Hands on: ASUS Transformer Pad 300 10.1-inch tablet
updated 10:15 am EST, Mon February 27, 2012
ASUS revamps Transformer tablets
ASUS brought along its revamped Transformer tablets this week for Mobile World Congress, where the company introduced the Transformer Pad 300 and Infinity. The 300 series is claimed to be the first LTE quad-core tablet, taking advantage of NVIDIA's Tegra 3 chipset that seems to be a common focal point at the moment for various manufacturers. Electronista stopped by to take a closer look at the 300, along with its dock accessory.
After playing around with a dozen Tegra 3-equipped devices, we expected the Pad 300 to be as fast as the rest. Our expectations appeared to be accurate, as the hardware easily handled Ice Cream Sandwich interface transitions, gallery browsing and gaming apps.
In most respects the device is like most other 10.1-inch Android tablets, offering a 1280x800 display with IPS technology for wide viewing angles. The company made a slight upgrade to the eight-megapixel camera sensor, pairing it with an f/2.2 lens, while LTE capabilities are also a plus.
The Pad 300 maintains the same basic functionality as the original Transformer, enabling users to slide the tablet into a keyboard dock to serve as a netbook. We did not run into any problems typing on the island-style keyboard.
The price tag for the tablet and the whole system remains a looming question, pending an official announcement from ASUS.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Sep 2010
Then that is a fail...
If the tablet is the same as all the other 10" Android tabelts then that is not a good thing for ASUS because ASUS doesn't exatcly have a sought after brand name. Doomed to live life on the (razor-thin) margins.