The Asus Eee Pad Transformer is the cheapest 10 inch tablet with Google Android 3.0 and an NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor. But good luck getting your hands on the $400 tablet, because it’s sold out pretty much everywhere at the moment. There have been theories about supply shortages floating around for a few days, so the folks at Netbook News got in touch with an ASUS spokesperson in Taiwan to get to the bottom of things.
Asus expects to produce 100,00 units this month and more than twice as many next month. Officials say demand for the tablet has been higher than expected, and the company says if demand continues to increase, so will production.
In other words, hopefully it won’t be as hard to find Eee Pad Transformer tablets next month as it is right now.
The Transformer features a 10 inch, 1280 x 800 pixel display, a dual core 1 GHz processor, 16GB or 32GB of storage, front and rear cameras, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, GPS, and Blueooth 2.1. It supports HDMI output, has a microSD card slot, and Asus offers an optional keyboard docking station allowing you to use the tablet like a notebook. The $150 dock also has its own battery, nearly doubling the tablet’s battery life.
Honestly I think they didn’t have capacity figured out yet and they knew the demand was going to be high. Quite frankly, this is great news as I’m hoping to snatch one of these before my trip over to the ME here in a few months.
So they make one of the most interesting portable devices i have seen in years, and are surprised by the demand? I´m really happy that this model seems to be selling well, i don´t have the money for it now, but i certainly want one one, so i hope other comanies make similar devices (or more models from asus)
You don’t have to wait very long. The dockable tablet/sale is a no brainer and other manufacturers will be introducing similar products.
Additionally, if you will settle for a less secure connection, there
are already a number of folio type cases with keyboards built in
that will work with any Bluetooth enabled tablet/slate. Many of
these folios are advertised as being for the iPad, but they should
work with other devices as well. The folio/keyboards are in the
US$40 range.
A netbook also is a no brainer. Just saying. Save $100+ and get a keyboard thrown in for the f__k of it.
You can’t normally detach the keyboard from the netbook like you
can with a slate. Slates can weigh as little as 1 lb sans keyboard,
and at most around 1.5 lb (iPad 2, 1.6 lb for iPad 1).
Most netbooks I’ve seen weigh from 2.5 lb to 3 lb.
As far as pricing is concerned, there’s a premium paid for portability.
My ThinkPad X200s weighs 2.4 lb with 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, 96 GB
SSD, 4 cell battery (good for ~4 hours), 2.7 lb with 6 cell battery (~6 hrs), 3.1 lb with 9 cell battery (~9 hr). This is notebook class
weight, but desktop power.
Of course I paid $1,000 for it new but it’s the best notebook purchase I’ve ever made (neweer ThinkPad X models weigh more due to a slightly bigger screen).
It all depends on what your priorities are. ThinkPad X models are best sellers for Lenovo for reasons their owners would love to tell you
(but I don’t want to sound like a shill for them).
Due to the intense attention manufacturers are giving to tablets/slates, prices are bound to come down. Already, tablets/
slates are looking to ramp up even faster than the remarkable
rise in notebook sales. And there are precipitous price drops even
now, see the Entourage EDGE 7″ pricing, or prices of refurb Samsung
Galaxy Tab 7″.
Its a different type of usage altogether. I am not going to expect to do my serious development work on it – I have a PC for that. These things are damn cool.