessory shortage: Besides the keyboard, I'm not seeing any cool slick accessories. The pad covers shown here are butt ugly and over priced. $40 for a ugly simple cover that comes in black or pink? Seriously? $50 for the other cover that can turn into a stand (similar to the iPad2). It looks useful but bulky and ugly compared to the simplistic and refined cover for the iPad2. More accessories, please!

Overall Impression:
There isn't anything that would make you not want to buy it. Most shortcoming is due to the Android OS... Read more ›

très bonne tablette sauf pour les haut-parleurs pour le reste je suis épaté.
Les applications android sont nombreuse et souvent gratuite.
la camera est bonne mais pas de flash a l'interieur pas tres beau.

Considering the only difference between the Prime and the TF101 is a quad core and dual core, the specs are basically the same. This was an awesome buy. It works perfect, games run smoother as do apps. Depending how you hold the tablet it may hurt your fingers (pinky used to brace the bottom), edges can seem sharp but all in all it's a very good product. Some people have complained about the weight, the thing is so light I can't understand what the complaints are about.

The dock is crucial in my opinion, especially for the USB port and the extended battery life. My transformer has replaced my old laptop.

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1.0 out of 5 stars terrible buy
After turning the device ON it started updating to the newest version of Android: Ice Cream Sandwich ... big mistake. Read more

Published 10 days ago by Die

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Tablet for the money
An device as good as an iPad or iPad 2, that costs less money, that runs Flash.

Relence's review is entirely correct on the specifications. Read more

Published 14 days ago by Mark Cazakoff

5.0 out of 5 stars LOVE IT!
I absolutely love my Eee Pad! I'm addicted to it - can't put it down. Picture is great, performance is great. It's well protected with the case and screen protectors. Read more

Published 2 months ago by supernatural lover

1.0 out of 5 stars Y'a t'il un pilote dans l'avion ?
J'ai passé ma commande le 19 jan 2012, le 31 jan 2012 je contacte Amazone car mon article n'était pas encore expédié, le 2 février 2012, pas de... Read more

Published 3 months ago by Pelbe3

1.0 out of 5 stars Broke after 1 month
I bought the Asus EEE Transformer in august. After one month, the battery stop charging. Service support was not able to repair it and i'm stuck with a broken tablet after 750. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Frederic

5.0 out of 5 stars What an amazing Tablet !
Everything is just perfect about this Tablet, especially Honeycomb. And it work well with the superior hardware on impressive package. Just love it.

Published 8 months ago by Karrar Mohamed

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not the one.
I like this tablet. I bought it after cracking the screen on my beloved Archos A101it.
Overall it's very good, but lacking some areas that I was used to with my A101
-... Read more

Published 8 months ago by S. Walker

5.0 out of 5 stars ASUS Transformer TF 101
I've had the Transformer for a few days and I'm really enjoying it. I put some music and some photos on it from my desktop computer. Read more

Published 11 months ago by Tinkerer

1.0 out of 5 stars we've cancelled your order for this item
(Vous trouverez la version frangaise de ce courriel au bas de la page.)

Hello,

We're contacting you about order #xxx-xxxxxxx-xxxxxxx. Read more

Published 12 months ago by Bin Qian

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