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541 of 560 people found the following review helpful.
Great tablet
By Gary Lai
I’m typing this review on the A500 now. I was settling among an Ipad2 (and had actually purchased one), an Asus Transformer, and the A500. I became frustrated with the limitations of the Ipad 2, and once it became clear that the Asus Tranformer wouldn’t have adequate stock for weeks, I decisive to give the A500 a try. No regrets, and I ended up returning the Ipad2.
316 of 338 humans found the following review helpful.
Iconia vs. Transformer
By A. Dent
Myself and a friend of mine purchased a new Android tablet recently. I was lucky to grab the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer TF101-A1 10.1-Inch Tablet Computer (Tablet Only) on launch date and he just got the Iconia. Both of us are on the market for at least one, perhaps 2 more tablets (me with 2 high school kids and a third catching up fast) so we accorded to swap our new gadgets for a couple of days so we could each better determine what our second Android tablet was going to be.
Here’s my 2-day evaluation of Iconia vs. Transformer with general references to the other better known tablet players such as the iPad and the Xoom. This is going to be a quick and not complete comparison so do feel free to add your own categories as remarks to this review.
- FREEDOM (even) – They are both non-iPad tablets that are technologically on par (and here and there superior) with the ‘leader’ AND reasonably priced AND, not similar to the iPad, they don’t strength us, the paying customers, into a great deal of ‘ecosystem’ mandatory straightjacket. While not perfect, both the Transformer and Iconia offer a great deal when it comes to features and expandability. The Honeycomb is a somewhat open OS. You are free by default as you ought to be. There’s no need to jailbreak because you’re free. You may shop on more than one app store, do comparison shopping, download beta code and you may even run Flash.
But let me carry on with my brief Transformer vs. Iconia comparison.
- PRICE (Transformer) – with everything else more or less equal, the Asus tablet beats the Iconia by $50. It may be argued that the Iconia has galore vantages – I like it is solid aluminum backside – but the Transformer has it is own so, on a Dollar vs. Dollar competition, the Transformer wins. They each come with choices and expansions but, not similar to cars, you may get a lot off the base models.
- DISPLAY (even) – Both come with 10.1″, 16×9 (wide screen). In my view, they both beat the iPad’s 9.7″ screen which is in a 4×3 format. Apples has a few more square inches but movies show much better on a 16×9 screen. The watching angle is rather wide with few distortions and the colors are rich and bright when used in a room under natural or artificial light. Outside, the glare is significant.
- RESOLUTION (even) – 1280×800 on both the Transformer and the Iconia translate in 30% more pixels than iPad’s and a few more pixels per square inch.
- INTERNAL MEMORY (even) – 1 GB is twice as much than iPad’s (better multi-tasking) and on par with the more highpriced Xoom.
- PROCESSOR (even) – 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 (2 x Cortex A9) is on par with Xoom, clock speed similar with iPad 2.
- STORAGE (even) – 16 GB, same as iPad 2 but Xoom comes with 32GB. Both are expandable through microSD.
- WEIGHT (even) – they are both somewhat heavier than the iPad or the Xoom but only slightly.
- CAMERAS (Iconia) – they both come with 5MP rear camera for picture or video-taking but the Iconia has a 2MP front facing vs. the Transformer’s 1.2MP. In addition, the Iconia has a flash which the Transformer lacks. Iconia’s pictures appeared a little crisper to me.
- PHYSICAL BUILT (Iconia) – Transformer’s plastic back is not a major concern to me but Iconia’s solid aluminum armor makes it the clear winner in this category. The Iconia feels like a solid, well-designed product.
- MULTIMEDIA (Transformer) – I had difficulties with the Iconia accessing content from other media servers on the network while all was more or less flawless with the Transformer. It’s a significant plus for the Transformer but my friend is telling me that the Iconia may get a soft upgrade soon that ought to take care of this. To be fair, I had to update the Transformer before I could use a lot of of the cooler (MyCloud) features.
- EXTRA FEATURES (Transformer) – The Transformer comes with a well thought/designed dock/keyboard/expansion option that will efficaciously ‘transform’ it into an Android-running netbook. Do persons who buy tablets genuinely want to transform them into netbooks? That’s a good question. I’m not sure I do but at least one of my kids believes that he could use the physical keyboard. The Transformer’s MyCloud makes it very easy to remotely control other computers and get access to digital content.
I didn’t have sufficient time to broad test battery life or downloaded apps but I may say that Kindle and Gmail work great on both tablets.
EVALUATION
Following the 2-day swap we both agree that The Transformer has the edge at this time and, unless something completely new and unexpected emerges in the next couple of months we are both likely to get a Transformer as our second tablet. However, there is the AVAILABILITY category where, at the time I’m writing this, the Iconia beats the Transformer hands down because you may genuinely buy one at the list price. This is going to change, for sure.
My friend likes the Iconia and so do I but we both like the Transformer more. Let me say this: I missed my Transformer over the weekend. We only wish we could get one or, in my case, a second one.
–
>> Brush your teeth, it’s the law! <<
154 of 162 persons found the following review helpful.
Pretty good tablet, with a good deal of issues that will in all likelihood be fixed soon
By Lyle Eckert
UPDATE – 6/27/11 -
I did get a software update a while back for the A500, and it did repair the screen waking up, this made it so that the battery will now last for a couple of days of light use before it runs out, equated to being plugged in every day like it was before when the screen would wake up for notifications.
I haven’t genuinely noticed any other big changes from the former version. On the other hand, I did see that a leaked version of the 3.1 upgrade is out on the web today, so we ought to be getting that upgrade soon, and it sounds like a lot of enhancements are in that update.
One other thing of note, is that I picked up a wireless usb keyboard for use with the A500, and it worked fine for me, but my wife was attempting to use it with blogger and she said she was having difficulties with it. Seems like it couldn’t rather keep up with her typing. It doesn’t seem to be the keyboard but the A500 that was the limiting factor, because I used the keyboard on a normal laptop, and didn’t observe any lag.
I still genuinely like using the A500 over having to use a normal laptop like I was before, it is just so much nicer that it is always on and I may just hit the power button and go! Still very happy with this purchase.
END UPDATE
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I purchased this the week it showed up in a brick and mortar store near me. I love having a tablet around, it is much quick to just pick it up and use it rather of having to wake up/start up my computer. I use this for most of my web browsing now when I am at home, and I likewise take the tablet to work and use it for music thru bluetooth (works perfectly with my sony DR-BT50 headphones).
HDMI
I have also purchased an hdmi cable for the tablet and that works awesome. When you plug in the hdmi cable, it will mechanically commence mirroring the display, and the sound worked through the TV speakers as expected. I have noticed that since the solution on the A500 is 1280×800 it cuts off portion of the top and bottom when it is connected to my tv, which runs it at 720p (1280×720). This is a minor irritation because I was competent to share videos and other content quickly and without apparent effort with the tablet, where as with my laptop, it never seems to work as nice.
Sound & Display
The sound on the tablet is genuinely good, I was kind of surprised, for such a little thing to have such good sound. I am not saying I would want to listen to my music over the speakers, my headphones are much better for that, but for sharing music or videos with persons around it works beauteous well. The display is fine, good, but not great. I think the colors and luminance are fine, but my phone seems better (Galaxy S phone). The watching angle is good, and effortlessly sharable with a person sitting next to you.
Apps & Software
I genuinely like Honeycomb (Android 3), the G-mail client is much better. The browser is fine, but it is a little on the sluggish side. I planned on using this to replace a laptop for surfing the web while moving around the house, and it is good for that, but I may tell that the browser is just not as fast as the laptop on the same network, so I think it might be a little underpowered by comparison. Most websites load with the full website and not a mobile website (wired for galore reason always gives me the mobile… grrrr), and that makes it a much better experience. The on-screen keyboard is ok, I am so used to using swype on my phone, that I miss it when using the A500, but I haven’t tried to install it yet. As for the other apps in the android market, I have loaded a bunch of the non-tablet apps, and they seem to work fine for me. Most of them scale outstanding (including angry birds, which is big on a 10.1″ screen). I have likewise picked up a few tablet only versions, and they worked just as well.
Hardware
Overall the tablet seems zippy, I haven’t noticed any slowdowns when running regularly, though I did get choppy video when attempting to use a 720p video on You Tube while connected to HDMI. I haven’t tried that again, but I have a sentiment it just was too much for the tablet. Anyway I love that it has the HDMI port, and the USB micro in for transferring info over, and a normal usb for a keyboard, or flash drives.
WIFI
The wifi works just ok, the signal strength doesn’t seem as good as a normal laptop, but it is in regards to the same or perhaps a little better than my Galaxy S phone. I have likewise had times where sitting 10 feet from the router I held loosing the signal, but after a reboot, it seemed to work fine. I have likewise wifi tethered the A500 to my phone, and that worked out great. Basically you just turn on wifi-tether on the phone, and the A500 saw it as an access point right away. The only bad share is that it does suck the phone’s battery very quickly. I did this while out camping (sadly only getting E 
and not 3G), and it made the trip a lot nicer than attempting to use my phone like I had in the past for e-mail and catching up in reader.
Now for the downers….
So I noted that there were a couple of problems, and they will probably all be fixed by way of software updates. First off I had a heck of a time using the market when I initial purchased the A500. It would get stuck when it was suppose to download something. I at long last did a wipe of the data (fresh install again), and I had the same problem. I realized that I had clicked on the update for google maps when it primary loaded up, and after another wipe, I went to the market first, and had to receive the agreement, and then everything worked fine. So, click on the Market icon primary and receive the terms.
*FIXED* — Another thing that is annoying is that the screen keeps popping on when the tablet is not in use. I was reading on some of the forums, that if you turn off wifi, or put the tablet in airplane mode, that it would stop doing this. It seems to be that when it tries to do selective information updates in the background, it turns the screen on. This is a minor annoyance, but it keeps the screen waking up, and it sucks battery.
I have also had a one lockup that I had to hold down the power button till it turned off, and then turned it back on. And once where the browser wouldn’t load anything after clicking on a link in the google reader app. I had to reboot the table to get this fixed.
Overall
I genuinely like the tablet, and I think the issues I had above, will all be fixed by software updates as honeycomb becomes more mature. I had a G1 when it basi came out, and it was beauteous much a mess when at the beginning. As the software updates came along, it worked much better. Using the tablet as a alternate for a laptop, works finelooking good for surfing the web, and observing videos and such, though it could use more power in the browser area. The battery life is better than my phone, but that just isn’t saying much. I actually like the choices that it staged (like the USB and HDMI ports), and the screen resolution, which is why I purchased this over the Asus transformer (need the dock for a normal usb port), and it was much for less than the Xoom(Verizon or WIFI) or G-Slate (T-Mobile), or the iPad2. I likewise was more mesmerized in an Android tablet over an iOS tablet, because I use a lot of Google services (GMail, Docs, Calendar, Reader, etc), and they work better on Android than they seem to on iOS, so it is much more commodious for me. I bet within 3-6 months I will have to upgrade this to a 5 star review, but with the software difficultnesses as they are now, I just can’t do it, even even though I wouldn’t get rid of the A500.
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