The Eee Pad Slider may as well have been official for a long time as it’s seen more hands-on time than some devices that are actually available! In addition to a few bits that are confirmed on the official page — the device shipping with Honeycomb 3.1 and Polaris Office for productivity work, weighs a hefty 960 grams! — there are a few strange bits as well.
The Asus Eee Pad Transformer is a very popular device and I’ve seen a number of reports of it being used in productivity scenarios. The gaps between devices like this and traditional laptops are closing and so it’s no surprise that people are testing the limits.
Find out where these gaps are with the start of another good series over at Carrypad. The question is, is Android good enough to allow all the gaps to be closed through 3rd party software or are there jobs that will always need doing on a PC?
I’ve been inspired by Jerry to make the move to using only the Asus Eeepad transformer at work. I’ll be using only my Atrix and Eee Pad Transformer for all business related activities, no PC at all. I am passing my Vaio down to my wife to replace an old netbook and the budget doesn’t stretch to a new laptop. Actually it’s pretty slim pickings trying to find a true replacement to the Vaio TT anyway at the moment.
My needs are similar to Jerry’s actually in that I have a new baby on the way, a new house, a netbook past its expiry date and recent purchases of both the Eee Pad Transformer and the Atrix + lapdock.
As I mentioned before I considered a MacBook Air, another Vaio, or perhaps a Windows tablet; cost, portability and battery life are all competing priorities for me. So following Jerry’s lead I thought: why not see if either (or better yet, both!) of us can do it.
This has partly been facilitated by work putting in some software that will allow me to access email and my work calendar on my Android devices, natively rather than having to use webmail or some remote access solution. In the wider enterprise world it’s proving hard for IT to resist the demands of business bringing in iPhones and various tablets. My workplace is no exception so we kicked off a project to put in a solution to meet the mobile needs of our workforce. One of the key requirements was to work across all platforms which was great because even though iOS products outnumber others 5 to 1, those of us with Android devices can now connect to business systems including email.
Today was day one and it was fairly successful. Polaris Office worked well for Word documents and the PowerPoint I needed to edit. Evernote is my business app of choice for meeting notes, tasking and brain dumps and I used Thinking Space and sent the mindmap to Evernote as a picture so that I can keep evrything organised and in the one place. I occassionally felt a pang for a laptop but I think this was separation anxiety as there was no actually need for it in al the work I did today. Let’s see how it goes tomorrow.
Over at Ritchie’s Room, Ritchie has gotten his hands on a retail version of the much anticipated Asus Eee Pad Slider and has given us a great preview of the sliding Honeycomb tablet.
A few bits to take away from the reading:
Sliding mechanism works well (kudos to Asus for this)
Tilt of the screen cannot be adjusted (kudos revoked!)
On the topic of the lack of mouse/trackpad: “proximity of the screen in comparison to the edge of the keyboard actually lends itself to retaining the touch interaction inch
The sliding function works well as a stand, even if you aren’t typing
If I were in the market for a tablet, the Slider would be a serious contender. Is it just me or does this thing seriously sleek looking? My only reservations are the lack of integrated trackpad or some other type of mouse, and the single USB port, though I could always add a USB hub if I wanted. The bezel is also a bit meaty, but I’m impressed with how thin they were able to keep it, despite the slide-out keyboard!
There’s more info to be found at the original post, including a brief rundown of some of the apps/services that the Slider will come with, and plenty of great photos. Be sure to check it out!
As for availability and pricing, at least one site claims that Asus Netherlands will be pricing the 32GB Eee Pad Slider at a rather hefty 499 euros ($711 USD) and that the device will be available in early 2012. The price may quickly come down however, and seeing how the Slider just made its way through the FCC, perhaps it’ll hit in the US a bit earlier than 2012? We’ll just have to wait and see!
Brad Linder of Liliputing points out a lengthy hands-on video of the Slider that recently went up on YouTube. I must say that the video only makes me more excited… the device looks really well built and the sliding mechanism seems to work great!
The only thing I’m not happy to see is that there is no mouse! I feel like Asus could have easily put a nub-mouse or optical mouse on the device and that would save people from having to use the only USB port on the Slider for an external mouse.
Two devices recently stood out as a different kind of productivity solution, both offering the ability to convert between a tablet and a netbook. The choice is between the Asus Eee Pad Transformer and the Acer Iconia W500. The Eee Pad runs Android Honeycomb while the Acer runs windows 7.
Both offer the ability to convert from a 10 inch tablet to a laptop style device with a keyboard and mouse. The Asus has a multitouch trackpad while the Acer has a pointing stick style mouse mover.
The units are comparable in features, specs and pricing. The main difference? Windows versus Android, and perhaps battery life. 4 hours for a tablet is pretty ordinary and no where near the Eee Pad’s 10 to 17 hours as a tablet or attached to the dock.
I miss OneNote and that makes me consider Windows tablets but while I could handle 3-4 hours battery life in the old days I’ve now been spoiled by modern day tablets and even netbooks or smaller latops like the Vaio T series which give 7+ hours easily and sometimes more than 10.
Evernote on Android has come a long way as well and while it lacks some of OneNote’s Office suite integration it is now a much more powerful note-taking tool.
One design issue is that the Acer W500 cannot be folded like a laptop while joined to the dock.You have to detach the tablet part, close the docking connector and then clip the tablet over the keyboard. It seems a little ill thought out and since we’re so used to closing up our devices in this way, it may lead to damage.
I disagree with reviews that argue Windows 7 isn’t touch or tablet friendly and in fact I’d say it is the best windows yet for tablet and touch use. But the Iconia doesn’t have a an active or pen enabled screen. It’s capacitive touch and that removed the last killer feature that would have made me buy it. The strength for me of OneNote on a tablet (and even Office as a suite) is that you can ink in it. Without the ability to use a “proper” pen, the Iconia W500 becomes just another tablet, with less battery life and all the issues of Windows including susceptibility to hacking and virus attacks and lacking the advantages of cheap, productivity enhancing apps. So it’s the Asus transformer for me.
Cheesy headline aside… the second Asus Eee Pad, the Slider, is marching toward a US release as Wireless Goodness points out.
The 10 inch tablet was recently caught attempting to tip-toe its way through the FCC. The Eee Pad Slider is another keyboard-equipped Honeycomb-running slate like the Eee Pad Transformer. While the Transformer’s keyboard actually detaches, the Slider goes for a different approach by allowing the screen to slide up to an angle, revealing the keyboard beneath. Despite having a full-blown keyboard, the Eee Pad Slider is still an impressive 13mm thick!
Thanks to positivereports of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, the Slider definitely piques our interest and we’re looking forward to seeing what it can do. By showing its face at the FCC, it’s passed an important hurdle to US release, we’ll definitely be letting you know when we hear more about this svelte looking machine!
Calling it out as a challenger to the Apple MacBook Air, APC Mag seems very happy with the Asus UX21 Ultrabook they’ve recently had hands-on time with.
“Finally. This is the notebook that brings sexy to the non-Apple laptop world. But its beauty is not just skin deep.”
The article doesn’t go into any specifics about the testing done but does quote Q3 availability (Australia) and estimates a price competitive with the MacBook Air. Looks like we will have to wait a while to get specifics on the all-important battery life.
They’ve published a gallery too, you can find the article and images here.
Over at Ritchie’s Room, Ritchie has gotten his hands on a retail version of the much anticipated Asus Eee Pad Slider and has given us a great preview of the sliding Honeycomb tablet.
Cheesy headline aside… the second Asus Eee Pad, the Slider, is marching toward a US release as Wireless Goodness points out.
