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

[Guest mimminito]

See you there! :)

P

Woo! Be good to meet you, see your "open" transformer :)

[Guest Paul]

:)

Wonder if we'll get a xoom? :)

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[Guest mimminito]

:)

Wonder if we'll get a xoom? :)

P

Haha, would be nice hey. Think we should hide our transformers incase they do :)

Edited April 13, 2011 by mimminito

[Guest Paul]

Hehe, I doubt it tho, they haven't given them out at their other events, lol!

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[Guest Paul]

I hear the food is good tho. :)

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[Guest cas3]

Oh yeh, in case people haven't noticed there's a handy setting in the stock browser's settings where you can enable "quick controls", really useful! :)

[Guest Uxian]

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!

It appears to actually reduce the resolution of the tablet temporarily by expanding and omitting the notification bar so both the tablet and the TV output are 720p.

Edited April 13, 2011 by Uxian

[Guest Scott9824]

Has anyone noticed a click from the speakers occasionally?

Want to check I haven't got a dodgy speaker. Seems to happen on boot, along with the camera click

[Guest Turbo_lew]

Been playing with it for around 6 hours now, I've still got 50% battery :-)

I love the tablet. Everything works fine for me (touch wood) most of my apps work and upscale well.

I've even tested its durability for your all by dropping it on the kitchen floor from around a meter. Not a scratch on the housing and all is still working fine. It was an acident.

I'll keep play and let you know.

Very happy camper.

[Guest BillBong]

Has anyone noticed a click from the speakers occasionally?

Want to check I haven't got a dodgy speaker. Seems to happen on boot, along with the camera click

Yes! I thought I was imagining it because its so random. I cant pin it down to a specific cause-

On the browsers, I've tried Dolphin Mini but this tends to freeze and occasionally refuses to launch new tabsfrom the speed-dial page. Miren is more responsive but force-closes a lot. Firefox mobile is perfect in interface and response - BUT doesn't have flash support so its a bit useless. I get the feeling the apps market isn't geared up for honeycomb/tablet devices yet.

[Guest Abnormal1]

On the browsers, I've tried Dolphin Mini but this tends to freeze and occasionally refuses to launch new tabsfrom the speed-dial page. Miren is more responsive but force-closes a lot. Firefox mobile is perfect in interface and response - BUT doesn't have flash support so its a bit useless. I get the feeling the apps market isn't geared up for honeycomb/tablet devices yet.

Personally if Flash would work (which it does not :)) on Opera Mobile then I would say that is my favourite browser on my Asus (with useragent tweak).

[Guest Scott9824]

Does anyone have to press the power button twice sometimes to get the screen back on? I keep having to do this. Sometimes it will work first time, others it will take 2 presses, but it will always turn off first time - the button doesn't seem broken.

[Guest Putzy]

Does anyone have to press the power button twice sometimes to get the screen back on? I keep having to do this. Sometimes it will work first time, others it will take 2 presses, but it will always turn off first time - the button doesn't seem broken.

Yeah.... every now and again. I think its more likely to happen when its been 'sleeping' for longer.

[Guest Scott9824]

Yeah.... every now and again. I think its more likely to happen when its been 'sleeping' for longer.

Ah ok thanks. Just wanted to double check I hadn't got a dodgy button lol. :)

[Guest frysee]

Hey guys,

I am currently trying to get Borderlinx UK to ship my TF101 to germany. Unfortunately, it seems like they cant identify my parcel, whatever -.-

Is anyone willing and able to tell me the approx. size of the Comet parcel you received your Transformer in or even take a photo for me?

greetz

[Guest cacklemygladys]

Hey guys,

I am currently trying to get Borderlinx UK to ship my TF101 to germany. Unfortunately, it seems like they cant identify my parcel, whatever -.-

Is anyone willing and able to tell me the approx. size of the Comet parcel you received your Transformer in or even take a photo for me?

greetz

The box is 30x22x6cm and came in one of those polythene shipping bags.

[Guest frysee]

The box is 30x22x6cm and came in one of those polythene shipping bags.

Thanks a lot, thats at least something I couild use to speed up the search for my Transformer :)

Still looking for a hero to attach a picture of said bag, whoever used borderlinx in the past and got in trouble knows how it is a real pain in the ... to sort things out.

greetz from germany

[Guest mamoulian]

Thanks a lot, thats at least something I couild use to speed up the search for my Transformer :)

Still looking for a hero to attach a picture of said bag, whoever used borderlinx in the past and got in trouble knows how it is a real pain in the ... to sort things out.

greetz from germany

Still lying on the floor where I chucked it, DHD in hand, would be rude not to :-P

Photos uploaded to Dropbox, Links PM'd.

[Guest GMScribe]

Great device overall but plenty of niggly issues:

- A good few apps don't like Android 3.0 and crash for various reasons.

- Wifi seems to be active almost all the time even if background synch is turned off, this kills the standby battery life, I used to be able to keep the iPad going for weeks.

- Speaker crackles/camera randomly green screens

- HDMI doesn't like panasonic TVs

- Currently no MyCloud and the language issue with MyNet

- Video playback isn't great and there's no optimised players, flash seems to be the closest was able to stream 720P anime through a custom in-browser player with subtitles on-top rarely dropping frames, so there's hope for an optimised player yet.

- SRS isn't on when surfing web etc so speakers are unbalanced.

- Flex on the back panel but agree with other posts it does matter where you hold it and it's really nothing at all.

- Crap proxy support for corporate networks, there's a hidden settings panel but there's no support for authentication!!!

Good things about the device:

- Screen hands down beats the iPad IPS panel and is the best I've seen on a device this size ever.

- Lovely weight and finish to the device.

- All the extras like SD memory, HDMI work well.

- Love the Honeycomb design and layout.

- Love the quality of video and sound when you chose the correct format.

Let's hope a decent movie player app for 3.0 and tegra2 is out soon and that the upcoming update deals with many of Asus' bugs.

Edited April 15, 2011 by GMScribe

[Guest Turbo_lew]

only had a few FC. one in the browser and the other when changing from camera to gallery and back.

Not had any of the other problems people are reporting. did notice the light bleed from the bottom of the screen when in the dark, but thats no biggy.

Most of my app run fine however video play back i have yet to test due to having nothing encode they way it likes.

Popped down to curry's yesterday to get a case and guess what, they had the xoom, iconia and ipad all in stock. I have to say that they are all much the same (except the ipad) in spec, I'm very happy with my transformer. Now im just waiting to get the dock. Anyone have the dock yet?

[Guest MaximumFish]

* Build quality is nice and solid. A little creaky around the edges though.

I've found mine a little creaky on the left side, too. Was hoping it isn't something that's going to become a bigger problem further down the line, but feel a bit better that at least someone else has found the same!

[Guest M@rtin]

Great device overall but plenty of niggly issues:

- Wifi seems to be active almost all the time even if background synch is turned off, this kills the standby battery life, I used to be able to keep the iPad going for weeks.

I got mine yesterday and found there's an option to change the wifi behaviour - Settings > Wireless & Networks > Wifi sleep policy - by default it was set to "Never" so I've changed it to "When screen turns off".

I did have an issue with mine this morning in that it had switched itself off completely overnight! I was using it last night and pressed the power button once when I was done, so I didn't accidently shut it down. This morning it wasn't doing anything so I had to hold the power button for a while till it booted up from scratch.

On the whole I'm pleased with it; the build quality is good (I haven't had the back flexing issue), performance is good and the screen is excellent. Honeycomb does feel a bit rough round the edges but there are some parts that I prefer to iOS.

[Guest foxmeister]

I posted this on XDA, but thought it might catch a different audience here.

Regards,

Dave

Original posted here:

I've had my Transformer for 4 full days now, and I've a few comments to make for prospective purchasers.

First of all, a little background - I've had Android phones since the original G1 was released in the US (I was there when it was released), and since then have owned the HTC Hero, the HTC Desire, and now the Desire HD (and a Pulse Mini as a backup device).

I also have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 7", which I've been using since October last year and I still think is a fantastic device, so most of my observations on the Transformer (henceforth called the TF) will be in comparison to Galaxy Tab (henceforth called the GT). As an aside, I also have a Toshiba AC100 Android netbook, so I think I have some feel for how the TF will be once the keyboard dock arrives.

Build quality

The TF feels like a really high quality device. I know some people have reported issues with back light bleed etc, but I've had no such issues. The aluminium case is really nice to the touch, as is the back of the device which is a plastic made to look a bit like carbon fibre.

Design - the design is generally really nice, though if I had one criticism it is the size of the bezel is rather large. Additionally, it does feel a little odd holding the device in portrait mode as it comes over as very tall and thin, especially when compared to the GT.

The IPS display is lovely and crisp, though it does seem a little less bright than the display on the GT.

OS and software

This is both simultaneously the best and worst feature that the TF has over the GT. In general browsing use, the TF is much more like a laptop/desktop experience than the GT, and you can see Honeycomb has great potential. However, it does feel very much like an unfinished product.

When the GT first came out, the stock browser was notoriously laggy (fixed in later iterations), and the TF suffers from the same issue - in fact it is worse because whilst the GTs browser was basically just laggy, the TFs browser is laggy and buggy.

Specifically, clicking on links in other applications often causes the browser to pop up, but it doesn't load the new page - this can be fixed by "killing" the browser and restarting it, but it shouldn't be this way. Whilst I much prefer the native browser when it works correctly, I'm now using Opera Mobile for day to day use.

Honeycomb Gmail on the TF is a revelation - it is a far superior client than the client on the GT.

Other minor Honeycomb/TF complaints are:

1. There doesn't seem to be a way to clear all notifications easily.

2. Just getting to the Settings menu is overcomplicated.

3. The keyboards do seem overly large in my opinion, and there don't seem to be enough long press options to get to alternate characters, though I'm aware these are easily replaceable.

4. Overall the TF performance is good, but I don't feel that Honeycomb is taking advantage of the dual core Tegra 2, and thus in general use it doesn't really feel any faster than my single core GT.

Media Playback

This is an easy one - the GT is a better media player than the TF, simply because it natively supports more formats (e.g. DivX).

I'm not unused to transcoding video to H264, as I had to do this often on my earlier Android devices, but with the advent of Cortex A8 class devices with Neon, I found software players like RockPlayer more than acceptable. This does not seem to be the case for the TF, since Tegra 2 doesn't support Neon instructions. However, the AC100 is a Tegra 2 device, and the built-in media player is much better than the stock TF one too, so really I think that Asus should have done more here.

With the TF, I'm back to having to transcode media, and to be honest for the most part that means I'll just my GT instead.

Overall Usage

Here's where it gets interesting!

The TF provides a very different experience to the GT and for the most part it is very enjoyable- when I bought the device, I knew it be mostly be a "coffee table" device, and that the size, weight, and built-in 3G of the GT was going to a distinct advantage over the TF when it comes to travelling.

What I didn't expect is that the GT still holds some advantages at home too.

Put simply, the TF is still too big and heavy sometimes - when I get up in the morning, I usually take my GT off charge and slip it into the pocket of my dressing gown, and this means it goes with me when I go to make a coffee, visit the "office" in the bathroom etc.

Also, late at night, if I want to watch something whilst lying in bed, the GT is simply much more comfortable to hold for any period of time, and coupled with better media support is always going to be the preferred option.

The Future

I don't think it is really fair to judge the TF until the keyboard dock becomes available, because I honestly think this will significant change the nature of the device.

When I first got my AC100, it was running Eclair and to be honest it was pretty rubbish, but it got so much better when Froyo landed.

I can see the TF similarly getting a completely new lease of life once the dock arrives.

Also, Honeycomb does feel like a work in progress, and I'm hoping for regularly updates to this device, which again should improve the experience, along with more Honeycomb specific apps on the market.

Conclusion

I think the TF is a fantastic product and the price is extremely good for what it is. I certainly wouldn't want to put anyone off buying one if they have a genuine interest this form factor. In the UK at least, I think the Xoom has priced itself out of the market massively, which currently leaves the TF as the 10.1" tablet of choice.

The biggest issue for me is that 10.1" tablets are generally too big and heavy, and whilst newer tablets may be lighter, they will still be similarly sized unless they can dramatically reduce the size of the bezel.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9" may well be a better compromise, and I will be looking closely at this once it arrives. However, it won't fit in a jacket pocket, so would still likely just be a coffee table tablet for me.

Ultimately, I think my ideal tablet device would be a 7" form factor device like the GT, similar internal hardware to the TF (dual core, IPS, memory etc), and built-in 3G. Until something like this ships, I think my GT will still be my primary media consumption/browsing device.

Steve Jobs may think that there is no market in 7" tablets, but in my case he's wrong!

[Guest Paul]

Thanks, a good review!

I agree the keyboard will be a big bonus, I also think the Galaxy Tab with Honeycomb (unlikely to happen!) would be my ideal tablet!

P

[Guest Simon O]

Also, Honeycomb does feel like a work in progress, and I'm hoping for regularly updates to this device, which again should improve the experience, along with more Honeycomb specific apps on the market.

Google have admitted that Honeycomb was rushed out and in the case of ASUS they pulled in 2.3.3 when it was available, built it and slapped it onto the devices with not much checking. Even they admit it's buggy. But they are working on updates and bugs will be fixed soon. Part of the reason why the tablets are currently unavailable is due to bug fixes in the software as well as stock issues. Also there is some concern about the reported backlight leakages and compass issues which, according to Asus, should not be happening and they are treating these are serious issues.