I picked up an Asus Eee Pad Transformer the other week. This is an Android tablet, much like the Samsung one that Apple doesn't like, running Honeycomb (3.2) on a 10" touchscreen. Apart from the iPad, it and Acer's Iconia Tab are currently the two most visible in Australia. I have a friend who has the Acer and loves it.

However, Asus have chosen to go off in their own direction. The Eee Pad has a keyboard dock that transforms it into an Android laptop. The hardware integration is very well done: the keyboard dock has its own battery and charges the tablet's battery. And the battery life is good - 16 hours when together, apparantly. Asus have also added a few extra settings and widgets to the stock Android so it knows about the dock.

The other thing that is too about it is how well the "instant on" works. I've never seen Windows or Linux on a laptop do this so well - it actually takes some getting used to. One of the main reasons I bought it was so I could do writing a lot more easily. And that it does very well*. Asus ship the Eee Pad with Polaris Office which is a quite capable office program - I just wish it understood OpenOffice formats as well as MS Office. And I'm actually using the keyboard dock far more than I expected I would.

Android 3.2 is a substantial upgrade from the 2.3 on my phone. Yet there's still a lot of similarity. It's a little odd sometimes using a large touchscreen, and more than a handful of websites need to recognise an Android browser on a tablet has room for desktop-sized content. But for the most part it is highly usable. The screen is wider than a iPad, which is common in Android tablets. It also has memory card and USB sockets for adding content - something Apple would never do.

Has Apple got something to worry about? Yes and no. I think Google aren't really competing in quite the same market, but Google doesn't appear to know this yet. So no. But Asus have done some very good hardware design and may have found a new niche not explored yet - and that is the Android laptop. So maybe.

Perhaps my biggest gripe is that the touchscreen gets mucky quickly, though microfibre cloths clean it well. And the lack of covers is annoying. But on the whole, it is fabulous and I'm really glad I bought it. I bought it retail for AU$662 which seems a bit high, but competitive against an iPad. My netbook was about that price, actually.

Wade.

* I've started looking at developing for Android, because the writing apps are a bit limited. The learning curve is not steep, but it is long.

As good as the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Acer Iconia Tab are, *all* the reviews I found of the Eee Pad Transformer say it's better than both. :-)

Wade.