Joined on 04/26/02
Great EXCEPT no Bluetooth+WIFI streaming
Pros: Speed is very good for a tablet. I can still overwhelm it but its still quite impressive. Screen display looks good though not a "retina" display. Has been reliable.
Cons: WIFI reception isn't consistent or reliable. In close proximity to the router I still don't get full strength reception. That never made sense to me. FATAL FLAW, not to bury the lead, but if you plan to use this to stream video (e.g. Netflix) or music (e.g. Rhapsody, Pandora) and use a nice Bluetooth speaker, think again. Apparently this is a known limitation of the piece that I only discovered after many frustrating attempts to fix the problem. I think there's only one antenna or the case causes signal loss - whatever it may be, you won't be able to use both BT and WIFI at the same time. You'd think they would have foreseen that, huh? Well, I use the table mostly for work and communication when I can't use a proper PC and it serves that function adequately. ASUS makes many great products, I've built systems with their motherboards for longer than I'd like to say and my Nexus 7 (which I believe they make) is excellent. But I think this Bluetooth flaw is really a thoughtless omission - tablets are used mostly for entertainment, Netflix and Pandora are very common tablet apps and the inclusion of BT in the first place could only be for speakers or headphones. Just seems a no brainer that they should work together or be advertised as NOT working together. Oh well.
Overall Review: The keyboard for the Transformer series is pretty good and gives extra battery life as well as a USB port. All in all a good bit of kit. However, when you've combines these together along with a leather case for protection you've essentially got a notebook PC's weight and size (and cost if you got it when it was released) but not a real Windows or Mac experience: the processor, which is fast for a tablet, is not suited for multitasking or Office level applications. It's best as a personal tablet - if you want a notebook PC experience, invest in one of ASUS's excellent laptop computers. The keyboard is just for a niche market.
This is a hot mess - despite the heat dissipation
Overall Review: It's a very cool concept, no pun intended, but yeah, it also cools well I guess. This case was poorly designed. You should know that the back panel connections from your motherboard, the USB ports, video, network, etc., are in an internal compartment in this case. You access it, if you want to call that access, from the top grill. There is close to sufficient space for this purpose - UNLESS you have a liquid cooling radiator with fans. Then you have a very tight fit for your cables. And if they are not easily turned at a right angle as required to exit the back of the case, well you are out of luck. They will hit your fans. This is just a bad design. It looks nice, and the materials are probably above average. If your build is air-cooled, you can live with the unusual vertical build. But I really don't see how you can use this case with a radiator. It also can't be mounted out of the way unless you have a very small radiator and no graphics card - that area at the top of the case just doesn't work. Think this over before you jump in.
With small size comes limitations
Pros: Cool for what it is. Linux perfectly suited for the speed and capacity of the device. Extremely light and I would assume shock proof.
Cons: Just be sure that you realize that this is the 700 not the 701 which one might be confused by. Advertisements should be read carefully. If you can foot the difference, the 701 has some features which might be of interest to you.
Overall Review: You may notice that the "essential" accessories suggested includes a memory upgrade. This will not work in this model. Just be aware of that. I would refer you to the return policy which of course you should be aware.