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It looks like the Digitmes story I brought you a few days ago might be wrong. PCWorld are reporting that the Asus eeeTablet will be out in October for $300.

Asustek Computer plans to launch its long awaited Eee Tablet with an 8-inch LCD touchscreen in October for around US$300, though prices vary by market.

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The Eee Tablet will run a Linux OS, but not Google’s Android mobile operating system, which has long been the rumor. The Linux distribution on board was developed by Asustek, said Jerry Shen, CEO of Asustek, speaking with reporters after the conference.

He said the Eee Tablet name may also be changed to Eee Note. Asustek does not want people to confuse the product with tablet PCs.

The Eee Tablet has three key functions aimed at school students: the ereader, note taking and Internet browsing.

Asustek added writing software to the Eee Tablet so users can take notes with a stylus on the touchscreen, and onboard software digitizes those notes. The company also included a 2-megapixel camera to the device so students can take pictures of a teacher’s whiteboard instead of having to write so much. It also includes a digital audio recorder to record lectures.

That’s a relief. I was wondering what drugs they were on. There’s no way the eeeTablet could survive at $600. Even $300 is a stretch. By the time October rolls around we’ll see several decent competitors in that price range.

Also, I for one kept getting the eeeTablet confused with the eeePad. That was not a good name choice.

Folks, I’m going to do something I’ve never done before. I’m retracting every positive recommendation and every nice I’ve written about Asus and their tablets. I’m now putting Asus' tablets firmly into the "never buy" category, and I’ve made that decision for one simple reason.

I’m tired of Asus screwing up the firmware updates.

I’m sure you’ve heard that when you get a device, you’re supposed to make your buying decision based on what it can do now. You’re not supposed to listen to the hype about promised updates because there’s no guarantee that they’ll ever happen.

As a general rule, this is a good idea. And it is also a rule that Asus turns on its head.

I can absolutely guarantee that the performance you get when you first turn on an Asus tablet will be the absolute best that you will ever get from that device. I can make that promise because I know that Asus will force you to install updates that will degrade the performance. That is what I’ve seen happen to my Transformer.

I bought this tablet in July of last year. I bought it because it was on sale and because I kept hearing the surprisingly large number of  owners say nice things, and after I got it I realized that they were right. It really was the best Android tablet on the market – until Asus screwed it up.

Over the past several months I have watched as my Transformer tablet got worse and worse. Apps tended to crash more, they took longer to open, and generally this tablet has become less and less fun to use.

Netflix stopped working some months back; I can’t tell you exactly when but it’s been more than a couple months. I’m not much on watching videos on tablets, so it’s not a big deal. But today something happened that made me decide I don’t want this tablet anymore.

I cannot play Angry Birds Space  anymore. Just in case you missed the significance, let me say it again:

I cannot play Angry Birds Space on my $400, dual core CPU tablet. The app now tends to freeze in the middle of a level, a problem it shares with other games including Plants vs Zombies and Dead Trigger.

This is the final straw, Asus. You have now made this $400 tablet less capable than the $100 budget tablets that come off some random assembly line in China. None of the ones I’ve reviewed have had any trouble playing AB:S.

I feel like I’ve been robbed. No, wait – I was robbed. Each time I got an update Asus took away my Android tablet and replaced it with an inferior model.

And that is it. At this point I’m sure you’re expecting me to issue an ultimatum to Asus, demanding that they replace my tablet or fix this one. I would, but I’m not sure they’d buy me an iPad.

If I had any faith in Asus I would consider getting another of their tablets. But as I’ve watched my Transformer get worse and worse over the past few months, I’ve come to wonder if this is part of Asus' regular update cycle. I’m afraid they’re going to screw up all their tablets just like they did with my Transformer, and I don’t want to waste several hundred dollars to find out I’m right.

P.S. Can someone recommend a replacement?

Everyone who ran out and got the Transformer Prime are probably kicking themselves today; Asus just showed off a new model with a 1900×1200 screen.

The Verge got their hands on the new 700T. This is going to be the third eeePad Transformer, and it sounds like it fixes a couple of problems that have cropped up in the first Transformer Prime.

I didn’t cover it at the time, but the Transformer Prime that’s now shipping has some serious issues with connectivity. The back is a solid metal case, and that blocked the GPS. Some of the reviewers also mentioned that affected the Wifi and Bluetooth signal. The new Prime 700T has a plastic back (which should fix this). It’s running on the same 1.3GHz Tegra3 quadcore CPU as the current Prime and it will ship with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

The ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime TF700T will go on sale in the US in the first half of this year, priced at $599 for the 32GB model and $699 for the 64GB model. I don’t think early-adopters of the existing Prime are going to be too happy, frankly.

That last bit of news about Android  4.0 was almost enough to tempt me into getting one, but Asus also announced yesterday that the original eeePad Transformer (the one I have) will also be getting an update to Android 4.0. This is the third major update for the original eeePad Transformer, and it gets better every time.

I wonder if Asus really should be putting out these updates? They keep making my current tablet better and better, and that removes any need or desire I might have had to go replace it.

That’s the rumor, anyway.

Notebook Italia has turned up an interesting product shot. According to their sources, this could be a 7″ Asus eeePad or it could be the new Asus eeeMemo.

They haven’t said where they got it, but this blog has been following the 7″ eeePad rumors for a couple months now.  It seems likely that they caught the eye of an Asus insider.

If this is real, then this tablet would likely have specs similar to the rumored specs of the eeePad Memo, which is supposed to ship with a 1.2GHz SnapDragon CPU, 16GB of Flash storage, Wifi/3G, and an IPS screen (1280×800 resolution).

The eeePad Memo was first mentioned by Asus  in January 2011, but so far as I can tell it was never released. The demo units also looked a lot different from the tablet above, and that suggests that this is something different.

But let’s be clear, Notebook Italia doesn’t even know the screen dimensions of this image, much less the model name, price, specs, or release date. They don’t even claim that this is a 7″ screen. So at this point all we have is a teaser image that hints at a possible new product.

While I am hoping for a 7″ eeePad Transformer, I’m deeply curious about how Asus would manage the keyboard dock. This model looks to be based on a portrait orientation, not landscape, and that leaves the short side of the screen for the dock. That’s not enough room for a real keyboard. Maybe the dock will have a second screen? Now that would be cool.

Asus was already on my list for CES  2012, and now they have a star, exclamation points, and several drooling zombies after the name. But I’m also only going to be at the show for 3 days, so I might miss it.

Asus' new Android tablet isn’t due to hit store shelves for another few weeks, but the review units have already shipped. I’ve found 8 reviews so far, and the opinions have been mixed.

The Asus eeePad Transformer Prime is the most powerful Android tablet on the market. It’s the first to use the 1.3 GHz NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core  CPU, which it’s using to run Homeycomb. It uses a 10″ IPS+ screen similar to the one found on the current Transformer, but virtually everything else has changed. The Prime is thinner, and the rear camera have been upgraded to 8MP with an LED flash. The front camera is still 1.2MP, though. Flash storage  is also getting bumped, with the base model now sporting 32GB.

This is their second gen model, and like the first eeePad this tablet is a hybrid model sold ion 2 parts. The optional keyboard (which I highly recommend) adds battery life, more ports and slots, and turns the eeePad into a full-fledged netbook.

AnandTech

• Assuming the WiFi and minor dock issue I encountered aren’t widespread (ASUS insists they aren’t), I am comfortable calling the Eee Pad Transformer Prime the absolute best Android tablet on the market today. The hardware looks and feels great. ASUS picked the best display possible and married it to some really good industrial design. I was impressed with the styling of the Zenbook, and the Prime continues to position ASUS as a purveyor of high quality mobile devices.

Android Central

• The Transformer Prime ushers in a new breed of Android tablets. Familiar, yet more powerful (and thus with more potential) than anything you’ve used before. If you can part with a minimum of $650, it makes for a great Android mobile computing/gaming rig.

Android Police

• …It’s still too early for many other details, but I’ll leave you with a tl;dr: thus far, the Transformer Prime seems to be the best tablet I’ve ever used in virtually every regard.

CNET

• This review doesn’t offer any good excerpt becuase the reviewer kept encountering problems. A couple of the other reviews mentioned a hardware issue here and there, but this one had all of them. This would be a good read if you wanted to know all that might go wrong.

Engadget

• The Galaxy Tab 10.1 has had a long run as the top-tier Android tablet in the 10-inch size, but that position has now properly been usurped. The original Transformer was a very good tablet and it successor steps up another notch. The Transformer Prime is thinner and lighter than the rest and, with 32GB of storage available for a dollar under $500, it’s a better deal than most of the top-tier contenders….

  For the moment the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime is the best Android tablet on the market. All hail the new king.

Netbook News

• In one word, Awesome.  We’re totally in love with the design of this tablet, so much so that we’re sure that Apple is going to go after ASUS next.  A tablet with such a high end design and attention to detail is something that I would have expected from Samsung.  ASUS has really stepped up their game.

The Verge

• The Prime is an incredible piece of hardware. It has a marvelous display, form factor, the best camera on any tablet yet, and it’s new quad-core internal organ puts more graphics and gaming power in your hands than you’ll know what to do with (quite literally in fact, until the games start appearing). And then there’s also the added keyboard dock that adds over 10 hours of battery life and really does transform the tablet into a highly-usable laptop.But a true laptop replacement isn’t about raw power; it’s about the productivity that power enables, and Honeycomb just isn’t up to the task. The operating system hasn’t been optimized for that ridiculous processor or that beautiful display, the app selection remains pitiable at best, and it’s just not that intuitive to use.

Have you seen Asus' next Android tablet? It’s not out yet, but the eeePad Transformer Prime is promising to be just as droolworthy as its predecessor.

The first early hands on video is now up on Youtube and the Transformer Prime looks as good as I expected. It keeps the 10″ screen found on the current Transformer, but virtually everything else has changed. The Prime is thinner, and it’s running on a quad core Tegra 3 CPU. The rear camera have been upgraded to 8MP and it now has LED flash. The front camera is still 1.2MP, though. Flash is also getting bumped, with the base model now sporting 32GB.

I’m watching the video, and I can see that a number of the ports and slots were moved around but not much else has changed. The Prime still has the HDMI out, microSD card slot,and headphone jack found on the current model. It also has a keyboard component, which is thinner than the one sitting on my desk but not fundamentally different.

Weight is down, but battery life is up. The Prime boasts 18 hours of runtime, compared to the 16 hours on the current Prime (with the keyboard attached). I usually got around 14 hours, which is pretty good for a netbook.

It’s due out in December, with a projected retail of $499. The keyboard costs extra, of course. You can pre-order it now from Best Buy, B&H, GameStop, and Tiger Direct. For Canadian customers, Future Shop and NCIX are accepting pre-orders.

If not for the fact that I am very happy with my eeePad, I would definitely get this one. The current eeePad is both one of the best netbooks and best Android tablets on the market. The next one is bound to be better.

via

iFixit has just finished posting their teardown of the Nook tablet. All is revealed, but not all is labeled.

Call me dumb, but I don’t see the Wifi chip labeled in the photos. When the KF was ripped apart,  I didn’t look closely enough and a reader had to point out the combo Wifi/BT/FM chip. But this time I really don’t see it. It has to be there somewhere, so my guess is iFixit will be updating their post with more details.

BTW, when this tablet launched I was quite firm that this wasn’t the $350 Acclaim that I found on the leaked powerpoint slide. (I could not have been more wrong about that slide.) I looked at the specs and didn’t think they added up to $350. Well, I was wrong. The source code for the NT has been released and Acclaim is mentioned everywhere. Also, I’ve gotten an anonymous inside tip that the shipping invoices refer to this tablet as the Acclaim.

So this is the $350 Acclaim tablet. I still think that’s overpriced, but it’s probably what B&N would like to sell it for if they didn’t choose to lose money on it so they could make money selling content. That higher price is probably the true retail. The market would never have let them sell it for that much (for $50 more you could get an Asus eeePad), but  I beleive they wanted to.

iFixit

It’s late at night for me and I just got home (it’s a long trip from NYC to DC). I’ve had this thought bugging me all day long and while I still don’t know how true it is, I think it’s worth sharing.

I’m putting this post out, even though I don’t have any solid info, because I’m hoping it will generate enough attention that some B&N insider will will leak more information.

About 6 weeks back I was handed a leaked slide that hinted at a pair of Nook Color tablets, with one priced at $250 and the other priced at $350. This raised my hopes for an updated NC and a new NC. But these hopes were dashed by last week’s leak.

Like many who read about the leaked doc last week, I had assumed that the Nook Tablet that BN launched today was their new NC Acclaim. I’m not so sure that’s the case.

Update: Nope. This is the Acclaim. There are reports over at XDA Forums that the NT source code uses the codename Acclaim.

Now, last week’s leaks disappointed me because the specs of the new Nook Tablet didn’t fit with the proposed $350 price tag. I had thought that revealed specs fit closer to being the updated replacement NookColor, not a whole new tablet. It looks like I might have been right. While I don’t have any solid proof just yet, I do have a couple bits of info that suggest B&N have another tablet already in the works.

In response to my expressing disappointment,  I got a comment last week from what I think was a B&N insider. I didn’t allow the comment to be seen because it mentioned a new codename for the next Nook. But I’ve also dropped the name a couple of times at the press event just to see the reactions, so it’s probably safe to share it here.

I’m told that the codename for the next B&N tablet is Gossamer. At least, that was the code name; they might change it now that we all know about it.

Update: Apparently I was the only who didn’t know that Gossamer is the name for the Nook Touch. Stupid me, I thought that it was new.

My other piece of information as that I bugged a key member of B&N senior management about the price tag. I got him to admit that the Nook Tablet launched today was never supposed to be priced at $350. I really don’t think he was prepared for me to ask that question, and I beleive that his answer is genuine.

This was also one of the people I name dropped Gossamer. On reflection, I’m not completely sure that he recognized it but I think he did. I don’t think I got a response like what you’d expect if the answer was obviously no (i.e, if I’d suggested the wrong code name).

Of course, this is pretty thin evidence. It’s always safe to proclaim that there’s another gadget coming; when is that not true? But doesn’t this fit better with the price points? Do you really think the new Nook Tablet could have been realistically priced at $350?

I don’t. I have a $400 Asus eeePad Transformer sitting next to me right now, and the Nook Tablet doesn’t have anywhere near the specs to be worth $350. My Transformer has Honeycomb, Android Market, 2 cameras, Bluetooth, and a larger screen. That’s at least $100 difference in price.

BTW, you might want to keep an eye on the hacking efforts for the new Nook Tablet. At some point the hackers will reveal B&N’s product name for the tablet. If the name turns out to be the Acclaim then I am wrong. But if the name for the NT is Encore (or possibly something else) then I was right.

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Three days ago GameStop announced that they were now selling a trio of Android tablets that came bundled games. The tablets are available on line and in some stores.

I’m 3 days behind everyone else on this story, so that would have been enough to pass on it and go write other posts. But I’ve read a couple of the posts about these tablets and I thought I could add something: first hand knowledge. Also, this story is related to one I posted last month, and I wanted to wrap it up.

You might recall that back in early September GameStop released a few details on their upcoming gaming tablet. It was supposed to be branded by GameStop and be made by a major manufacturer.  I posted on that story, and it turns out much of what I wrote was wrong. That’s okay with me; much of what GameStop said last month was also wrong.

The "GameStop branded tablet" isn’t actually carrying a GameStop brand; I know this for a fact because the "GameStop branded tablet" was launched last week, and all 3 tablets are still branded by the original manufacturers.

It was a little disappointing to find out how much was wrong about last month’s story, but I was still curious about how GameStop was handling the bundled games, retail packaging, and so on. I couldn’t find the info online so I visited my local GameStop store. One of the 3 in my area (they’re within walking distance of each other) had the tablets on display and in stock.

The 3 tablets are the base models for the Acer A100 (7″, 8GB), Asus eeePad Transformer (10″, 16GB), and the Samsung Galaxy Pad 10.1 (16GB). So far as I can tell the tablets are identical to ones sold elsewhere; they have the same hardware specs and come in the same retail box (I saw them). The only difference is that the ones sold by GameStop have 7 free games already loaded onto the Flash storage. They also have an extra sticker on the box reminding you about the free content.

Most importantly, these 3 tablets don’t cost any more than the regular retail price (same as Best Buy, Walmart, etc).  While you can find them somewhat cheaper online, the 7 free games make up for the difference.

I don’t care for gaming, and I’m not in the market for a new tablet. But if I were going to get a tablet I would definitely  get one from GameStop. I might not like any of the those 7 free games but free is free.

This was not the move I expected from GameStop, but this is also a much better idea than the plans discussed last month. I’d get one of these tablets because they are the standard retail product and thus I can check online reviews and count on the standard manufacturer’s warranty. If they had been completely rebranded by GameStop then I likely wouldn’t want one; they’d be unknown hardware and thus a greater risk.

What GameStop  have done here isn’t just to get more gaming customers into their stores; instead they will be taking tablets customers away from BB, Walmart, and other retailers with the bundle offers. This includes casual gamers, a group that is far larger than GameStop’s core customer base. And that is why this was such a smart move.

It looks like GameStop may have just kicked off a new price war for tablets. It won’t be long before someone else responds to GameStop by launching their own bundle. Things could get really interesting by Christmas.

Asus' latest experiment in new hardware designs is now shipping from Amazon.

The eeePad Slider is a funky looking tablet hybrid that is based on a 10″ capacitive touchscreen.  So far as I can tell, it appears to be using the same screen as Asus other tablet hybrid, the eeePad Transformer. It’s running the latest version of Android, v3.2 Honeycomb on a dual core Nvidia Tegra 2 CPU, and it has Wifi, Bluetooth, g-sensor, compass, microSD card slot,  and a pair of cameras (5MP and 2.1MP).

As you can probably guess, the screen slides down so to covers the keyboard. With a 10 inch screen, the keyboard is probably the size of one you’d find on a netbook, but as you can see from the picture there is no track pad. That’s one of the tradeoffs with this design, but it shouldn’t be much of a problem. The screen is just inches from your fingertips.

It’s shipping from Amazon with 16GB flash storage for $480 or 32GB for $580. Weight is around 2 pounds, which is no surprise given the keyboard and the complexity of the hardware design.

Now, while this design is new to Asus, it’s not the first device to use this form factor. There are any number of phones that have a similar design, including the HTC Touch Pro 2 at left. There have even been a couple 7″ models that look almost a junior version of the eeePad Slider (I can’t recall the names, though). There are also a number of larger tablet hybrid models that commenters have pointed out over in this post.

But what sets the eeePad Slider apart from the earlier 7″ the size. Those smaller models suffered from the same cramped conditions of 7″ netbooks and that limited their usability.  This device is priced to compete with but 10″ netbooks and 10″  premium tablets. I’d definitely get this hybrid over either a netbook or a tablet.

Amazon

Asus announced a couple days back that their latest experiment, the eee PadPhone, is going to ship later this year.

As you can see from the image above, the PadPhone takes all the processing power of a 10″ Android tablet and compacts it into smartphone sized container. The phone component is removable and can function by itself. The tablet provides extra battery life and extra ports, but it doesn’t have the CPU. It can also charge the phone.

The phone is supposed to have a 4.3″ screen and a dual core Nvidia Tegra 2 CPU, but the specs are still undefined.

Earlier this week I wrote about how Asus had been experimenting with new gadgets that cross product niches or define new ones. At the time I wrote that post I didn’t know about the PadPhone. I wish I had known; it clearly proves my point. This device attempts to combine a phone and tablet in the hopes it will reduce the total hardware cost. I can’t wait to see how it works out.

I got into a discussion on twitter earlier today with a friend, and it inspired this post.

He didn’t understand the design of the eee Transformer, Asus' premium Android tablet. That’s understandable; if all you know about the Transformer is what you read in the gadget blog  headlines then you missed the facts of what it really is. You have to actually put your hands on it before you realize what Asus did here.

First, let me list some of the current eeeProducts. (If you want to understand the Transformer, it first needs to be in context.) It wasn’t until I gathered these details into one place that I realized quite what they meant. Note that this isn’t all the eeeProducts listed on the Asus website, just the ones I’m familiar with.

When you line up the product names (not always mentioned in complete detail), the unique nature of each model should be pretty obvious:

• Asus eee Reader DR900 (ebook reader w\9″ Sipix screen)
• Asus eee Note ea800 (digital notepad w\8″ unique LCD screen)
• Asus eee Pad Transformer (Android netbook convertible disguised as a 10″ tablet)
• Asus eee Slider (Android tablet convertible)
• Asus eee Slate (Win7 tablet PC)

Do you see how each one has very different specs and how they’re each a one-off product alone in a niche? That’s because each of the devices listed above is an experiment. Much like the original eee 701, Asus is experimenting to find the new product niches, uses, and abilities. In fact, I would bet that the eeeProduct line will be where you find a lot of Asus experiments.

It’s not surprising that few understand what the eee Pad Transformer really is; after all, it’s being marketed as a tablet.  (The keyboard component is even called a Mobile Dock, for reasons unknown.) Yes, it’s a very nice tablet, but it’s also a very nice netbook convertible.

Add the keyboard component and you have 16 hours battery life in a netbook that costs only $50 more than an iPad. It also has a heavily customized version of Android v3.0 Honeycomb. The trackpad, function keys, and other parts of the keyboard are so thoroughly integrated that it clearly wasn’t an afterthought. The keyboard is part of the original design.

I suspect that Asus made the eee Pad Transformer not just to release a premium tablet. I think it’s also an attempt to create a new hybrid tablet/netbook niche. Yes, netbooks are dead, but if you combine the 2 niches then you have a new usability model. And like the eee701, Asus got into the new niche before anyone else.

BTW, you could slap a keyboard on an iPad in order to get similar functionality, but it wouldn’t work this well. An iPad with a keyboard is still an iPad with a keyboard; the Transformer is a netbook convertible.

So if we could go back to the list, I’m not really sure that each of the eeeProducts are actually experiments. But I would give that label to the eeeNote, eeePad, and eeeSlider.

I also suspect that the eeeReader was an experiment in a niche that for the most part died before the eeeReader was released.Whoops. But that’s what happens with experiments; they don’t always succeed.

This, folks, is why I am watching Asus with anticipation. They keep doing interesting things.

click to enlarge

About a week ago I bought the Asus eee Pad Transformer from office Depot, and it’s going back today.

For the past several days I have been seeing an intermittent and rather odd screen defect on my Transformer. I can see a grid of what looks like 5mm squares underneath the screen, and I’m told that it’s the capacitive sensor for the touchscreen.

I tried my best but it’s almost impossible to photograph. But it’s there. The grid looks like a foggyness that falls somewhere between condensation, dust, and fingerprint smudges. Watch the video and you’ll see the grid. it will only show up when the light is reflecting at certain angles.

I’ve also done some digging, and I can confirm that I’m not the only one to see it. I’ve found a bunch of comments about it here and here, and I even found it discussed on the official Asus Transformer  support forums. Much to my surprise, I appear to be the only one bothered by it. No one offered a solution for the problem other than wiping the screen (that didn’t help).

It’s going back to the store. I love this tablet, and it’s truly awesome. But I’m not going to put up with an obvious screen defect on a $400 tablet.

Here’s the video. I think you might want to click through and watch it in higher resolution on Youtube.

Do you recall how the EA800 was supposed to hit the US market this year with a retail of less than $200? Well, it’s not.

Ever since Asus announced the imminent US launch of their 8′ ereader/tablet/ textbook platform back in February, I’ve been nervously waiting for it to appear. I planned to get one the day it was available, and I even ignored the Ebay auctions. But it’s not happening. Asus posted this little gem on their Facebook page last week:

ASUS North America Hi Toby, it’s looking like the current generation EA800 at least will not make it to the U.S.

On the upside, at least now we know there is a next gen device in the works. That’s something.