While I continue to test the pre-Ultrabook Series 9 here (don’t forget the live session tonight) news is starting to come in about availability of what should be the first true Ultrabook, the ASUS UX21.
DigiTimes are reporting the news that’s come from an Asus product conference in China.
The UX21 is rumoured to use the Intel Core i5 2557M CPU at 1.5Ghz and at with the 11” screen should weigh in at a very portable 1.2KG. The price details are still unknown at this stage but we’re expecting between $800 and $900 for the 11.6” version.
So when will all this goodness land? September. That’s about right for an IFA or IDF event launch and we’re likely to be at both of those events so stay tuned.
I stumbled on this pretty cool widget for the Asus Eee Pad Transformer [tracking page] that allows you to monitor both the tablet battery and the keyboard docking station battery. Asus didn’t actually give us any way to keep track of the charge in the dock other than a blinking LED which is next to useless. It basically turns green when charging, amber and amber flashing when being used and doesn’t light at all when empty. Not very helpful. This widget shows the percntage status of both batteries, right on your homescreen.
It was developer by an Android developer and is available here:
It works as advertised and has a cool feature which only shows the battery status for the dock when you actually have it docked. It’s not from the market so you will have to download the .apk file and setup your Transformer to allow installs from third party providers (via your settings).
The widget is resizeable, and while the developer mentions advanced options to change text size and more I haven’t worked out how to do that yet; let us know in the comments if you have any luck!
Damian and I are at it again with another indepth review of the Asus eeePad Transformer and this time, we decided to throw as many USB goodies at the Transformer [tracking page] and keyboard dock as possible in an attempt to defeat it.
The USB selection included a Samsung USB keyboard with a trackpoint, a rather ancient looking Microsoft USB mouse, an USB Flash drive, a Sarotech ABIGS multimedia hard disk enclosure and a USB SD Card reader.
This video segment was totally unscripted and thus the we were genuinely surprised and excited that the Transformer worked and functioned with every USB device tested.
This is good testimony that the Transformer and the keyboard dock accessory is a real contender to replace the netbook as most of the common USB devices that we rely on for everyday computing will function on the Transformer.
Damian also commented that Asus will be releasing some useful Transformer adapters (including USB) for the tablet really soon which means you won’t need to get the optional keyboard dock in order to tap into the USB goodness!
The next challenge we had for the Transformer was hooking it up to a LCD TV via the HDMI out connection.
There were no issues with getting the display mirroring working albeit a ‘gremlin’ moment when the LCD output display froze — this was rectified by detaching and reattaching the HDMI connector on the Transformer.
We tested video playback using 2 sets of 720p and 1080p video files and playback was disappointing on both the tablet as well as the LCD TV display out – both audio and video were terribly choppy and experience dropouts. This was encountered even after the latest Android system update which promised performance improvements which certainly weren’t evident in the video playback.
The system update did deliver some new cool features such as video editing application but that is review for another day, so stay tuned for that!
Damian was lucky enough to get his hands on an Asus Eee Pad Transformer as well as the keyboard dock directly from Taiwan and we dedicate this video exploring the Transformer’s design and ergonomics with comparisons against an array of others tablets that we have handy at that time, including my beaten up, original Transformer, the HP TC1100 tablet pc.
Overall we were happy with the design and ergonomics of the Transformer and the keyboard dock provides a plethora of connector ports including HDMI, USB, and SD. The keyboard also had an in-built battery which, when docked with the tablet, provided around 16 hrs of useable battery life.
The presence of this battery made the dock almost as heavy as the tablet; the combined weight of the Transformer and dock puts it past 1kg, making it possibly a little heavy to carry around.
I managed to whip off a quick video showing some of the enhancements for the Eee Pad transformer delivered by the Android Honeycomb 3.1 update. I bought my Eee Pad from Taiwan and the hardware identifies it as Taiwanese hardware so I think I got the update earlier than devices from other Countries.
Asus claim some performance increases and reliability improvements but they’re not that noticeable to me as I thought it was pretty responsive on 3.0. They have added some new apps including a video editor and the Kindle app. There’s still patchy support for video codecs with no improvement on its ability to play a variety of formats and I haven’t found any HD video files it can play without skipping yet.
Overall an improvement especially with the new apps but I would still like to see more video format support, especially now that we can edit videos on the device.
JKK of JKKMobile has his hands-on video up and he takes us round the Asus PadFone explaining the technology behind the dock and the phone. It’s basically an HDMI screen and USB extender that also provides charging from a built-in battery. There’s an audio, mic and USB port extender too.
Pocketnow has uncovered images of the unique tablet/smartphone combo and they expect to see official information about the devices out of Computex tomorrow.
There’s not a lot of hardware info yet, but I really hope Asus is on to something here; I’d love to see more companies doing this.
Why? I actually sold my original iPad a few months back because it didn’t really have a place in my life. As an iPhone owner, having a 10” version of a device running the same OS felt redundant. I can imagine that Android phone owners have a similar feeling. However, there are times where a larger screen is useful. Showing pictures, for instance, is great on a tablet (especially if their geotagged); local multiplayer gaming is also great on a big screen, but such use isn’t common enough for me to be able to justify a whole separate tablet. If I could just drop my iPhone or Android device into a larger and higher resolution screen, that could also take advantage of apps designed for such a screen, it would make the device much more flexible as I could choose when I want the large screen and when I want the device to be pocketable.
If Asus can combo a tablet-dock and a powerful smartphone together for a reasonable price (reasonable, in this case, being cheaper than buying a separate smartphone and tablet) then they could really make a splash with this form-factor. I, for one, am hoping that this takes off!
Now just imagine if the Padfone smartphone/tablet had a dockable keyboard….
Pocketnow has uncovered images of the unique tablet/smartphone combo and they expect to see official information about the devices out of Computex tomorrow.
There’s not a lot of hardware info yet, but I really hope Asus is on to something here; I’d love to see more companies doing this.
Why? I actually sold my original iPad a few months back because it didn’t really have a place in my life. As an iPhone owner, having a 10 inch version of a device running the same OS felt redundant. I can imagine that Android phone owners have a similar feeling. However, there are times where a larger screen is useful. Showing pictures, for instance, is great on a tablet (especially if their geotagged); local multiplayer gaming is also great on a big screen, but such use isn’t common enough for me to be able to justify a whole separate tablet. If I could just drop my iPhone or Android device into a larger and higher resolution screen, that could also take advantage of apps designed for such a screen, it would make the device much more flexible as I could choose when I want the large screen and when I want the device to be pocketable.
If Asus can combo a tablet-dock and a powerful smartphone together for a reasonable price (reasonable, in this case, being cheaper than buying a separate smartphone and tablet) then they could really make a splash with this form-factor. I, for one, am hoping that this takes off!
Now just imagine if the Padfone smartphone/tablet had a dockable keyboard….
While I continue to test the pre-Ultrabook Series 9 here (don’t forget the live session tonight) news is starting to come in about availability of what should be the first true Ultrabook, the ASUS UX21.
