Friday is turning out to be a good day. The iPad 2 launches in Europe (although I still don’t see any official pricing in Germany) and it’s my Birthday. Now, I hear that the Eee Pad Transformer is launching too. Decisions decisions!

The Eee Pad Transformer is an interesting product because it takes the idea of the smartbook one step further. It uses the Honeycomb operating system (which could enable a far superior laptoping experience than 2.x ever did) and it uses a keyboard mechanism that can be un-docked to allow tablet-only usage.

I tested the Transformer out at mobile world congress in February (video below) and wasn’t too impressed with the weight but full USB ports made me wonder if ASUS are building some nice USB hosting capabilities. The weight with the dock also seems a little over the top. With connectors and an additional battery in the keyboard unit, I’m expecting the total weight to tip 1KG. The unit I tested wasn’t running Honeycomb.

Pricing has me a little worried. The price for the tablet seems OK at 399 Euro although confirmation is still needed on storage and 3G capability. 32GB and 3G included is what I’m assuming at this stage. The price of the dock could add 120 Euro to that. The price isn’t too bad when compared with high-end tablets but when compared with the Tegra-2 based Toshiba AC100 smartbook (under 300 Euro with 3G) you get the idea that there’s a huge margin being added here and that the price should come down by at least 100 Euros over time.

The March 25th launch is for Taiwan only at this stage and will only include pre-order. Actual availability around the world is still unknown but we’ll probably hear more on Friday.

VIa Netbooknews

All behind glass indicating that they are not yet ready for human consumption (read, months to go before they are ready for market) but looking good and showing that ODMs and OEMs are putting efforts into designing devices around ARM platforms. In the video you’ll get a brief view of tablets from Wistron, ASUS, Compal, Mitak, Notion Ink, Viewsonic and  Foxconn.

Obviously it’s interesting to see the EeePC brand in there and it indicates that an Eee PC tablet (apparently to be called the EPad or EeePad)  is on its way. Android is likely and pricing will be competitive. Netbooknews was reporting in Dec that it’s planned for March but in our recent podcast, Sascha (netbooknews) was talking about June / July. A few months to wait yet! More images of the Eee Pad below the video.

Click to enlarge images.