ASUS TF700T Tablet Review

I have to admit that when the iPad3 came out, I was mighty impressed with its’ Retina display and was surprised that no other competitor that I was aware of even came close. Kudos to Apple and their suppliers for pulling off that amazing feat. As for myself, I’m not a fan of iTunes and have been looking for a tablet, but on an alternate platform. Being the owner of an Android phone, an Android based tablet seemed a good fit.

My needs are:

  • Ability to display portrait or landscape via tilt
  • Touchscreen navigation
  • Wi-Fi
  • Must be close or equal to iPad3 resolution and screen size (1920×1200 minimum)
  • Able to plug in MicroUSB or SD card
  • Can plug into my desktop/laptop and appear as an external hard drive
  • Has a Gmail email/contacts/scheduling client (and syncs across my various devices)
  • Can display my techie PDF files clearly and without the need to magnify/scroll around every single page
  • Runs media consumption applications, ie Newsreaders, browser, Youtube
  • To comfortably use the device in bed
  • Watch movies

My needs are NOT:

  • Creation or updating of documents/spreadsheets
  • Running the latest/greatest games
  • To replace a laptop or desktop

Ultimately, the TF700T serves as a fancy bookreader for me. Expensive? Yes. Quick? Yes. Crystal clear? At 10″ and 1920×1200 pixel resolution, most definitely.

One the negative side, I wasn’t impressed with the non-standard charging port on the ASUS. It reminded me of the one in use on the Apple products and I would have much preferred an industry standard Micro USB port.

Oh, and I plugged a mouse into the USB port of the keyboard and it worked just fine – but I normally don’t use it. I also disabled the touchpad on the keyboard as I found it got in the way of typing.

Do I feel what I paid was worth it? Compared to the iPad and currently available Android tablets, very much so.

I’m very happy with the TF700T and add-on keyboard. I don’t expect it to match the content creation capabilities of a laptop or desktop, but then I already had an Android phone and was aware of the capabilities of the platform.

Would I take the tablet on the subway or bus? In that case, I would probably have preferred a 7″ tablet, like the Nexus. That seems to be a much more ‘on the go’ device than the 10″ based TF700T.

 

Based on my needs, I would give this tablet 9/10.

 

Want to replace your laptop with a Tablet? I would not recommend it.

Update: After owning this tablet for over a year, I find that the web browsing on it is very sub par. The score for this table has now dropped to 7/10.

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