Asus eee Transformer Android 3.0 Honeycomb, is the anti iPad 2 tablet ?
After the comparison iPad 2 vs netbook, here it is the comparison with the new tablet from asus, the EEE Transformer with 10" display.
The default qwerty keyboard has a quite strange layout
This hands-on is focused mainly to the web experience and the features supported.
Hardware Specs
- Tegra 2
- display 10.1" @ 1280x800
- 16gb internal SSD
- 1gb ram
- HDMI port and microsd card reader
Materials
It's a unique body of a plastic, keeping it in hands it feels solid and quite light. Just creaks a bit on one side near the speakers.
Web standards
It has the score of 218 in html5test.com website, but it had a problem with webfonts. Codecs, webgl, accelerometers,.. in the browser are still unavailable.
Speed and stability
It's very fast, 700 points at the google v8 suite v5 benchmark, more than the iPad 2. Anyway it completly crashed with a tab containing a css 3d demo (hakim slides e.g. are rendered with acceleration but not centered)
File uploader in web browser
This feature which should be provider by Android 3.0 seems still broken. At least on imageshack.us (wrong file selected)
Price
EEE Transformer 399€, 499€ with external keyboard and 3g connection (not avalaible yet, probably Q4)
Conclusion
It's a good start, it's responsive and powerful and.. Yes it's comparable alternative to the iPad 2, specially if you don't care about the App Store but you care about the Apple lock-in.