How great is the Asus Eee pad?

The Asus Eee Pad Transformer

In terms of instant access and portability, the Asus Eee Pad was very impressive.  At 680 grams (about a pound and a half) the Eee pad is lighter than most college text books.  The Eee Pad has a textured pattern on the back as well as on the matching, detachable (sold separately) keyboard, which makes carrying the machine rather easy.  Since I was looking for a Laptop replacement, I used the tablet with the keyboard attachment most of the time, and was very pleased to discover the 16 hour battery life - which decreases to 9 hours on the tablet without the keyboard - but that still beats the laptop battery life.  It seemed too perfect, with the ability to charge both the keyboard and tablet at the same time,  instant access to the internet, hundreds of free apps, cloud technology, immediate wakeup response, a touch screen? How often had I wished to be able to manipulate tasks with a touch screen on my desktop PC? too many times.  With a USB port, an SD card reader, a front and back camera, what felt like a gorilla glass screen, an HDMI port to connect to a TV (HD of course),  a beautiful screen with 178 degree viewing angle, the Transformer seemed perfect.
             Of course with anything that seems too good to be true, I discovered the fatal flaw with this machine and that was the compatibility.  The Android network offers hundreds of free apps that allow limited features which ultimately hindered me from being able to work.  Once I figured out how to access the USB memory stick through the file manager I discovered many of the apps didn't support many of the files I needed to access.  So I  downloaded as many free apps relating to the subject as I could find, to no avail. When it came to open office, odt, xlr, and certain word files, and other Microsoft programs I could view the file but not edit it.  As a writer, that is useless.  When I viewed the file and copied it into a program I could edit on I then discovered certain files were too big and got cut off.  Not to mention - that is a lot of work to be able to edit a file.  I've heard that the full app would probably allow me to do what I want to be able to do on an Eee Pad, but I'm not willing to pay $13.99 or whatever for an app to do what I can do on a laptop for free. 
                 So even though there were aspects I loved about the tablet, there were aspects I hated as well (such as the Android network, being used to the Microsoft format with multi-tasking and the ability to toggle between programs, changing to the Android network was confusing for me.)  The original idea that this tablet could be the new netbook is nice, but it's certainly no typewriter.  Not to mention the keyboard is just slightly smaller than a normal keyboard and although I could type, the type speed and accuracy was vastly lower than on a normal sized keyboard. Annoying. There are new Microsoft based tablets out there and $1,500 tablets that do what I dreamt the Eee pad could do, unfortunately, I'm not willing to dish out that type of dough.  But the Eee pad might be perfect for someone, depending on what you use it for, just not for me.  So it's the waiting game again for technology to advance so I can afford the technology I want but in the mean time I need to look at what I can learn from this. The frustration reminded me to be happy with what I have, not to always want more and to find satisfaction in what I have so I won't be jealous of others.  Of course this doesn't mean I shouldn't aspire for better - but I certainly don't have to feel sad about having a laptop without a touch screen.  Find happiness in your surroundings instead of frustration in what you don't have. Although it's still funny when I try to make programs work on my laptop by touching the screen instead of using the mouse and after wondering why it's not responding I will suddenly remember how foolish I must look.


Check out the Asus website www.Asus.com to find out more about the Asus Eee Pad. 


Isn't it funny how the Eee pad sounds like the ipad with a different vowel?



This review is a personal opinion and in no way reflects the opinions or values of Asus, Android or any affiliated companies.  Since this is a personal review the author holds no responsibility for how readers may act directly or indirectly in response to this article.