Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101G Review

Tablets make fun multimedia devices but when it comes down to real work, like typing out this review for instance, there’s no replacing the good ol’ physical keyboard. You could always buy a bluetooth keyboard as an add-on but that’s just one more thing to carry around. This has always caused a huge dilemma for first time buyers who are left with the painful choice of deciding between a tablet and a netbook. A hybrid device was needed to give us the best of both worlds. Lenovo teased us with the LePad but never actually got to putting it into production. Thankfully, Asus saw a window of opportunity and capitalized on it by creating, quite frankly, the best hybrid device seen to date. We give you the Transformer TF101G - a tablet for leisure and a netbook for work, just what the doctor ordered.

Design and Build
The Transformer comes in two parts, there’s the tablet itself and the keyboard dock which further expands its functionality. Let’s start with the tablet. Measuring just 12.9mm in thickness, it’s really slim and light too, at just 695g. The Galaxy Tab 750 still remains the slimmest and lightest 10.1-inch tablet though. The TF101G is built extremely well and it just feels like it costs a premium (which is does). Instead of a plain, boring back, Asus have gone with a nice patterned design and the colour is very eye catching as well. The tablet sports an IPS panel and a scratch-resistant glass for added protection.

All docked in

Connectivity wise, we have a 3.5mm headphone jack with support for a microphone as well, mini-HDMI (Type C) connector, microSD card slot while the left side houses the SIM card slot (For the TF101G model only) and the volume rocker and power/sleep button. The fit and finish of all the ports and buttons are well done giving you a sense of quality and attention to detail.

Buttons are crafted well

The proprietary connector is at the bottom and is used for charging, data transfer or to connect to the dock. In the rear, we also have a 5MP camera without flash and a front facing 1.3MP camera for video chat. While the TF101G does accept SIM cards, it does not support telephony functions. It does however come with 16GB memory, Gyroscope and E-compass and stereo speakers with SRS. Now, let’s turn our attention to the dock.

The Dock
If you thought this was just a plain old keyboard, then you're sadly mistaken. About the same size as a 10-inch Eee PC keyboard, the dock weighs another 640g, which brings the grand total to about 1.3kg which is more or less what a typical netbook weighs. The dock is equally slim and continues the same patterned design on the base as well.

Comfortable keyboard, albeit slightly cramped

The four rubber feet help give it some grip when placed on a desk. The keyboard is your regular chiclet styled one but instead of the function keys, we have shortcuts for media, brightness, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and even a button to lock the screen. You simply dock the tablet in and it locks in place, transforming it into a netbook. The multi-touch trackpad supports two finger gestures so you can move through the home screens by swiping it left or right and swipe it up or down to scroll. Pinch-to-zoom is also present in the gallery and browser.

The dock can be charged separately as well

The dock also lets you expand the connectivity further by offering two USB 2.0 ports and a memory card reader. There’s also a charging port to charge the tablet when docked in. The USB ports support NTFS file format so a 500GB portable drive is a non-issue. 1080p files struggle to play via portable hard drive but work just fine through an SD card or onboard memory. There’s even a 24Whr battery stuffed inside the dock which prolongs the battery life of the tablet if you’re running low. In case the tablet is completely drained out, simply plug it in and it will charge it up to 50 percent.

Versus a netbook

The keys are incredibly comfortable to use but like any 10.1-inch netbook, feel a tiny bit cramped. Another thing is that it doesn’t recognize some basic Windows commands like Ctrl+S for saving, which, due to force of habit, you will inevitably do at some point while typing. It’s not a complaint, just that it would have been nice if Asus would have incorporated that somehow.