Asus Transformer Unboxing

As I'm advancing into graduate school, I realized that the netbook that I had wasn't actually what I wanted to use on campus. It served me very well as an interim computer when the motherboard on my last laptop fried for the third time (and out of warranty on the last time) and the vastly-improved desktop I eventually purchased to replace it. I had an Asus Eee PC 1005-HA, and it served me wonderfully. However, the screen size eventually got to me, since it had a maximum resolution of 1280x600, and required a special netbook-resolution for backgrounds and such. Importantly, many websites are set up with the basic assumption that the user has at least 786 vertical pixels to display, so things end up looking weird.

 So, I replaced it with a tablet. Yes, the screen is still going to be a bit weird. Since the Transformer is a 10.1 in, particularly, it'll be weird since it has a pseudo-widescreen. Yes, typing with the on-screen keyboard is a little weird. However, there are a couple things to counter these (admittedly, fairly big) issues. First, I got the keyboard/docking station, which basically turns the tablet back into a netbook for if I need to use the keyboard for extended typing (it also has a mousepad, but for most things using the touchscreen is actually easier and more intuitive since the OS it set up for that). I've actually typed all of this text so far on the keyboard, with very few mistakes that I could attribute to it's small size. Some of that comes from practice with the netbook, but it also is not a very small keyboard, even for someone with larger hands. However, most of the time I don't need to type a bunch while on campus. I want to be able to read mail and perhaps fire off a quick response, check my Google Reader for what's happening, and perhaps most importantly as I shift more into graduate school, read documents like PDFs. This last aspect is where I feel the tablet will shine best, since it's pretty much all screen and all I need to do is flip between pages to read, for example, a journal article.

So, without further ado, here's the package I got from UPS, freshly opened:



The packaging is really crisp, which lends a nice professionalism about Asus. Other companies have shifted some of their packaging to nondescript recycled brown cardboard with limited printing, and while I am a big fan of the ideas behind this movement and what it represents and applaud these companies, if you're not going to go in that direction then maintaining this level of professional and sharp image is good. 



Here's the opened tablet as it's booting up for the first time. You can see the Android logo - it's running Honeycomb, the tablet-specific version of Android, which has so far been really wonderful and mostly intuitive to use. I've had a few moments, as a long-time iPhone user, where I want to reach for the physical home button on the side, but that's an urge which is fading as I become more familiar with Android OS and the taskbar touch buttons. 



Here's the keyboard docking station in the same color as the tablet. The Transformer was only offered in brown when I ordered it, so I got the brown keyboard as well rather than the slightly more expensive black, despite not being a huge fan of the color. To my delight, it's actualy more of a burnished copper than an actual bronze, and looks really nice on both devices. I also ordered a black folio case for the tablet when I'm using it outside the docking station, and I am also a fan of the black leather color, so it's nice that both options are wonderful. As a warning for other potential buyers, the folio cases don't fit on the tablet when it's docked without significant modification to some of them. The one I purchased can slip into the dock if I undo the strap which holds it into the folio, but the strap lays on top of the keyboard and covers the top two rows of keys in the center. So long as I don't need to use those very often, that isn't a huge issue, but it's something worth considering. When I first tried to dock the tablet, there was a pretty big struggle to get the tablet to dock the first time, since the connections are very precisely arranged; there's hardly any wiggle room. Now that I've docked and undocked it a few times, however, physically aligning the sections is so much easier that I don't even need to think about it anymore. As a final word of advice, be sure to install the firmware update for the keyboard; out of the box mine stayed connected to the tablet for only a few minutes before disconnecting, and I haven't had this issue ever since. 



Finally up and running after I got online and downloaded a couple apps and updates. Everything's running fine and has been wonderful in the days since unpacking and now, when I'm writing this. As a tablet, I've had no complaints with it, and only a few issues with Android as a OS (and all of those are because of applications, not the actual system). 


Now, why do I want this in my future perfect house? 

• I can bring music, audiobooks, movies, and TV shows with me anywhere in the house, as I do laundry, prepare food, work out, garden, whatever. Certainly a normal laptop could do this as well, but why would I need the whole keyboard out and available the entire time if I'm just watching a show out of the corner of my eye as I chop carrots. I'd much rather just put the screen on a stand (like my folded folio case) and watch it like that, then be able to pick it up and easily move it somewhere else when I finish what I'm doing. Because of it's portability it's easy to keep a bunch of useful apps right at hand in the home. I can have food logs with MyFitnessPal right at hand in the kitchen, in a much more accessible format than a phone application. I can keep recipies on hand and display them on the screen, and, again, keep the keyboard out of the equation. I don't need to type much at that point, and so it'd save valuable space in the kitchen.
• With devices like Google TV (or Apple TV with a companion iPad), the tablet serves as a giant remote control for entertainment systems. Not only are you way less likely to lose a tablet (particularly if you use it for things other than just a remote), but giving commands to the TV which involve searching for shows or movies by typing out names is orders of magnitude easier when you have a keyboard, even if it's on-screen) rather than arrowing through an on-screen keyboard with the slow-to-respond remote. Want to call up a video on YouTube? Easy when typing the name of the video takes a few seconds rather than a painstaking minute or more, and good luck if you make a typo. 
•  Remote desktop applications (like TeamViewer, my current favorite particularly because it's free) work wonderfully with the increased screen real estate and let me perform effectively the same functions as I just described above with my desktop, rather than the TV. I can queue up a video on Hulu Desktop and watch it while snuggled up on the couch with my girlfriend rather than getting up to go change the video. I can browse through folders to find the right saved video to watch. I can search YouTube for just the right video and start it remotely in full-screen. 

As applications continue to advance and other technologies integrate better with tablets, I'm pretty sure the advantages to having one around the house will only increase. I'm definitely going to have something like this around in my future dream home.