Gadgetory

what's up guys it's Lou from unbox therapy and I finally got a chance to sit down and put together a little review on the Asus Transformer that I just picked up if you guys haven't checked out the unboxing video definitely do so I'll put a link up in the annotations and also down in the description I cover a few things like the different ports available on the unit and you also get some nice close-ups so definitely check it out but let's move on to the review and my first impressions having used a device for a couple of days now and believe it or not I'm actually really impressed I actually really enjoy using the device the thing about these kinds of devices is that they're really consumption based devices the main focus here is sitting down and consuming your content and this device here is really one of the first that says hey you could do a little bit of production honey as well but it also gives you the ability to consume content in a couple of different form factors sometimes I'm sitting down on a couch in a certain position and I've been holding up the tablet for a while and I'm really wishing that I just had a little stand or something for it now this Asus Transformer is gonna give you not only a stand but also all the extra functionality built in to this keyboard portion now I want to mention you can buy the Asus Transformer just the tablet portion of it without the keyboard dock but I don't think you're really making the best use out of the built-in functionality that Asus put in there when you do that especially considering price wise like I picked this combo up for $4.99 here in Canada now you look at something like the Galaxy Tab 10 one it's basically the same price without all of that added functionality now you're probably asking what is all the added functionality he keeps talking about and there's a few things there's obviously some that you see right away the keyboard the multi-touch trackpad the side of the unit has got you know your obviously your charging port here you've got one USB on this side the other side of the unit adds a full-size SD card slot another USB port now the tablet has got a bunch more functionality over the Galaxy Tab 10 one as well you've got a microSD card slot an HDMI port a headphone jack a headphone jack is pretty obvious that's not really added functionality and you've also got a five megapixel camera on the back side of the unit I'm sure if you saw that there yeah there you go maybe you can see it now maybe not there it is right up there a 5 megapixel camera instead of a 3 megapixel camera which in my tests is a significant improvement over the Galaxy Tabs 3 megapixel camera in real world usage now those are all very important things but not really the most important as far as I'm concerned the most important thing for me about this attachment is having the extra battery this unit has its own battery in it and it almost doubles the battery life of your tablet now obviously there's an extra weight and all that associated with it so you're not really doubling the life of your tablet your tab turning your tablet into something else but that's fine with me I sort of figure if the environment calls for the tablet on its own then I can just pop it out of the transformer dock if the environment calls for the whole unit or if you know I have a table to rest it on or even if I'm just sitting on my couch and I don't feel like holding it anymore and I need a few more minutes of juice you know it's not really a question of if you're going to use it in this way all the time but having the option to me is worth the money so I've given you some of my opinions there it's obviously not going to ring true for everyone if you can't see yourself ever using that added functionality then maybe you want to take your money and buy something a little bit more sleek and a little bit lighter as well it's not really fair to compare the Galaxy Tab 10 1 to the transformer when it's docked in so let's go ahead and remove it from the dock now that's controlled via this mechanical switch up here the way that that functions is by unlocking to the left and then you lift up on the tablet portion and then you've got your tablet on the bottom side of the unit you have one two different ports that allow the unit to be locked in there as well as your proprietary asus port now when you hold the Galaxy Tab 10 1 up against the transformer you can see it's not that much thinner it's a little bit shorter the tab 10:1 that is and it's significantly lighter you know you can definitely notice the weight difference so like I said if you're looking for the absolute lightest on the market right now then you're probably looking at the tab 10:1 but for me the weight difference is not significant enough that it would change my mind I'm I'm totally on board with this this transformer concept in fact I think tablets should have gone this way a long time ago instead of those crazy swiveling screens even though you know they may not have had the technology to build this much functionality into a removable slate in the past we have it now so why not take advantage of it now I've also got Believe It or Not an iPad 2 and I've also got a MacBook Air the newest model 13-inch down here as well and the reason that I've got this here is because when you've got this transformer completely hooked up in the docking station it actually becomes very close to the same way as the MacBook Air now you're probably not considering those two devices only because they're two totally different price points but I just wanted to give you an idea of what to expect if you're going to be using this in the laptop form factor more often than not it is fairly hefty so I just want to give you that warning not hefty to the point where you're talking about traditional laptop weight but hefty to the point where you're thinking damn I could be carrying a MacBook Air if that's an option for you but in the realm of Android tablets there's really nothing else that's quite doing what this one is doing so I figured hey you know get the extra functionality especially at the price point that asus has it at so something that I haven't mentioned yet is the shortcut-keys that's another fantastic feature on this device you've got keys up top here or you know toggling auto-brightness you've got multimedia keys a very quick settings key a HOME key to take you back to home from wherever you are when you're in an application say the browser for example you've got a options key which brings up you know your different options within that application whether it be the browser or something else you've also got a multi-touch trackpad which I don't actually use that much only because I usually just reach up and touch the screen for whatever it is that I need performance wise this device is very similar to the Tab 10 one basically identical I mean a great way to stress them out is to like throw some 1080p video on there and they both handle it perfectly well the web browsers are close to identical as well and so if you want to get a better idea of just how speedy they are then definitely check out my show down video where I can pair the iPad here there's the iPad 2 the Galaxy Tab 10 one as well as the HP TouchPad that will give you a very good idea of what kind of performance to expect out of the transformer it's very similar so anyway guys I probably haven't covered everything but I've definitely talked for a while this is a new style of review you know usually I I sort of sit down I have more edits and you know I usually don't talk for so long or about so much so definitely let me know in the comments section if you like this style or not maybe I could go back to a different style but I really wanted to cover a lot of things and also just sort of get my opinion out there because I really do like this device I'm really impressed by it and I think if you're in the market for an Android Honeycomb tablet you've got to take a long hard look at this device here anyway guys until next time thanks for watching and if you like this content and hopefully you'll subscribe or at least visit the channel and check out some more stuff I've got going on over there thanks