Asus Eee Pad Transformer - Tablet or Laptop?

The first table we saw that impressed was a HP laptop whose screen could be swivelled and the reason it was impressive was it was then used to project slides to support a conference presentation and the presenter proceeded to drawn onto the tablet to highlight and project drawn images etc. However, the price was just too much and it was obvious that the device had a clear weak spot in the swivel point, but it did impress.

Now Asus have announced the first shipments of their Eee Pad Transformer. It’s called the Eee Pad Transformer because can use an optional Qwerty keyboard docking station with unique Android function keys. The scratch-resistant 10.1” Gorilla Glass touchscreen can be viewed at angles up to 178 degrees and it is claimed to provide 50% better rendition.

It follows the usual Android tablet spec in having an Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor, coming with Google's Android 3.0 ‘Honeycomb’ operating system, aka "Honeycomb" and is preloaded with Polaris Office 3.0, which supports the most PC file formats on PCs, such as MS Office, XLS, XLSX, PowerPoint, Adobe PDF, and image files.

The battery life on one charge is some 9.5 hours which increase to 16 hours when docked. As with other mobile tablets it has a 5MP rear camera that can record HD video and a 1.2MP front-facing camera for videoconferencing and can support both WiFi and 3G. As with laptops it has a mini-HDMI port, a 3.5mm audio jack, two USB ports, a built-in SD card reader and also SRS Sound technology.

So is it a laptop or a tablet, a mobile device or a PC? Will the price of $500 to $700 be low enough to tempt those looking for something extra?

As Android Tablets vie for position it great to see them all trying to be different. We think that the docking station isn’t enough and we would like to see more voice recognition and intuitive interfaces than a keyboard.

HTC Flyer Tablet On Its Way Next Month?

HTC’s Flyer will next month enter the tablet wars and it will offer something different – pen input. This will make it maybe a little more tactile, but will it make it a compelling buy?

In its smart aluminum case, the 7” Android tablet weighs in just under a pound, is 0.5” thick and features; a 1024 x 600 resolution Super LCD touch screen, 1.5GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 Snapdragon single-core processor, 1GB of RAM plus 32GB of flash storage, a microUSB port and a claimed battery life of 61 days of standby and 4 hours with video playback. It also has a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera, 5-megapixel rear camera, HSPA+ support, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

The Flyer will run on Android 2.4, which is based on the Honeycomb OS used for smartphones but will use HTC’s Sense user interface and their obvious Android technology such as HTC Scribe and HTC Watch.

However it’s the pen that catches the attention.



The user will be able to use the pen to take notes, draw pictures, and sketch directly on the tablet. The note-taking app Evernote is preloaded and offer synchronisation too and with Audio notes also synced up with the written notes through a Timemark app we have potentially an interesting tablet. Imagine being in a meeting where you capture it in audio and in writing and by tapping on a word you are instantly taken to the appropriate audio point. The question is not whether this sounds a great innovation but whether users want it, will use it and perceive it as adding real value?

There is certainly some real interest such that some million orders have been recorded and HTC claim an ‘order visibility to the end of August 2011,’ even before a release date and price had even been announced.

The two videos may be a bit long but they clearly show the look and feel and demonstrate the use of the pen.

Android's Honeycomb Is Unveiled

Google has unveiled it's tablet Android OS ‘Honeycomb’ which has been specifically optimised for tablets. To day over 145 devices running on Android, including a handful of tablets and as we reported earlier this week it is now the number one operating system on smartphones.

In light of the ambiguous noise coming out of Apple this week, Honeycomb includes the ability to buy applications from a tablet, buy features inside the app, video chat and improved graphics. The in-app purchasing feature will enable developers make money by selling virtual goods and upgrades in their apps to users. Some of the new Honeycomb features are expected to find their way onto Android smartphones very soon.

As we previously reported Motorola will be the first to bring Honeycomb to market with its Xoom device. but LG and T-Mobile are expected to follow with their G-Slate tablet.

Google's has also changed Android Market and announced a web-based version that will enable users to browse and buy apps directly from the web. With Google’s cloud, users can send apps directly to any Android device in a few clicks. This is a vast improvement for both users and developers and it is the later that Google are clearly appealing to. Today Android may have over 100,000 apps in its store, Apple ahs over 300,000 in its store.

Will Honeycomb compete with Apple’s iPad? Some suggest that if it is widely taken up by the manufactures, like with smartphones, it’s like spread betting as one or a number of tablet are likely to shine under it and Apple only have one iPad.