ASUS Eee Pad Slide, MeMO, Transformer Hands-On
ASUS first announced their Eee Pad Slide, Transformer, and MeMO at CES but we got the opportunity to test them out for the first time at MWC. Video footage was not allowed since the units aren’t finalized, so all I managed to snag were still pics, but I’m pretty interested in what ASUS brings to the table.
The ASUS Eee Pad Slide is the one I personally found most interesting. It’s super slim when closed but you can slide it open to reveal a FULL QWERTY keyboard:
I love the idea but ASUS definitely needs to improve the slide mechanism – it’s a bit rigid and forced when opening/closing but if they could make it a bit smoother it would be really nice. I was pretty amazed how slim the keyboard portion remains, meaning when it’s closed and you’re not using the keyboard you don’t sacrifice much portability. With the slider closed it’s still a pretty strong device in and of itself.
As usual, Tegra 2 and Honeycomb is looking like a pretty good combination. The device looks even better when you have a beautiful young lady and company rep modeling it:
Another tablet with keyboard combo ASUS has coming out is called the ASUS Eee Transformer:
Instead of merging tablet and keyboard with a must-use mechanism, ASUS allows you to completely detach them from eachother with the flick of a switch.
The tablet functions fully on its own so you can easily leave the keyboard behind and bring the tablet along for travel.
Some of the Transform specs:
Tegra 2 and Honeycomb again? Yes please!
Lastly we’ve got the ASUS Eee Pad MeMO which is a slate with stylus.
I wasn’t personally intrigued with this device because it’s a bit small for my liking and I don’t personally have a need for a stylus. Then again, there are many other people who prefer a pocketable tablet and who desire a stylus- these folks could definitely end up loving the MeMO.
Yet again we’re looking at Honeycomb but this time on a Qualcomm 8280 1.2GHz processor. I would have preferred the dual core NVIDIA solution and I’m thinking that the smooth fluidity of UI would have gone a long way when using a stylus. Handwriting is a utility where you don’t want any jerkiness.
Neither of these devices was actually running Honeycomb in their current form… which is why they didn’t let us film it. These devices should be launching in April, May and June respectively so stay tuned!
