While we await the impending launch of Motorola's Xoom tablet device over here, due to land any time soon, ASUS has got in there first with what it's calling the UK's first Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablet.
Getting its product to the UK market first can't do ASUS any harm, and while we expect Motorola to make its own mark on the tablet market, the specification of ASUS's model suggests that it will stack up pretty well on its own terms.
The ASUS Eee Pad Transformer tablet is powered, as we've said, by the Android 3.0 platform, also known as Honeycomb, and it's a 10.1-inch model with a resolution of 1280 x 800. Under the hood is a NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual core processor, plus it has a decent battery life of 16 hours. The design comes in two parts, with a docking keyboard, and front- and rear-facing cameras open up video calling and instant chat features.
Crucially, the tablet also comes with unlimited online storage to add to the internal 16GB/32GB internal space and, perhaps crucially, is cheaper than the Xoom at just £379 for the pad-only version (£429 for the pad and keyboard dock version, plus for the 32GB version). By comparision, the Best of CES 2011 winner Xoom tablet, which also comes with 32GB internal storage, should be priced around the £499 mark.
With a mini-HDMI output for connectivity with external devices, SRS 5.1 audio technology, 10-finger multi-touch support, 802.11 b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth 2.1 and SD/eMMC card readers, it looks like a well-featured tablet on paper, and if getting the lead on Motorola does the trick, ASUS could be on to a winner.
