After I bought from Staples and returned the latest Samsung Galaxy Note tablet, I instead got the ASUS TF201 tablet. This model has the distinction of being the very first tablet with a quad-core CPU.
(Had Apple had been first, iPad users and their facilitators in the tech media would have wet their pants with collective excitement; because an Android tablet was first, it doesn't matter so much.)
But after spending the afternoon with it, I returned it the next morning. Fundamental flaw: the keyboard accessory was no longer available locally, not from BestBuy, FutureShop, Mike's Computers, Walmart, or even Staples themselves.
The keyboard accessory is not just a keyboard. It includes full-size USB port, full-size SD card reader, and a second battery that extends the tablet's running time to 16 hours.
(Had Apple been first with a battery-loaded keyboard, iPad users... etc, etc.)
But even so, the tablet suffers from two other serious flaws:
- The edge has a small-radius curve, which presses into the fingers, and so after a while the tablet becomes painful to hold. (Some Apple iTouch models have the same design flaw, but because it's from Apple, painful-holding is not a problem.)
- The GPS does not work. ASUS screwed up the design badly by covering all the back with metal. Now, ASUS did fix the problem by providing a free external GPS antenna that fits underneath. I went to its Web site to order mine, but the offer ended 31 August -- just three weeks ago.
That was the final straw. A tablet designed with a keyboard dock that was not available locally + painful holding + a non-working GPS. So back it went.
To be replaced by my third tablet in two days...
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