

Android on a Netbook - an Eee Transformer Review - jsnell
http://jsnell.iki.fi/blog/archive/2012-02-22-android-on-a-netbook-eee-transformer-review.html

======
51Cards
I have mentioned it before but this thread seems a good place to mention it
again. I have an ASUS Slider which I thoroughly enjoy. Different form factor
but identical software and keyboard / USB mouse use. Absolutely love it if
anyone is considering this type of form factor (a keyboarded Android tablet)

I don't seem to have the same 'loss of state' issues the author does...
probably just due to which apps I use most. Using the 'window list' to change
apps isn't quite as quick as I'd like (small pause when I open it as it
renders) but I haven't had any issues other than that.

Also don't agree with the author's view that this is meant to be a Netbook
replacement. I think viewing it in that light or expecting it to be is setting
it up for failure. It's Android with a keyboard so you can do textual content
generation easier. The upside is it comes apart and becomes just a tablet at
will, and runs for what... 15 hours when docked? It's not a use case for
everyone but nor it is intended to be a netbook replacement.

~~~
LawnGnome
Agreed on most counts: I don't really have an issue with loss of state when
switching apps either. It probably varies depending on how many you have
going.

While I wouldn't sell the Transformer as a netbook replacement universally, it
really has completely usurped my old Eee PC and largely replaced my Macbook
Pro as the device I take with me when I go somewhere. Sure, you need a distro
chroot (I use Debian, personally, but there are a bunch that work) to do
anything useful programming-wise, but I don't really see that as a hindrance:
I can compartmentalise that to a MicroSD card and it doesn't affect the usual
operation of the tablet as a tablet when I want that.

Basically, I love my Transformer to an extent that I'd have found surprising
before I bought it. I've done real work on it, and it's a pretty good tablet
even without a dock.

(All of that said, the trackpad is completely useless, sadly.)

------
dchuk
ummm review of software and handware and not a single picture or screenshot to
be found...what am I missing here

~~~
muro
apparently the text.

I found the review be very good:

    
    
        * switching apps looses context/state and is slow
        * pdf readers suck
        * some keyboard shortcuts seem to be impossible, making emacs painful
    

I for one found it surprising that there are all these issues. I was
considering getting one of the Full HD ones, it's good to know what to expect.

~~~
shimon_e
I hope the work on the issues before Windows 8 comes out. With Chrome being
ported to Android I wonder if they will merge Chrome OS and Android. Provide a
more Chrome OS app management system when dock or attached to a monitor.

~~~
muro
I'd love that. I hope my next computer is my phone. Even better if it can run
starcraft 2 :)

------
CPlatypus
I was going to type this on my own Transformer, even got several paragraphs
in, but I'm finishing on my Mac. See point 8 for why.

(1) The battery life really is awesome. I get a full day of near-continuous
use - including video and such - out of the internal battery, plus another out
of the battery in the dock. On the downside, the USB charging cable is non-
standard with respect to both form factor and voltage.

(2) The trackpad really is useless.

(3) The task switching is just as bad as the author says. Each time I start
Firefox, I have to guess whether it will have my old tabs or a clean slate.
It's impossible even to know whether it will show up in the app switcher.
_Usually_ , if one application (e.g. twitter/email) invokes another (e.g. a
browser), the second will disappear from the app switcher until you explicitly
go back to the first, or else you have to go back to the home screen and
launch from there. Even that broken behavior's not consistent, though.

(4) The built-in email program sucks, and K-9 is almost as bad.

(5) There's no decent ssh client. I have two - one which does tunnels but has
atrocious keyboard handling, one which has semi-decent keyboard handling (Ctrl
actually works and I can simulate the missing Esc) but doesn't do tunnels.
Unfortunately they're incompatible with one another in some weird way, so
using both simultaneously is a bit tricky.

(6) I haven't found a program to create/edit slides. I've tried for Android
office apps, and as many online apps including Google's own. _None_ could
handle so much as a simple bullet list properly. Most couldn't even put the
cursor in the right place half the time.

(7) Text selection and cut/paste sometimes work (inconsistently across
applications) and sometimes they don't. Cursor keys sometimes work and
sometimes they don't.

(8) Stuff on the web can be very flaky. Text-entry boxes (e.g. here) often
don't scroll properly as you type, so you have to scroll manually. Sometimes
you lose the ability to reposition the cursor either by pointing (see point 6)
and never had it via cursor keys (point 7). That's why I'm on the Mac now,
after two rounds of that. On other sites (e.g. Quora) text-entry boxes fail to
keep up with typing and just randomly set you back to the start every couple
of words or so.

That's a lot of glitches and complaints, huh? I must hate this thing with a
burning passion, right? Actually I love it. For video, games, and passive
content consumption it's pure awesome. It's light, the screen is a joy,
changing orientations on a whim is incredibly handy. As soon as I try to _do_
or _make_ anything with it, though . . . well, then it becomes a big sack of
awful. It's an amazing complement to a real computer, but certainly not a
replacement for one.

~~~
zmmmmm
> (3) The task switching is just as bad as the author says.

I was puzzling over this because he says there is no way to task switch from
the keyboard and yet:

[http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/08/12/tip-want-the-app-
swi...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/08/12/tip-want-the-app-switcher-
button-on-asus-transformers-keyboard-dock-just-alttab-instead/)

From what I understand, Alt-Tab task switching was delivered in the 3.2 update
- can you clarify whether that's true or not?

Fwiw, I strongly suspect that the task-switching experience varies enormously
depending on what you switch between. Firefox is probably a worst-possible-
case because it'll use loads of memory and force Android to kill all other
apps.

~~~
jsnell
That's a hack that doesn't work very consistently. For example in most
terminal emulators or the Google Docs app Alt-Tab does nothing. In the Browser
the first press of Alt-Tab will just put the focus on the url bar, and you
need to press a second time to get the task switcher. An inconsistent
mechanism is even less useful than a cumbersome one.

However, it also looks as if some update has also added the capacity to
navigate the recent apps menu with the keyboard, which is nice. It still needs
to be triggered from the touch screen, but it's getting there.

