Asus Pad Is A Split Personality Tablet: First Look

The well-equipped professional would typically have a laptop for serious work, a netbook for mobility, and a tablet for show and for occasions where browsing and display work is more important than typing. Asus has been thinking seriously about this and believes it has come up with a suitable way to reduce the portability burden without reducing the functionality.

The Eee Pad Transformer is a slate-style tablet with a detachable keyboard – which is one rather dull way to describe it. From another perspective it is a netbook with a detachable screen that acts as an independent tablet – currently, a unique approach that makes the system suitable for business travellers.

Splitting – The Difference

When closed, the system looks like a 10-inch netbook and the screen is protected by the lid. Throwing it on the back seat of the car and burying it under a pile of other things is not recommended but, if it happens, the screen is safe. Even so, the screen is made of tough, scratch-resistant Gorilla glass – so it would appear that Asus has gone for belt and braces protection.

The keyboard is a docking station with supplementary features. Although the slate section carries a mini-HDMI television connector, microSD memory card slot and a combined headphone and external microphone socket, the keyboard docking station contains two USB ports for connecting extra storage or other peripherals, and a touchpad as an alternative navigation aid when the screen is attached.

The dock also has its own battery so the slate’s internal battery, which Asus claims has a 9.5 hour life, is boosted to 16 hours in docking mode. The dock, which doubles as a charger, can also provide mains power if the batteries are run down during an extra-busy day.

The final physical features of the slate is a front-facing 1.2 Megapixel camera which combines with the internal microphone for video conferencing. On the back is a 5 Megapixel auto-focusing camera to give clean, sharp, full-screen images on the 10-inch display. HD movie sound and music can be played back over the stereo speakers or through headphones.

Internally, the Transformer is just as impressive. It has one gigabyte of user memory and either 16GB or 32GB storage. This can be increased by adding memory in either the on-board microSD slot or on the dock’s USB ports or standard SD slot.

Tucked inside are also a range of sensors. A G-sensor (or accelerometer), a light sensor, gyroscope, e-compass and a GPS. Although the system only has Wi-Fi or bluetooth connectivity, an optional 3G module will be available later, Asus has promised.

Packing Twin-Core Power

Compute power is supplied by a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor which easily copes with the Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) operating system and the 10-finger multi-touch screen. The display is responsive with a 1280×800 pixel display

Naturally, as market-leader, the iPad will be the measuring stick for any review of the system.

As far as the “First Look” experience is concerned, the Transformer seems to be a worthy competitor. The slates will be on sale from April 6 when they will be priced at £379 (16GB) and £429 (32GB). The iPad 2 equivalents cost £399 and £479 respectively.

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