COMMENTARY | In a "tablet market" that's almost completely dominated by the iPad, Apple's competitors are hard-pressed to make tablets that aren't perceived as generic-brand iPads.
HTC is making a valiant effort with its 7-inch HTC Flyer tablet, which uses a pressure-sensitive stylus. But perhaps the most unusual upcoming Android tablet is the Asus Eee Pad Transformer ... so called to distinguish it from the other Eee Pads (like the Slider), but also because of its Motorola Atrix-style laptop dock.
So is it a laptop or a tablet?
That depends on whether or not you're buying the optional laptop dock accessory. Those are supposedly going to sell for $150. The Asus Eee Pad Transformer itself will reportedly sell for $550 -- previous reports showing it priced at $400, while tantalizing, were apparently misleading.
Unlike the Atrix's "webtop" dock, the Transformer's dock doesn't use a separate operating system. Instead, it just has a netbook-style keyboard and touchpad, plus a spare battery which extends the Transformer's battery life from 9.5 to 16 hours. While the Transformer's plugged into the keyboard, the keyboard's battery recharges the Transformer's, which is a nice plus.
What would I use the laptop dock for?
The problem is that tablet operating systems like Android aren't designed to be operated with a keyboard, let alone a keyboard and a laptop-style touchpad. The Atrix's webtop got away with it because it used the desktop version of Firefox, which you kind of need a mouse or a touchpad for. But iPad owners have long known that there are almost no keyboard shortcuts for iPad apps, and have gotten used to reaching up and tapping the screen instead of using a mouse.
The Eee Pad Transformer can't run any of the 65,000 iPad apps, on account of it's based on Google's Android operating system. Android apps aren't designed for a keyboard and mouse either, though, which puts the Eee Pad in a bit of a quandary.
On the one hand, Asus is trying to answer that question with its own suite of apps. This includes something called Polaris Office 3.0, "a professional mobile office Solution," plus an app called MyCloud that includes a virtual desktop -- in other words, a way to remote control your PC or Mac, which a keyboard and mouse would be handy for. On the other hand, it's not likely that anyone besides Asus is going to be writing apps that use the keyboard and touchpad, and if you wanted a Windows or Mac laptop, you could just buy one of those instead.
Besides the laptop dock, how does the Transformer compare to the iPad 2?
Not very well.
It's slightly thicker and heavier, although it has an HDMI port and an SD card reader to make up for that. Hardware-wise, the two are just about equal, if you leave out the marvel that is the iPad 2's Smart Cover.
Where the Eee Pad Transformer falls short is in the software area. In other words, the apps. It can run the 150,000 apps in the Android Market, but almost none of those are optimized for a tablet ... only a couple dozen are as of right now, in fact. Meanwhile, there are, again, 65,000 apps designed just for the iPad, plus hundreds of thousands of iPhone apps that will run on it too.
The Verdict?
Unless you like being an early adopter, or you just can't stand Apple's designs, you might want to get an iPad 2 instead. (That keyboard is kind of neat, though.)
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
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