ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 21, 2011 4:00 AM ESTMore than Meets the Eye
Alongside the original iPad, Apple sold a keyboard dock for users who wanted to do a lot of typing on their new tablet. The keyboard dock turned the iPad into a mini iMac running iOS. What the iPad keyboard dock lacked however was a pointing device—all navigation still had to be done via the touch screen. As Apple has correctly pointed out in the past, the notebook usage model doesn't work very well if you have to keep reaching across your keyboard to touch the screen.
ASUS expands on the idea of a keyboard dock with the Eee Pad Transformer dock. The $149 add-on adds not only a keyboard, but a trackpad and integrated 24.4Wh battery (the same size as the unit in the Eee Pad itself). You are getting a lot for your money, but given how cheap the Eee Pad is, a $149 accessory will always be a tough sell.
The dock is made of two pieces—a half metal/half plastic base and an all metal hinge that houses the dock connector. Simply slide the Eee Pad into the hinge, lining up the dock connector and its two latches, and press into place to dock the unit. If you do it correctly you'll hear a nice click as both latches grab on to the Eee Pad. There's a silver eject slider switch for removing the Eee Pad from the dock.
When you dock the Eee Pad two things happen. The dock immediately starts charging the tablet as soon as its battery life drops below 100%. Only after the dock's battery has been exhausted will the tablet's internal battery begin discharging. Note that even on tablet power alone, the dock's keyboard and trackpad will continue to work.
Android isn't aware that there's a second battery at work here, and sometimes this dock-charging-the-tablet process trips up the battery status indicator in Honeycomb as you can see from the screengrab below:
Confusing the battery status indicator aside, the dock works as expected as a giant external battery. You do get some indication of battery discharge on the dock itself through a blinking LED, however what it really needs is either a software reporting mechanism or a string of LEDs to accurately communicate how much power you have left on the dock.
Charging works the same way. Plug the dock in and it'll charge itself then the tablet. There's enough current drawn to charge both the dock and tablet in tandem so you'll actually feed both, although the dock will charge quicker.
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Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Device synergy is exactly why windows is a must for me. I write all sorts of apps, macros, and scripts that help me get **** done fast and efficient. I can draw a note on my screen, take a screenshot of that note, upload it, get a shortened url for it, and send that url to the computer in my bedroom (and make it automatically open up in its browser) all in a few keystrokes. There aint no way you are ever going to be able to do half of that with an iCRAP or an android. And even if you could, why reinvent the wheel? I did not spend hours writing custom visual C programs and autohotkey scripts just to turn around and be asked to set up all new stuff for some little piece of junk fad. If it cant run my stuff it is useless to me.Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Let's say you have a desktop, a notebook, and a tablet. All have windows and all have a dropbox mapped to drive S: So I create files called "linkshareMain.txt","linkshareTablet.txt", etc. And on each device I have running in the background a program that reads those files parses out urls and opens each url in a new browser tab. So if I want to send this article to my notebook I just click on my desktop shortcut called "linkshare Notebook.txt" and paste http://www.anandtech.com/show/4277/asus-eee-pad-tr... and then save&close. Soon as my notebook is awake it gets that link and opens it and deletes that link from the file.I can also do the same thing using email. I just have a program that parses through all incoming email searching for keywords like: launch_urls_nb625: and then it treats all following lines of text as urls and opens them. Can also launch other programs, load pdf files, play videos, etc. So if I am at work and I want to read this article when I get home I just send myself an email saying launch_urls_main625: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4277/asus-eee-pad-tr... and this article comes up as soon as I wake my computer.
It is fairly easy to set this kind of stuff up, and I will not migrate to a new OS or architecture unless they give me, the end user, this kind of control.
leonzio666 - Friday, April 22, 2011 - link
Hey, could you please specify what program reads and parses the text file in the background? I find this method of yours very interesting and would like to give it a try.seapeople - Sunday, April 24, 2011 - link
Wow, if I want to transfer links between computers I would just bookmark it and Xmarks does the rest. That's like one click.But it's good that you know how to do all that stuff the hard way; we'll need people like you if the internet breaks.
Shadowmaster625 - Monday, April 25, 2011 - link
Yeah well when you deal with a lot of news articles and all sorts of random stuff, bookmarks quickly become impracticle. I have seen many a bookmarks/favorites page that will scroll down for miles and miles. I find that sort of thing unacceptable. I never bookmark a page I will most likely only visit once.jnmfox - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Sounds like a character from Wall-Edaoist - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Anand,Sorry to be pedantic about this, but everyone is really worried.
Can you confirm that the GPS hardware works without wifi connected?
Does the GPS turn on and get a signal even if your wifi is off?
I understand that some apps (e.g. Google Maps) require a Wifi Connection to receive *data*, but does the Transformer require wifi to be connected to receive *GPS* signal?
Could you download a GPS app which doesn't need data (GPS Status works) and confirm it works? https://market.android.com/details?id=com.eclipsim...
Thanks for the in-depth review and for putting up with the GPS nonsense :)
daoist - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
That is, use GPS status with the Wifi Off, I meant. :)lobo4123 - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
I'd like to see IR transmitters integrated into tablets and cellphones. They may be archaic, but it would be nice to be able to use an android device as a universal remote.flashbacck - Thursday, April 21, 2011 - link
Are the performance issues in honeycomb something that needs to be fixed with quad core processors? I feel like that's throwing raw horsepower at a problem that should be fixed with better programming.