Asus Transformer

Whilst I enjoyed watching the demonstration videos I wanted more info about what people were actually saying about the product. Amazon is a great place to buy from but it also has one of the best review systems from customers who have purchased products. I always check the review section whenever I buy something regardless of whether I actually make the purchase from Amazon or not. When I decided to buy my asus eee pad transformer there were around 300 reviews, 160 of which were 5 star ratings, and 70 of which were 4 star ratings. This was pretty significant.





These were just a few of the great reviews I read. This many people cant be wrong I thought to myself.

For me the iPad2 is an amazing device but its just so limiting in terms of what you can do.

The iPad2 Has No File System
There is no file system on the iPad2 which means you can't really browse files or easily save them. With the asus eee pad transformer you have a file system similar to that of a PC which means you can download things and actually find them really easily.



The iPad2 Has No USB Support
The Asus Transformer Dock has two USB ports. This means I can easily transfer files from my pc using a USB data storage key. It also means I can attach USB based devices such as a mouse and a keyboard.

The iPad2 Has No Micro SD Support
The Asus Transformer has a micro SD card slot on the tablet and an SD card slot on the dock which means you can essentially upgrade your systems storage by an extra 32GB or whatever the current maximum SD storage capacity is. This means you can also transfer files from your computer to the transformer without the need for any software.

The iPad2 Has No Flash Support
The iPad2 doesn't support flash which in my opinion has always been a real pain. I browse plenty of sites that require flash, usually videos. This isn't a problem for the asus tablet because it fully supports flash. A quick download of a free app means you can be playing flash based games or watching flash videos in no time.

The iPad2 Doesn't have HDMI Output
Asus eee pad transformer does have mini HDMI output which means if you have an HDMi compatible TV you can plug the asus in and watch films, pictures and other media.

I was really close to buying a Motorola Xoom because I had read some excellent reviews. Before I made any purchases I decided to spend quite a bit of time in different forums. This is a great way to get a feel for whats really going on after the initial excitement of a purchase wears off.



Poor Customer Support
One thing that kept getting repeated over and over was that the customer support was really poor with Motorola. I have no experience of this directly but it made me reconsider buying a Xoom tablet. People seemed to complain that they never responded to questions or that it took ages for a faulty device to be replaced.

Split Markets
Motorola seemed to be providing Google Experience Devices to just their US customers. What this means is that Motorola dont put any of their own software on the device or 'bloat ware' as its commonly known. Many European customers were complaining that the European versions of the Xoom suffered with Motorola specific software. I think people living outide of the US were just annoyed that they weren't getting the same treatment as their US counterparts.

Asus Provide Useful Software
Interestingly the Asus tablet does have Asus specific software that people seemed to be raving about. The living desktop ice cube background was one such feature that people love. It also cleverly acts as a battery level indicator.



Asus Productivity Apps As Standard
Polaris office also comes as standard which allows you to edit Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and Power Point presentations. This for me was an excellent feature straight out of the box.

Asus Optional keyboard Dock
The dock is not only an great addition to the tablet which makes it seem more like a netbook but it also enhances the overall battery life. Combine it with the tablet and you have yourself around 16 hours worth of power.

Asus Just Seemed To be doing Things Right
The general feel I got from hanging out in Asus specific forums was that people were really happy with the efforts Asus have made. Customer support was rated really highly and updates and bug fixes seemed to be pushed out regularly.

Interestingly the opposite seemed to be true in the Motorola forums.

Well its been a month since I purchased my tablet and I have been really impressed with it. My Mum has the first generation iPad and my brother the iPad2 and whilst they are both nice they simply don't compare to the Asus Transformer. The Android operating system packs so much more flexibility than Apples' iOS. It offers me the ability to be far more productive and it just feels familiar, almost like a PC with its excellent flash support, USB slots and file system.



I always thought I would buy and iPad and I can honestly say I'm glad I didn't. As an extra thing, one of my computer nerd buddies at work told me Asus apparently provide a lot of hardware to Apple. I don't know if that's true but it made me smile.