Eee Pad Transformers Owners Thread (26/04/2011) First post updated

[Guest Deus_ex11]

As promised here are my first impressions and pictures on this amazing device.

Packaging: The box is very compact and sturdy not much bigger than the pad itself length wise. Its a gift box type, cover lifts off. Inside a molded black plastic to hold the pad and accessories. Top marks.

Accessories: You get a usb adapter in two parts that has to be fit together. A 3ft long cable, actually its a bit on the short side. A user manual, warranty card and a tip sheet makes up the rest.

Tablet: Upon holding it for the first time after taking the plastic wrap off it, I felt I had a quality made device in my hands. It feels light to hold with both hands, but with one hand the weight is heavier if your use to a light mobile phone. Can I hold it for long periods without feeling it, I'd say yes, but i'd probably put it down now and again or hold it in the other hand. If you've got strong wrists it shouldn't bother you. The back of it is nicely textured so it won't slip out of your sweaty hands. The screen is shiny when its turned off, a bonus use as a mirror. Touching the screen, its supposed to have a grease resistant coating but the fingerprint smudges can still be seen. Once the grease was down, it didn't resist as much, but if your fingers are sweaty it doesn't glide as nice, until its greasy.

Turning it on, the screen is bright, colourful and crystal clear. No problems reading small text on this screen. The screen is sensitive but not overly so. You only need a light touch when pressing this screen. I'm very impressed with this tablet, its well put together. I can see me using this for a long time to come.

Click here for more pictures in a slideshow

Update - 08/04/2011

Ok, now that i've had a good use of it. I find it a pleasing device. Its pretty zippy at most things especially the browser, coming from a firefox user. Flash needs to be installed and its only beta at the moment, so its a bit slugglish from what've tried on bbc iplayer. There have been a few niggles but I've solved them. Like the MyNet spanish/italian language instead of english problem. I changed the language to English (United States) in the language settings and the text changed to english. A bit of quality control they missed there. It will very likely be fixed in the next update, but the batch thats already here will probably still have this problem. There will be plenty of time to test apps and games but for now I will concentrate on the hardware side.

MicroSD

For all the worries about the MicroSD slot not working are unfounded. It works fine and does read and write. I used a 4GB Class 6 MicroSD and the speeds are as expected i.e. it should transfer at 6MBs or higher. I plan to get a 16GB class 10, but they are quite expensive, so I would like know for sure if a class 10 will work. Anybody have one?

Battery Life

The battery life is great. It warns you at 15% and then 5%. It managed to go for 8h 50m when the 5% warning came up. This will increase after it goes through a few discharge/charge cycles. Hopefully it will give nearer the 9.5 hrs that Asus states, with the keyboard it will have all day use which will be great if your on a long journey. It takes just under 3hrs to fully charge.

It eventually conked out at 9h 10m

IPS Display

As soon as you turn it on and get to the home screen, you will go wow. The bright, crystal clear clarity and colour fidelity of this 1280x800 resolution screen is amazing for a tablet device. The viewing angles on this display have to be seen to be believed. Its clearly viewable from any angle, without the usual colour changing and distortion of other screens. Why aren't laptop manufacturer's using these screens more?

The Gorilla Glass doesn't slide too well when your finger's are damp but once you've used it for a while the grease from your finger's helps to lubricate it. It does protect the display from being damaged though so putting a protector on defeats the purpose of having the toughened glass surface. Whether it will survive being dropped I don't know, but it is scratch resistant.

It has 10 Finger multi-touch support but the only use I can see for using all ten fingers would be to use your tablet as a musical instrument like a piano.

The display without the keyboard dock is your only way to operate it so its a good job this screen is one of the best. There is however a problem with the display which I will explain later.

Speakers with Built-in SRS 3D Sound

Asus claims that the teeny speakers in this tablet somehow give you pseudo surround sound is a bit of a joke really. These speakers were never going to deliver what they claim and on first listen this was clear. There seems to be a balance issue which has been reported by others where the right speaker is louder than the left. This will probably be corrected in a FOTA update.

In any case I find the sound not loud enough even when the volume is maxed.

Rear and front camera

The rear camera is rated at 5 megapixels and the front at 1.2MP. Maximum picture size is 2592 x 1944 and the minimum is 640 x 480. You can set the picture quality at 5 levels, VGA to 1,2,3 and 5MP. You can also set the white balance and add colour/mono effects to your pictures. It has 8.0x digital zoom, but it won't give great snaps though. There is no flash unfortunately but I don't think it will be missed as I don't think you will take night time outdoor pictures with this anyway.

On the video side, you can set high, low and low quality Youtube settings. There is a time lapse video function but I don't think there is much use for it. Switching from video to picture or swapping to front or back camera's gave me a green screen sometimes. Hopefully they will fix this in a update. The back camera can be used as barcode reader with the relevant app.

Mini HDMI output

It will display on your big screen what the tablet is showing i.e. HDMI Mirroring @ 1280 x 720p. It would have been great to output at 1080p though, but that will be in the future Tegra 3 tablets later this year. The transformer itself is capable of playing 1080p video but it will be downscaled on your TV and the tablet itself. A mini HDMI adapter or cable included would have been nice, but there cheaply available. The bottom bar will autohide itself so your movie will display full screen without it distracting you.

Memory

It has 729MB free to run your apps and a total storage space of 13.18GB for putting your data on.

Its plenty for what you can currently do with this tablet.

WiFi

It has the current fastest standards of 802.11 b/g/n. 'N' should be connecting up to 300Mbps, but it was fixed at 65 Mbps for some reason with my D-Link router. I couldn't make any changes to increase the speed. Maybe its capped because of the low power requirements.

Ok as I mentioned earlier about a problem with the screen. I have had my transformer for a week and I had started to noticed light on my screen that shouldn't be there. This obviously is a backlight bleeding problem. A few have mentioned this also so I wasn't alone on this issue. It was actually getting worse on the bottom right corner of the screen. The corner would be lighter in colour when showing a darker picture. This led me to decide to take it back to Comet and get a replacement.

The lady behind the counter couldn't see a problem but the manager then took a look in the dark and he noticed it and said it was a fault with the screen and I can get a replacement. This was the first time he'd seen one as his branch hasn't had any stock yet. He said the screen is very good but the backlight fault should not be on a new product such as this. He's going to let me inspect the new one before I take it away. I hope that this is a rare issue and I won't have to take it back again, but others have mentioned it too. B) Asus has maybe released it too early as their quality control has gone downhill on this one. Asus products I've had from new have always been good.

Anyway I will be without my transformer for a week and its going to be hard, but i'll get over it. :D

Update - 26/04/2011

Got my new replacement tablet today and a new FOTA update comes out from Asus to fix the camera recorder problems amongst other things. I hope this one doesn't develop any problems. So far so good. Fingers crossed.

Edited April 26, 2011 by Deus_ex11

[Guest Deus_ex11]

moved to first post

Edited April 10, 2011 by Deus_ex11

[Guest Uxian]

HDMI mirroring (ignore the hideous wallpaper and cable spaghetti)

Edited April 8, 2011 by Uxian

[Guest Deus_ex11]

Hey Uxian, how are you finding your transformer?

I found a built-in screengrab in the settings. Heres that weird MyNet in spanish. I can't find anywhere in the settings to change it. Anybody know?

This is my first post on the transformer and the keyboard takes some getting used to. Had some initial problems with copy and pasting but its easy once you know how. Using the predictive text also takes awhile before you become accustomed but then typing these posts become alot quicker.

Info: Changing language to English (United States) fixes the MyNet language problem.

Edited April 8, 2011 by Deus_ex11

[Guest dan098]

Hey all,

Got my transformer today and I am loving it, but I have a problem me thinks? There seems to be an issue with the volume in that when I turn it off it's fine and theres no sound, but once I press the volume up one notch it seems to be at full volume and when I try to turn it up even more the volume stays at the same level ie high. Is anyone else having this issue?

Basically the volume is either on high or off, there is no other levels even though the volume level slider moves from lowest to highest setting its always LOUD.

I hope this isn't a hardware fault as that was the reason I had to return my Advent Vega after Xmas :-( wouldn't be happy to have yet another faulty tablet (would be just my luck though)

Many thanks for you guys input,

Dan

[Guest venturerider]

One of the things I am looking for in a tablet is the ability to take handwritten notes. But with my hand resting against the screen (as it would when writing on paper), I doubt very much that this would work. If one of you could try it out on your Transformer, I would really appreciate it.

[Guest Deus_ex11]

Hey all,

Got my transformer today and I am loving it, but I have a problem me thinks? There seems to be an issue with the volume in that when I turn it off it's fine and theres no sound, but once I press the volume up one notch it seems to be at full volume and when I try to turn it up even more the volume stays at the same level ie high. Is anyone else having this issue?

Basically the volume is either on high or off, there is no other levels even though the volume level slider moves from lowest to highest setting its always LOUD.

I hope this isn't a hardware fault as that was the reason I had to return my Advent Vega after Xmas :-( wouldn't be happy to have yet another faulty tablet (would be just my luck though)

Many thanks for you guys input,

Dan

My volume buttons are working ok here. It goes up one notch each press and you hold it to increase or decrease volume. Not sure what why yours is like that. What app are you using to change volume?

[Guest dan098]

My volume buttons are working ok here. It goes up one notch each press and you hold it to increase or decrease volume. Not sure what why yours is like that. What app are you using to change volume?

I am just using the volume rocker to change volume. I have also tried a couple of volume apps, but the volume sound is still either really loud or off. The operating system is stating that the volume is say at 50%, but there is no difference between 100% and 10% only time it changes is when I put it on mute? Very strange.

Looks like i've been unlucky and have a faulty tablet. I hope Comet replace it quickly then??

Update....

Alls good now the old trick of power off power on sorted it out lol Cheers all

Dan

Edited April 8, 2011 by dan098

[Guest Uxian]

Hey Uxian, how are you finding your transformer?

Getting to see some more niggles as I use it more but on the whole I'm very happy with it. The battery life is standing up reasonably well with more or less constant use today (love the battery graph). Getting a few more app crashes now that I've been using it more including the Market, the launcher and at least one app that won't start at all without FC'ing (Photos Around). Some annoying features of Honeycomb too such as not being able to leave comments on apps in the Market (fortunately you can do it through the new Market web interface). My own app doesn't stand up too well either as the UI isn't scaling up with the screen size. Loving the new browser especially that experimental menu wheel. Flash isn't doing so well though - LoveFilm complains that I have the wrong version and iPlayer struggles to perform. I've banished the Asus keyboard and I'm sticking with the native one; the loss of a numeric row is worth it to be to be rid of the annoying predictive text and lower performance.

One of the things I am looking for in a tablet is the ability to take handwritten notes. But with my hand resting against the screen (as it would when writing on paper), I doubt very much that this would work. If one of you could try it out on your Transformer, I would really appreciate it.

The HTC Flyer sounds like it would suit you better if you can stand to wait (and lose 3 inches of screen) as it is designed to work with a pen as well as fingers.

Edited April 8, 2011 by Uxian

[Guest gswallow]

I've come from a Vega (sound was awful, generally a bit rough around the edges) to this. Comet Guildford had some instore and it didn't take long to decide on getting one. Build quality is lovely, screen is 10 times better than the Vega, HC seems worth the wait. Not had much chance to play but I cant see any reason to buy the xoom over this.

Q. How do you revert to the stock launcher?

I agree the Asus keyboard is pretty poor. Autocorrect on a qwerty keyboard? Why?

[Guest SilentMobius]

So I couldn't resist and they had 2 in stock in the Reading Currys.

1. In general the build quality is great, but mine gives/clicks a little on the right of the screen, I think it's a one off though and may swap it

2. Generally I'm impressed with honeycomb but there are plenty of CM7 mods I take for granted that I'm missing.

3. It seems to play video worse than my Vega. AVIs don't seem to play at all and some m4v's I had on my microsd that played fine on my vega don't play well on the transformer :)

4. Official flash seems much better than the Vega flash

5. Waving a magnet near the dock connector seems to wake up the tablet, I wonder why

6. Screen is lovely, but auto-brightness is not on by default so it may seem dim at first

7. There are some judders in odd places that I'm hopping are resolved with the first OTA but in general it really smooth

8. Touch screen seem responsive but sometimes seems to miss a touch when busy, but it might just be me.

9. My apple bluetooth keyboard will pair and identify as a keyboard and even connect, but it doesn't seem to work

10. Everything Asus has added is crap.... I mean really terrible, looking forward to getting rid of it.

11. Web browser is _so_ much better than the gingerbread one, though I'm not keen on the tab graphic

12. Just tested overnight, unplugged the tablet went from 84% to 81% charge, I'm very happy with that

Edited April 10, 2011 by SilentMobius

[Guest AshtonBRSC]

Q. How do you revert to the stock launcher?

You might want to try the new VTL Launcher. It's based on ADW Launcher but adjusted for tablets:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1017451

[Guest Lefy]

Asus have a PC Suite Tool in the download section, with sync option. Is it possible to sync contacts and calendar from outlook ?

[Guest gswallow]

Has anyone had any problems with iplayer? It starts up, I can choose a prog but it just doesn't play. It also appears in the top left corner only. I've definitely got flash installed, am I missing something obvious?

[Guest SilentMobius]

Has anyone had any problems with iplayer? It starts up, I can choose a prog but it just doesn't play. It also appears in the top left corner only. I've definitely got flash installed, am I missing something obvious?

iPlayer works fine for me

[Guest ChakMD]

I had the same issue with the iplayer market app but no issues playing via stock browser.

[Guest chimpy]

I've come from a Vega (sound was awful, generally a bit rough around the edges) to this. Comet Guildford had some instore and it didn't take long to decide on getting one. Build quality is lovely, screen is 10 times better than the Vega, HC seems worth the wait. Not had much chance to play but I cant see any reason to buy the xoom over this.

Q. How do you revert to the stock launcher?

I agree the Asus keyboard is pretty poor. Autocorrect on a qwerty keyboard? Why?

How do you feel about going from the Vega to the Transformer? Worth the money? I'm contemplating the same thing, although part of me feels the difference might not be big enough to make it worth while. I would like to hear your thoughts on this, relating to build quality, screen, software and capabilities.

I'd love to hear the Transformer is light years ahead, but there don't seem to be any proper reviews for it out yet, not enough to really get a grasp on how good this thing really is.

[Guest gswallow]

Certainly as far as build quality is concerned the Transformer is miles ahead. It basically feels like a properly designed and machined product. Although the dimensions aren't much different it feels slimmer. The screen is in different league tbh. Crisper and viewing angles are great. I was running the Vegan Tab port on my Vega which was reasonably nice but like all Froyo roms it simply isn't optimised for tablets. HC is a proper OS and a big step up and makes even basic navigation a pleasure.

Is it worth the extra money? Well for me the Vega sound was a biggie, I tried a bluetooth adapter but it was unreliable so I needed a replacement device anyway. 16gb of onboard storage makes up some difference in price, as does the Asus remote web operating sw (when it arrives). If you had the 2 devices in front of you then I can't imagine you'd choose the Vega, you'd find the extra cash!

Maybe the last point: this is something I'd be happy to stand up to my ipad loving friends.....unlike the Vega....

[Guest chimpy]

Certainly as far as build quality is concerned the Transformer is miles ahead. It basically feels like a properly designed and machined product. Although the dimensions aren't much different it feels slimmer. The screen is in different league tbh. Crisper and viewing angles are great. I was running the Vegan Tab port on my Vega which was reasonably nice but like all Froyo roms it simply isn't optimised for tablets. HC is a proper OS and a big step up and makes even basic navigation a pleasure.

Is it worth the extra money? Well for me the Vega sound was a biggie, I tried a bluetooth adapter but it was unreliable so I needed a replacement device anyway. 16gb of onboard storage makes up some difference in price, as does the Asus remote web operating sw (when it arrives). If you had the 2 devices in front of you then I can't imagine you'd choose the Vega, you'd find the extra cash!

Maybe the last point: this is something I'd be happy to stand up to my ipad loving friends.....unlike the Vega....

Right - you've convinced me!

[Guest Dunetails]

How do you feel about going from the Vega to the Transformer? Worth the money? I'm contemplating the same thing, although part of me feels the difference might not be big enough to make it worth while. I would like to hear your thoughts on this, relating to build quality, screen, software and capabilities.

I'd love to hear the Transformer is light years ahead, but there don't seem to be any proper reviews for it out yet, not enough to really get a grasp on how good this thing really is.

I had a Vega and it is fantastic for the price,BUT the difference is like night and day with the transformer. The OS is a proper tablet OS and although this sounds like a cop out you really have to use it to understand the difference in usability.even saying that,the Vega can be modified to ggive goo usability. The problem is the Vega simply can't compete on the screen. This really puts Vega to shame and is why I think you should at least try a Transformer and consider replacing your Vega.Especially if you ever use your Vega in portrait mode.

The Vega will always have a place in my heart but the Transformer is exponentially better.

[Guest WoodlandSpirit]

HDMI mirroring (ignore the hideous wallpaper and cable spaghetti)

Hello, new to the forums here and hope to be a long time contributor.

Keenly looking into picking up an Android tablet in the coming weeks and very interested in the Eee Pad Transformer, was previously considering the Advent Vega after discovering the stupid price of the Xoom.

I have a question about the HDMI mirroring, does it mirror in a standard 720p format given that the resolution is slightly bigger and so scale it down a touch?

Thank you!

[Guest ArtyCarl]

I have the old iPad and the iPad2 and bought an Advent Vega a few months ago as it was pretty cheap at the time. The volume button was broken so it was an easy decision to send back but the viewing angles and general build quality were shameful but I accept the lower price means some corners were cut. The real problem though was the Android version, I think it was Froyo after a little ROM magic from Modaco and I was pretty impressed with the Flash performance and overall it was a fair attempt. But stand it next to an iPad never mind an iPad 2 and it looks like something you would buy in a tacky electronics shop on holiday.

So I have been eagerly awaiting the Xoom and saw that Simply Electronics were selling it 'in Stock' on their website with 1-2 days delivery. I bought one but the confirmation email stated 2-7 days and I could not get a reasonable answer out of them so after a week waiting I cancelled my order.

That brings me to last night when I did a little research on the EEE Pad Transformer so I looked at one in my local Comet and was really impressed with the build quality. The metal surround fits perfectly, no creaks (on the version in the shop anyway) and the dimpled curved back looks nice but more importantly...compare it to the back of the Xoom. The Xoom will be a mess of fingerprints in 5 minutes flat...and thats just the back.

Honeycomb was as I had expected having seen a few videos and although it is not quite so slick as the iPad 2 it is head and shoulders better than any other Android Tablet I have seen and used.

Add to that the fact that I have owned one or two other Asus electronics items and not one problem encountered so far and I thought 'sod it' and bought one tonight from Comet for delivery Wednesday.

Looking forward to visiting here regularly for some tips and tricks.

[Guest phil-t]

I had one over the weekend, now returned this morning..

I loved most of HC, the notification bar, the app switching etc, all superb, even the nicer widgets are the reason I can't go back to iOS, but it still fell a little short..

I had Vega with Modaco Rom + Launcher Pro, and that was really nice, sizeable/scrollable widgets, very smooth transitioning, it was almost perfect as a tablet, bar the screen I guess, the Tranformer puts the build quality and screen right up there with anything on the market, but I just think HC needs some tweaks, it needs more widgets (and really resizeable ones), and it needs to optimise the smoothness of transitions between home screens (just a fraction too low frame rate), and the App Drawer animation/transistion was horrible on mine, about 20fps or less..

I did have a smidge of light bleed on the screen, and my right speaker was double the volume of the left, so that tipped me over the edge into returning, I was tempted to get an iPAD2 , I'm always amazed at how 'smooth' it all operates, but where I can't get on with iOS is the quite stale interface, I'm too used to the better widgets in Android, and of course, a decent flash browser works better for my needs..

[Guest saeeedah]

Hi

I am new to this forum.

I have a question about Transformer:

Is there any Host USB Ports on the Transformer itself ? not the dock.

[Guest Scott9824]

Hi

I am new to this forum.

I have a question about Transformer:

Is there any Host USB Ports on the Transformer itself ? not the dock.

Nope. :)