The Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101 arrived in Singapore on April 29, 2011
What are the biggest grouses of tablet users today? No Flash, short battery life, no keyboard, no USB ports and card readers. Asus tries to address all these shortcomings in the Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101.
The optional docking station provides a full QWERTY keyboard for work involving intensive typing. It costs S$199 if you purchase it separately, but purchased together with the pad, you need only top up S$100 for it. The docking station makes available an additional 24.4 Wh battery that extends the pad’s 9.5 hours battery life to 16 hours instead.
A card reader (MMC/SD/SDHC) and two USB 2.0 ports are also available on the keyboard. The keyboard also props up the docked pad as a stand.
And finally, Adobe Flash 10.2 is supported, so you can visit all those glitzy sites running Flash animations and video.
The docking station is a full QWERTY keyboard that doubles up as a stand and contains an extra battery to extend the 9.5 hours battery life of the pad to 16 hours. It also contains USB ports and a card reader.
I played with the Eee Pad on display and found the IPS (In-plane switching) LED backlight screen brilliant and sharp at with 1280×800 pixels packed into the 10.1 inch panel, offering a wide viewing angle of 178 degrees – I could still view the screen display from the side.
The touch screen senses up to 10 fingers for multi-touch - seen here with the Piano app from Android Market.
The pad feels slightly heavier than the iPad 2 but comfortable to hold. The book reader app included with the pad was standard fare – offering animated page turning, highlighting and bookmarking etc.
Photos and videos taken with the camera was clear even though the ambient lighting was dark.
The 16GB Wi-Fi only tablet is the only configuration available at the moment. Together with the docking station (keyboard), it sells for S$898 at the major retailers in Singapore – Challenger, Best Denki, Harvey Norman etc.
During this launch period, the promotional price for the 16GB Wi-Fi only Transformer sells for S$799 (Eee Pad + Docking station) and S$699 (Eee Pad only). Currently, the docking stations are out of stock and will only be available from the week of May 9 onwards.
The 32GB Wi-Fi only version will also only be available later in May.
[…] it with a docking keyboard cum extra battery. Will update on the actual use and feel after the launch event […]
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