Eee Pad Transformer 2 in the Works; Slider Launches
This weekend Asus confirmed that a Transformer 2 tablet is in the works. Meanwhile, the company has officially launched the Eee Pad Slider tablet.
Over the weekend, Asus chairman Jonney Shih told Forbes that the company is currently working on a sequel tablet to its popular Android-powered Eee Pad Transformer. Shih wouldn't reveal any details in regards to screen size or launch date, but promised that it would be "impressive."
There's speculation that the follow-up tablet will sport Nvidia's quad-core Tegra 3 (Kal-El) SoC slated for a September release. The current Transformer tablet, costing around $395 without the docking keyboard, uses Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2 SoC and a high-resolution IPS display. According to Forbes, it's been the top-selling tablet on Amazon for the past two weeks; Shih claims the company shipped 300,000 units in June and 400,000 in July.
Outside the Transformer tablet, Asus currently has the 12-inch Windows-powered Eee Slate on the market, and still has the 10-inch Eee Pad Slider and the 7-inch 3D-enabled Eee Pad MeMo slated to arrive in the coming months. Shih said that Asus will unveil even more tablets before the end of the year.
“We’re running so fast, we can’t wait until [the January] Consumer Electronics Show,” he said.
On Monday afternoon, Asus officially launched the Eee Pad Slider tablet which features a slide-out keyboard, Google's Android 3.1 "Honeycomb" OS (upgradeable to v3.2) and a 178°-wide viewing angle IPS display. It also arrives in pearl white or metallic brown.
On the hardware front, the tablet uses Nvidia's dual-core Tegra 2 SoC while featuring a front-facing 1.2MP camera and back-facing 5MP camera. The screen is protected by a layer of scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass and supports up to ten simultaneous inputs. There's also a 16/32 GB eMMC slot, a USB port, a Micro SD card reader, and a mini-HDMI port.
According to Asus, the tablet also comes packed with applications such as MyNet, MyCloud, and MyLibrary.
"MyNet easily streams digital media wirelessly to home network devices, so HD videos or music can be played on HDTVs or desktop PCs," the company states in a press release. "MyLibrary consolidates downloaded books, magazines, and newspapers in one easy-to-browse profile, while MyCloud is a total cloud solution that provides access to digital content such as music, videos and photos. Users can even use MyCloud to remotely access and control their PC or Mac systems and access applications to extend the capabilities of the Eee Pad Slider."
So far pricing and actual availability hasn't been released, so stay tuned.
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I juuuust bought the eee pad transformer 16GB... oh well it had to be outdated sooner or later... might be looking for those Christmas deals.
Kinda sweet.. Bring the quad core...
I hope the Asus Transformer takes a price cut like $299 before the Transformer 2 comes out.
If it ran a real OS might be worth while...I can play Angry Birds on Droid 3.
I'm still gonna hold off on buying any tablet.
This market is eerie similar to the smart-phone market where every company are making 1 year refresh cycles, last years tablet will simply not be able to keep up. Technology is increasing so much quicker in the mobile market and for $400-800.
I know this will seem just as bad as the spammers, or maybe worse, but I'm actually doing research.
Rate this up if you actually scrolled down to read it.
Rate this down if you don't like it.
I would like to see Transformer 2 dock with CD/DVD drive, and bigger storage than 32GB even if it's located in the dock. Then it will properly combine all strengths of pads, netbooks and notebooks.
I know this will seem just as bad as the spammers, or maybe worse, but I'm actually doing research.Rate this up if you actually scrolled down to read it.Rate this down if you don't like it.
Some people may do both, can't thumbs up & down at the same time.
With all these damn spammers doing this crap... might as well kill off all comments.
Count me in for a Transformer 2 this Christmas season!!! Will be my first tablet. I think the timing is right.
Glowball Demo for Tegra 3. Very cool stuff.
Count me in for a Transformer 2 this Christmas season. It will be my first tablet. I currently have an Atrix 4G (Tegra 2) mobile phone and love it.
Glowball Demo for Tegra 3. Very cool stuff.
I'm still gonna hold off on buying any tablet.This market is eerie similar to the smart-phone market where every company are making 1 year refresh cycles, last years tablet will simply not be able to keep up. Technology is increasing so much quicker in the mobile market and for $400-800.
That's with any piece of tech. Granted we are in the first round of devices, but still if you wait 2 years and buy one, within a year or less it will be severely outdated. Or the tablet market will have disappeared.
Tablet is currently undergoing highly innovative product refresh cycle. Every year there will be new features and speed performance that is going to make the best products of last year look like a toy. Price cut does not matter much when you know you are going to get a much more inferior product compared to the latest. The next quad-core are supposedly 5 times faster than current generation of Tegra2, which hopefully get overcome one of the most annoying shortcomings currently in all Tegra2 tablets: unable to play most HD video format smoothly.
I still like how aggressive ASUS has been on the tablet front, sure they have had some not so popular netbook-tablet in the past, but the Eee Pad Transformer is quite impressive best of both worlds compromise. I'm waiting out on this generation of tablets though, winners (ASUS, Apple) and losers (RIM) still have to be determined. Looking forward to the quad-core tegra, might buy then.
Metallic brown! Oh yay! Because nothing says, "awesome technology" more than looking like a giant Autobot turd!
A sliding tablet is a rather nice product. It addresses the lack of a hardware keyboard for me.