Asus Eee Pad Transformer (tablet/laptop hybrid) first impressions and ongoing review


Prometheus

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Today, I have taken delivery of an Asus Eee Pad Transformer - a tablet computer running Android 3.0 (a.k.a. "Honeycomb"), which in some configurations (such as the one I purchased) is supplied with a hinged dock which transforms it into a 10"-sized laptop. I'm writing up my first impressions here, and intend to continue to write them over the course of the coming week, as I use the hardware and software more.


I went for this machine in particular, because I wanted something that was a bit more flexible than just a tablet (whilst still able to act as one on occasions where that's all I need), and as a means to take another step into switching over to ARM-based computers, since x86, most of the time, is overkill (and runs too hot) for the vast majority of my requirements.


My impressions of the hardware are good - it's very solid, and the laptop half has a good keyboard (it's of the "Scrabble-tile" variety, which I understand some folks don't get on well with, but I do fine with this type of keyboard, myself - I'm already almost up to my full typing speed after only a couple of hours with it). Both the tablet and keyboard halves have a nicely-textured surface, and feel quite "grippy", which I appreciate, as it makes it clear that plenty of thought went into this aspect of the design.


The keyboard half has two USB ports (both behind neat little doors of the very same sort that the Nintendo 3DS and DSi use to shield their SD Card slot), and a full-sized SD Card slot (to supplement the microSD slot on the tablet part of the unit), which comes with one of those neat little plastic "blanks" to keep dust out. When shutting the lid whilst docked, the screen goes off, just as it would on any other laptop.


The screen, a capactive one which apparently has very tough glass, is pretty responsive, although it's not as good for dragging items around (something which seems to be needed often on this device) as a resistive touch-screen is. This half of the device has a decent heft to it, but at the same time, it isn't too heavy - it feels substantial, and not at all flimsy, and it isn't ridiculously thin, which I was glad of.


All in all, this aspect of it is much, much better than the last Asus hardware that I used, which was the (in my view and experience, somewhat shonky) original EeePC 4G model. This feels like it will last, and even though the screen is meant for poking, prodding, and swiping with your fingers, this doesn't really seem to show much when you're using it in laptop form.


The software, however, has not made such a good first impression on me. If I had to describe Android in its current form in one word, it would be "unintuitive". From the very first moment with it, it has mostly been that.


When I first powered the unit on, I was greeted with a language select screen, bearing a drop-down list and a button with which to proceed, and nothing else. Trying to scroll down the list, by moving my finger down it, did nothing. It took several seconds before I clicked my mind into trying to move the list down by moving it upwards (which is a very counterintuitive way to move *down* a list), and this worked. Not a great start. It was responsive enough, at least, though. Unfortunately, this counterintuitiveness continued, and has not yet abated during my time with the machine so far. (As a side-note, according to some reviews, this scrolling weirdness also occurred when using the trackpad on the dock part, but this has been fixed on the retail units, and the trackpad behaves as it does on any other laptop.)


The next issue I encountered was that during the setup process, you cannot join a wireless network with a hidden SSID - you can only do this by skipping this step during setup, and trying to find the cryptically-hidden settings dialogue in order to join it once the initial setup is completed. Thankfully, once the option is found (and it's not intuitive to find it, since Android, or at least "Honeycomb", seems to rely quite a lot on expecting you to know exactly what obscure pictograms mean in order to navigate through it's interface), getting connected is very easy indeed.


It's bizarre how some parts of the interface - not surprisingly, the ones that don't stray from the established norms that almost all other systems, both desktop and portable, use - are quite simple and intuitive, but the ones that seem to have had effort put into "simplifying" them are not intuitive at all. It doesn't feel very cohesive to me, at all.


The next niggles I came across, I have yet to solve.


1: The desktop backgrounds that I prepared for the device, which are all sized at what is advertised as the native resolution for this machine (1280x800) are displayed massively zoomed-in, and the OS insists on me cropping them - which it then promptly ignores anyway, and simply crops to a spot vaguely close to what I actually set.


2: There is no option to stop the very annoying auto-suggest feature in the web browser, nor any way (when docked) of stopping the down and right arrows from hopping across all of the buttons present on a web-page if you happen to press down or right when on the last line of text you are writing in a text-entry box.


3: There seems to be no shortcut for hopping between tabs when using the keyboard.


4: If you accidentally press the back button (which is annoying mapped to the right-click on the keyboard dock), there doesn't seem to be any way of going forwards again - this caused the loss of the almost-completed original text of this review, and caused me to add this problem to the list during my re-write.


5: The icons in the Gmail app. They make no sense whatsoever, and there is no text to help clear up the mystery that they represent - I have never seen a worse interface (and I still remember how bad the early-2000s version of The GIMP was!). Why is an angry alien face the icon for "Mark as Spam"? I appreciate that this face is probably meant to resemble the Android mascot character, but even with this in mind, it doesn't make any sense either. Gmail's web interface is MUCH better than this, and I'm very disappointed to see that it hasn't been retained here.


6: Once I type a few words in a text-box, the cursor appears to be a space ahead of where it actually should be, making it look as though spaces have been typed which are not actually there.


7: The irritating message informing me about Automatic Google Sign-in taking place *every single time* I open a new tab in the web-browser. I cannot see a way of turning this off, short of turning off that whole feature, which I don't want to do.


8: When using the keyboard, standard shortcuts for certain operations (for example, Cut, and Paste - Copy is as you would expect, though) are either not used or simply do not exist at all. (When trying to move parts of this review around, what was pasted was not what I copied at all, and all of the spaces were stripped out of it - moreover, what was pasted was something that was deleted earlier, instead of what was actually copied.)


9: The typing lag. Why is a 1.1GHz machine lagging, and sometimes briefly hanging, when typing and navigating text-boxes? (This baffles me, incidentally, in light of how responsive everything else generally is.)


All of that said, I'm sure that as I get used to Android and its nuances, I'll get on better with it. *That* said, this is far from the intuitive and polished OS that Joe Everyday can use without trouble that I was led to believe Android already is - it seems to me that it's got quite a way to go before it's that polished, yet (although for an OS this young, I suppose that it is alright). It's at least good enough that I do already want to see how much better it will become, though. (I must say that I'm glad that this isn't the stock OS on the Pandora - I can't imagine it being in any way practical on there, given the issues I've come across, and given the fact that it clearly works a little bit closer to coherently when using the tablet half on its own.)


These are my impressions so far, after a few hours of use. I'll continue to add to this thread (although if there are any replies, I'll do so in new posts, rather than editing the parent-post) in order to add more impressions over the course of the coming week, as I get more used to using this alien new system.


If anyone has any questions about the device, I'll do my best to answer. :p
 
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What Google Android OS does it have?


I just bought a Xperia Play with the newest Android OS = Gingersnap.


I had a Android phone when they first came about and I remember there was not a way to disable type suggestion.


Maybe that has changed. I know that occurs on my new Xperia. However, you may ignore it and nothing is put into your sentence automatically.


That was not the case prior.


Oh Yeah,


Congratulations on your purchase. :)
 
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Yeah, that review seems to sum up what I've been thinking about Android laptops. It's a phones OS so it's not really suited to a proper computer environment. Also hackman, Android 2.3 is Gingerbread not Gingersnap.
 
What Google Android OS does it have?
3.0, or, "Honeycomb" - it's the tablet-specific version, and I'm guessing it's tweaked a bit for bigger screens, compared to "Gingerbread" (this is my first time using Android, so I haven't used any of the telephone versions). Apparently the next one, "Ice Cream Sandwich" will unify the telephone and tablet versions.

Congratulations on your purchase. :)
Thanks. :)

Yeah, that review seems to sum up what I've been thinking about Android laptops. It's a phones OS so it's not really suited to a proper computer environment.
I must say that I can't imagine this on a telephone, either. But then, I don't need a mobile telephone (and if I did, nothing on the market would satisfy my requirements of only making telephone calls and possibly sending text messages, *nothing else* - nobody wants my business), so I don't have much of a frame of reference. :lol:
 
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Yeah, that review seems to sum up what I've been thinking about Android laptops. It's a phones OS so it's not really suited to a proper computer environment. Also hackman, Android 2.3 is Gingerbread not Gingersnap.
oh snap i mean't bread :blink:
 
Now I want both a gingersnap and some gingerbread. :lol: Thanks, chaps.
 
Now I want both a gingersnap and some gingerbread. :lol: Thanks, chaps.
Now i have a sweet tooth!!


Your welcome.


Anything with the auto -word -type thing? [auto suggest]??
 
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I haven't found a way to stop it from auto-suggesting websites yet, unfortunately. (It's not even suggesting things I've entered - it's just been suggesting random junk since I first started using it. :lol: )


I do have some more thoughts already, though;


I had heard that the OS installation on the Eee Pad is mostly stock, and not much customised by Asus. I was reminded of this when an update for one of the system apps rolled in, and I was quite happy to see that.


The reason I'm happy about that is because, back with the original EeePC, Asus opted to create a very customised version of a little-used Linux distribution that very few know of or use, and even fewer care about (Xandros). It was so hacked-up that your only real option for updates was the official ones, which often caused problems and rendered the system unbootable due to the way that Asus had set up the system. It's refreshing to see that they've learned from that mistake, and have left their Android setup mostly stock, except for adding a few apps of their own to it.
 
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I haven't found a way to stop it from auto-suggesting websites yet, unfortunately. (It's not even suggesting things I've entered - it's just been suggesting random junk since I first started using it. :lol: )


I do have some more thoughts already, though;


I had heard that the OS installation on the Eee Pad is mostly stock, and not much customised by Asus. I was reminded of this when an update for one of the system apps rolled in, and I was quite happy to see that.


The reason I'm happy about that is because, back with the original EeePC, Asus opted to create a very customised version of a little-used Linux distribution that very few know of or use, and even fewer care about (Xandros). It was so hacked-up that your only real option for updates was the official ones, which often caused problems and rendered the system unbootable due to the way that Asus had set up the system. It's refreshing to see that they've learned from that mistake, and have left their Android setup mostly stock, except for adding a few apps of their own to it.
Perhaps at the Android shop [green shopping basket icon] you might find an app to correct this.??


Just type in what you want to find. Maybe it will be a free app??


There is such a variety there.
 
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The lighting was impressive.


when things speeded up the frame rate got a bit choppy.


But that was just a prototype so I am sure things will even get better.


quad core!!! ...in a phone....MAN I bet these toys are going to get real hot in the hand after playing a bit.


Hope the battery life is good.


I think Sony's new handheld named VITA is going to be quad core.


I don't know if you remember when DOOM 3 came out for PC many years ago [6 -7 years].


That game set the benchmark for dynamic lighting.


Even today that game still looks great.


Thanks Sony.
 
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I return with further thoughts. :p


Now that I'm getting more used to Android and its nuances, I'm having great fun with this machine, and my frustration is mostly disappearing.


On a bright note, I discovered that the input-lag is not system-wide - it only applies to the stock browser, and seemingly only on certain websites (unfortunately, this one included). This doesn't exactly make it a good thing, but it's not dragging down my impressions of the system as a whole anymore.


I installed a few things from the Android Market app - this worked *really* well, and was very quick and intuitive. The problematic Gmail app needs to be brought up to this standard!


Firefox Mobile (of which there is a Pandora port, by its earlier name of "Fennec") works excellently on this machine. I wasnt expecting to like it, because when I tried it on the Pandora, I felt that it was unresponsive and difficult to use, and ended up hating it. However, on a device with a capacitive touch-screen, which Firefox Mobile is clearly designed for, it's quick, responsive, and presents a very fluid experience. I don't like the way that it automatically zooms in on text-boxes, though - that's a bit annoying, and there's no option to stop it from doing this.


Angry Birds is brilliant, and I'm quite addicted to it right now. I feel sorry for those few people out there who think that having fun with something like this is beneath them, because it's one of the best arcade-style titles that I've played in years - if not ever.


Lastly, the aptly-titled Comic Reader is an absolute must-have if you read multiple daily comic strips, and would like to keep up with them in one place. You set it to pull in your favourite comics, and then it lists these by name in the main part of the app - after that, you just have to tap the name in order to read today's strip. Moreover, you can navigate through past comics by simply swiping the screen to move back (or forward, as the case may be if you've gone further back). It's the best daily comics reader that I've ever encountered, and it works excellently.


I have encountered two more mior niggles, though.


Firstly, not all applications are closed in the same way - many use the back button located in the lower-left corner of the touch-screen, or the equivalent key located in the top-right corner of the keyboard half, in order to exit, but some apps use this in order to cycle back through visited pages, etc.. Android is clearly not as unified in its interfaces as I've seen claimed. I don't mind the lack of unification myself, but when some folks claim that all software for it is completely unified and interface-standards-driven, the fact that it actually isn't really jumps out at you.


The other one is that a firmware update which took place last night removed the ability to use any standard copying/pasting shortcuts in the stock browser *at all*, and which also implemented some very strange behaviour whereby text-entry boxes keep leaping and sticking several lines or paragraphs back up (as though someone keeps clicking elsewhere, even though this is not what is occurring) for no reason whatsoever. Accordingly, half of this post was written blind, with the text-entry box jumping up and down as if someone had fed it too much sugar. For that reason, I'm going to have to cut off this post here and write up the rest of my thoughts later - this is a massive flaw.
 
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I return with further thoughts. :p


Now that I'm getting more used to Android and its nuances, I'm having great fun with this machine, and my frustration is mostly disappearing.


On a bright note, I discovered that the input-lag is not system-wide - it only applies to the stock browser, and seemingly only on certain websites (unfortunately, this one included). This doesn't exactly make it a good thing, but it's not dragging down my impressions of the system as a whole anymore.


I installed a few things from the Android Market app - this worked *really* well, and was very quick and intuitive. The problematic Gmail app needs to be brought up to this standard!


Firefox Mobile (of which there is a Pandora port, by its earlier name of "Fennec") works excellently on this machine. I wasnt expecting to like it, because when I tried it on the Pandora, I felt that it was unresponsive and difficult to use, and ended up hating it. However, on a device with a capacitive touch-screen, which Firefox Mobile is clearly designed for, it's quick, responsive, and presents a very fluid experience. I don't like the way that it automatically zooms in on text-boxes, though - that's a bit annoying, and there's no option to stop it from doing this.


Angry Birds is brilliant, and I'm quite addicted to it right now. I feel sorry for those few people out there who think that having fun with something like this is beneath them, because it's one of the best arcade-style titles that I've played in years - if not ever.


Lastly, the aptly-titled Comic Reader is an absolute must-have if you read multiple daily comic strips, and would like to keep up with them in one place. You set it to pull in your favourite comics, and then it lists these by name in the main part of the app - after that, you just have to tap the name in order to read today's strip. Moreover, you can navigate through past comics by simply swiping the screen to move back (or forward, as the case may be if you've gone further back). It's the best daily comics reader that I've ever encountered, and it works excellently.


I have encountered two more mior niggles, though.


Firstly, not all applications are closed in the same way - many use the back button located in the lower-left corner of the touch-screen, or the equivalent key located in the top-right corner of the keyboard half, in order to exit, but some apps use this in order to cycle back through visited pages, etc.. Android is clearly not as unified in its interfaces as I've seen claimed. I don't mind the lack of unification myself, but when some folks claim that all software for it is completely unified and interface-standards-driven, the fact that it actually isn't really jumps out at you.


The other one is that a firmware update which took place last night removed the ability to use any standard copying/pasting shortcuts in the stock browser *at all*, and which also implemented some very strange behaviour whereby text-entry boxes keep leaping and sticking several lines or paragraphs back up (as though someone keeps clicking elsewhere, even though this is not what is occurring) for no reason whatsoever. Accordingly, half of this post was written blind, with the text-entry box jumping up and down as if someone had fed it too much sugar. For that reason, I'm going to have to cut off this post here and write up the rest of my thoughts later - this is a massive flaw.
I have auto updates disabled. I never update untill I read the buzz around the web.


Glad you are enjoying it.


Maybe you will show it to me one day?...pics of course. ;)
 
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Firstly, not all applications are closed in the same way - many use the back button located in the lower-left corner of the touch-screen, or the equivalent key located in the top-right corner of the keyboard half, in order to exit, but some apps use this in order to cycle back through visited pages, etc.. Android is clearly not as unified in its interfaces as I've seen claimed. I don't mind the lack of unification myself, but when some folks claim that all software for it is completely unified and interface-standards-driven, the fact that it actually isn't really jumps out at you.

Android's memory management is thoroughly misunderstood by the public and frequently bad advice is given to this end in the form of task killers. Android works like Linux in that programs do not release their memory once they've closed unless the OS needs the memory, at which point the Android saves whatever state the program is in and claims the memory for another application. If you come back to that application, the state is restored and the end user is none the wiser.


This is why some apps have an actual "exit" function, but not all do. It's not required.


Using task killers upsets the natural order and leads to system instability in the long run. Task killers should only be used when an app is hanging. The much, much better way to keep your RAM free is to tweak some settings in the OS itself. There's some setting for the minimum amount of free RAM at all times. I know that certain custom ROM devs - like Peter Alfonso (Bugless Beast) - tweak this and also there are applications that will set this value for you.


This method has worked way better for me on my Motorola Droid than using task killers.
 
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^ Dave, I'm a bit confused. I wasn't talking about memory management, and I had no idea that task killers were even available. :lol: I was purely referring to interface oddness - I found with some of the apps I've come across so far that don't exit the same as others, they close when the Home button is pressed instead of the usual one. It's no big deal, I just expected everything to be unified because I've heard a few people say that. :p


I'm on a machine without the strange text-box behaviour now, so I'll pick up where I left off before;


The firmware update that I mentioned earlier also clarified the desktop background situation, and it makes much more sense to me now. It seems that in spite of the native resolution, Android zooms backgrounds in, and pans across them when you flip through the workspaces. Accordingly, it prefers backgrounds - and the crop area - to be square. The update changed the cropping lines, to add a rectangle where the actual screen area will be, so that what you crop to is what you will actually see.


One thing I forgot to mention yesterday is that even though Flash 10.2 support is very heavily advertised, it is not pre-installed. Instead, you're prompted to install it yourself, and the Android Market app is opened for you at the right place, so that you can do so. This was quick and easy - the Market really is a joy to use.


Flash itself works very well. It's clearly been decently optimised for this hardware, as it runs about as well as it does on my main workhorse (which is a dual-core 1.6GHz x86 ThinkPad, with a not-too-great integrated graphics chipset).


I have found myself unable to find a simple text editor, though (and as far as I can tell, there isn't one on-board). I do all of my writing in plain Mousepad on my Linux systems, but have yet to find an equivalent for Android (the best-looking one I found can only handle text files up to 1MB, which isn't enough for my needs). Accordingly, I took a good look at one of the Asus-provided (but not Asus-coded) built-in apps, Polaris Office. It's responsive, and its interface is very good - it's all very obvious, and very low-fuss. It works excellently, although unfortunately it only saves written work in .doc format, which will make it a bit inconvenient when I want to move the documents I create on the Eee Pad around.


One odd thing I've noticed: Most of the built-in applications do not have any help files, but a handful do. Annoyingly, the irritating, counterintuitive ones do not, and they're the ones that need it the most.


Also, I got to use the Transformer in quite bright sunlight today. I ditched the laptop half for this, for quickness, and it worked rather well. It's a bit difficult to see, because the bright light really shows up all those fingerprints, but otherwise it's not too bad. I guess I'll have to start carrying a cloth, or some glasses cleaning wipes, with me for occasions like this. It got on well with my "MiFi" 3G modem when I took it out and about, too. (I also noticed, in the sunlight, that the casing is actually a very deep brown colour, instead of the greyish black that it looks like indoors, which is a change from the norm. :p )


Shutting down, sleeping, and waking are all damn near instant, which is quite a change from the machine that this hybrid has succeeded (my MacBook, which will now be repurposed as a secondary desktop machine), which takes quite a while to do any of those things. This was one of the other reasons I wanted to move to a device like this, and it hasn't disappointed me here. Booting up (if you happen to have a need to shut it down at some point) is also pretty quick - it seems to be about the same as the Pandora, if not a tiny bit longer.


Unlocking the screen after sleeping was a little bit non-obvious the first time I saw it, but I got used to it pretty quickly. Basically, you have to drag an icon of a padlock onto an icon of an unlocked padlock (which is located to the right of the locked padlock icon), which then unlocks the screen. I was pleasantly surprised by how good of an idea this is, as well as how convenient it is, because I've already had one instance where I accidentally woke it up but wouldn't have wanted to accidentally press anything. Major points for this - it's very well-implemented. (Upon looking later, I found that there are other unlocking methods that you can set up, including a passcode, or having to follow a pattern on-screen. For now, I think I'll stick with this method, which is labelled in the OS by the misspelled name of "Unsecure", but I'll probably set up a passcode once I start taking it out and about more.)


It must sound a bit like I'm still feeling a bit negative towards Android, at this point, incidentally, but as I mentioned earlier, that's quickly fading. With the initial problems out of the way, it's now becoming great fun to use, and there's something very intuitive about scrolling through pages with your fingers, as if flipping through paperwork or a book, and about tapping links with your finger. I even do this when the laptop half is docked, which feels familiar to me as I sometimes use my Pandora in this fashion.


The only other niggle I've encountered so far is not the fault of Android, and that's that a few apps I've downloaded stay at mobile telephone size and behave strangely. That said, I know that Honeycomb is very new, so I was already prepared for that, and, on the bright side, that's only happened to me once or twice - everything else I've grabbed has adapted just fine to being used on a tablet. It certainly is good to have yet another OS option, and especially one which certain companies would have a harder time discouraging hardware manufacturers from offering, as has happened before (indeed, I never bought another piece of Asus hardware after the EeePC because they stopped offering what I actually wanted, but now they have very much regained my business).


That concludes my thoughts for day two. :p
 
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Well since you are totally ignoring me, I hope you drop it. :p


Tablets are great for fingerprint ID's and are still less powerful then a good laptop.


I am sure my smartphone can do everything and more than your tablet.


Good luck using in the sunlight , that is if you ever get out of that wheelchair.
 
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well since you are ignoring me,,i hope you drop the thing in the bathtub.
My apologies, I'm not sure I know what you're talking about?


EDIT;

Well since you are totally ignoring me, I hope you drop it. :p


Tablets are great for fingerprint ID's and are still less powerful then a good laptop.


I am sure my smartphone can do everything and more than your tablet.


Good luck using in the sunlight , that is if you ever get out of that wheelchair.
Or there, either, I'm afraid!
 
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nobody cares about your common tablet.


do you understand that??!!
 
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