These are the Droids you’re looking for
With the recent wave of Android powered tablets could the iPads dominance be coming to an end?
There are now at least ten great iPad alternatives out there and they are all running on the latest Android 3 OS (Honeycomb). I have been using one of these devices for two weeks now and I have to say it is fantastic. It may not have the elitist draw that the iPad has but that just makes me love it more.
The unit I have been using is the Asus Transformer. The amazing thing about this tablet is the optional keyboard/docking station, using this turns your tablet in to a notebook. This allows you to easily type documents and spreadsheets without half the display being taken up by the onscreen keyboard. The dock also has it’s own battery which increases the life of the tablet to sixteen hours. It also includes two USB 2 ports, an extra SD card reader and a trackpad to navigate rather than using the touchscreen.
The multimedia power of this device is outstanding. It has the capability to playback 1080p HD video thanks to the Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset and the images are crisp and clear on its 10.1″ screen. There is also a mini HDMI port allowing you to connect the device to a HDTV for fullscreen playback of movies.
The only downside of the Asus (and the iPad) are the cameras. Instead of using two cameras, they would be better off fitting a higher quality forward facing camera for better video chat using app’s like Skype or Facetime on the iPad.
All in all this is a great device, so much so that I have now sold my iPad and have replaced it with the Asus Transformer.
Find out more on the Asus website
Advertisement
