Asus EeePad Transformer TF101 10.1 inch Tablet PC (nVidia Tegra2 1GHz, 1Gb, 16Gb eMMC, WLAN, BT 3.0, Android 3.0)

I have had my eee pad Transformer now for 3 weeks. Even now I am discovering new things it can do. I have never had an iPad but at least one iPad owner has looked at my Transformer with some envy. But I get ahead of myself.

The box arrived (smaller than I expected) with the device and a charger plus magic cable and a couple of very slim instruction leaflets. There is no protective sleeve or case at all and this is the first extra you need to buy. The Transformer looks good and feels solid and well made.

I turned the Transformer on and it took about 30 sec for me to connect it to my WiFi. Then it basically said "hang on a sec, looks like I need to upgrade my OS" so while I made a cup of tea it upgraded to Android 3.1. The battery fully charges using the supplied charger in an hour or so. I have found I need to charge it every couple of days.

The screen resolution and brightness is extremely good; 1280*800; I can easily read a full page magazine without zooming. The screen aspect ratio is about 16*9 so it fits widescreen TV perfectly. I can connect to external HD video via wifi and play full screen. I get a few hesitations with BBC iPlayer but other sources (say Nasa TV HD or YouTube) are better.

The screen security has a cool feature - you can program a scribble pattern (join the dots) instead of a PIN or password.

The supplied software is good except the MS Office emulation Apps probably need a few tweaks. Having said that, ppt slides look beautiful and with the addition of an HDMI cable, (mini HDMI for the eee Pad end) you can project on a HDMI beamer or TV. That works really well. Adobe reader for Android is also available and works well. Email app is very good too.

Heard all that drivel about there being fewer "Apps" available for Android? One good reason for this is that you don't need so many. The browser on the Transformer runs Flash so all those web sites that you need to download "Apps" for (I call them clients) just run as if you were at a laptop.

Tired of all that tap-typing on a screen? Well you can use the verbal search. Tap the mic symbol then you say what you want to look for and off it goes to Google and pulls back the results in the browser window. As you can imagine the recognition accuracy is patchy but it surprised me how well it did work.

Mapping/location/GPS software is fantastic and very responsive to pinch zoom and rotate. Not used the front and back cameras much yet so can't really comment on those.

I have added a 16GB microSD card but I have no idea how I am going to use a total of 48GB.

The media player was OK but I found a better one in the Android App Store. Kindle is great and text pin sharp. Zinio is a fantastic magazine reader on Android but the magazines you can get are limited (applies to all platforms).

Plug the magic cable in and you can connect to USB port on a PC where your eee Pad appears as a normal drive (two if you have the microSD plugged in). Great for transferring stuff between laptop and Pad. Also has wireless desktop so you can configure you PC so that you can run it from your Transformer over local Wifi - the PC desktop appears on your Transformer screen and you move the mouse pointer with your finger. Apparently you can get this to work over the Interweb too but I haven't tried this yet.

In summary, it is a long time since I have been as delighted as I have with this product. This box is the thing that makes me think that we don't need paper any more. And, if I get the docking keyboard, the laptop may be in big trouble too.
On the negative side: Not QUITE as responsive to pinch and taps as iPad; Polaris Office apps need more work. Will recharge from PC USB but only when powered down.
On the positive side: Everything else.
Can't comment on: Cameras, playing games.

I can highly recommend the Asus Transformer. It is my second tablet, after the Advent Vega, and it is one of the new generation of tablets that run Google's tablet OS (Honeycomb).

The first thing to point out is the appearance and build quality of the device. It looks great and feels great. It is also the most robust tablet currently available, with a subtly rubberised rear and a gorilla glass front. This baby will take a lot of punishment. In spite of this, it has a sleek look to it. It's very slim and light and the screen is simply outstanding. Battery life is fantastic; expect to get 6-8 hours of heavy use in real life conditions, so it easily lasts a full day. I charge it once every 2 or 3 days.

When you turn it on you will be knocked out by the screen -- clear, vibrant and beautiful to use. My only complaint is that it is *very* reflective, so you will struggle to use this device outside on a bright day. The screen is widescreen (unlike the iPad's odd dimensions) so movies and photos look *outstanding*.

Performance-wise the device is fine. It's not quite as smooth as an iPad but perfectly usable and there is no noticeable lag in any task that I have carried out (although I have not really experimented with movies).

Standard Android apps run fine on it but apps designed for tablets, obviously, look better -- and the list is growing. At the time of writing this review, Taptu, IMDB, Readr, and Evernote (beta) are simply stunning on it. Because it runs Android, any paid apps for your phone will also be available on the device (via Market).

The stock keyboard is fine (Asus provide an improved version of the standard Android keyboard) but I would suggest you pay for Thumb Keyboard, which comes with phone and tablet versions built-in, and is simply wonderful and makes you forget you are not using a real keyboard.

The lack of 3G is not an issue. It tethers to an Android phone perfectly so you can use your smartphone as a wi-fi access point to connect this tablet to the Internet. This works flawlessly. It has a micro SD card slot so don't there is no need to get the 32Gb model. The standard 16Gb device with a cheap 8Gb SD card is more than adequate. The SD card makes is very easy to transfer files from your PC to the tablet.

Downsides? Not many. The screen is very reflective. There is a shortage of apps designed for tablets. It is not quite as fast as the iPad. That's about it. Android is an open, fun, cheap, creative environment and Honeycomb is an excellent tablet OS, which will get better and better. It has many advantages over the iPad, the main one being its openness. Unlike every Apple device, you will not get the feeling that this piece of hardware is a cash machine for a large corporation.

One final thing. Asus don't hinder the device with loads of add-ons so the device is supplied in a pretty pure state. This not only means it runs faster than most tablets (such as the Xoom) but it also means that OS updates can be supplied very quickly. Hoenycomb 3.1 is now available for it via an over-the-air (OTA) update.

Like your first smartphone, you'll wonder how you coped before you owned this device. The Asus Transformer is outstanding.

After much research and reading reviews i decided to purchase the Transformer tablet due to the new Honeycomb operating system, its ability to dock the keyboard and the price.

The tablet is very light and thin so perfect for my frequent travel and the ASUS custom apps work well too. The ASUS MyNet app allows you to stream music from your WiFi DLNA source so great or all my music. This app currently does not support XVID format streaming but hoping this will change in a future update. You can get round this by using an app such as MoboPlayer which will run XVID's directly from the MicroSD slot on the side of the tablet.

Battery life is great and i've only had to charge it twice in the past week on the back of a several of hours use each evening.

This is by far the best Honeycomb tablet out on the market today, easily beating the ACER and XOOM in terms of flexibility and price.

Overall an excellent tablet and highly recommended!