[Eee Pad Transformer General] Cyanoid:
My 2 Bitz

Ok, I'm a little late to the game... but if anyone buys one of these tablets second hand.... like I just did, then here goes nothing: I bought a Motorola XOOM wifi (32gb) and an Asus TF101 (16gb) (and I nearly bought a Galaxy Tab 1 and an iPad Gen. 1). It's my first tablet; I haven't yet figured out what I'm gonna do with it, but there ya go.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 1: I passed on the Sammy because it did not have an SD card slot.

iPad Gen. 1: I passed on the iPad because.... well, it's an iPad. About as useful as a maxi-pad to me. I was put off by the closed system. It means far less choices for free or hard-to-get apps (of the kind I might need), and limited storage with no SD card options. It wouldn't do, even for a kid's tablet. (Despite the fact I have an iPhone....).

Asus Transformer Eee Pad TF101: I really wish they would have stuck to one name, and left it at that. What was the original name? The "Asus Transormer Mario Consuela Maria Concito Esperanto Gonzalez Eeee Pad TF-101"?

Motorola Xoom: Anyway, it came down to Asus and the Xoom. And boy, I had a hard time deciding. So hard, I spent 3 days of my life testing these two tablets, up, down, backwards and forwards. I ended up settling on the Xoom, but first, the Asus....

The Asus has a gorgeous screen, compared to the Xoom. The TF101 is sharper, more clarity, brighter, blacks and whites are more darker and brighter, respectively. Better contrast and angle viewing, and reading books is less of a strain with a more muted white for the background.

THe sound of the Asus however, is like slamming a suitcase lid down on twelve kittens while Freddy Krueger scratches his name out on the chalkboard. It's the ridiculous choice of stuffing really tiny speakers so they can fire out both sides of the unit. Even EQ'ing the thing with Viper4FX could not hide the tinny shortcomings of the speaker sound. Which also had a tendency to break up at louder volumes (its particularly keen to distorting around 500hz). Connected to a stereo though, was quite another matter.

Though much less bass, richness and body, the Asus resolved timbre better than the Xoom on music program material, output through a stereo via headphone jacks. However, I still preferred the sound of the XOoms (yes, "Xooms" as in I had TWO Xooms to compare), because the Asus was causing some degree of stress through its sound and picture, as compared with the calmer energy of the Xooms.

The construction of the Asus was nice in parts (ie. color, back design, aluminum frame)... but the superb construction, design, looks, case and smaller size of the Xooms is what pushed me toward the Motorola choice. I have not seen any tablet as well built as the Xoom. The Xoom has a timeless design and hough it is heavy on the wrist if you have to hold it up, it just feels nicer in the hand than the ultra-wide Transformer; which appears more dated due to its size and design. The really nice charging dock and 32gb internal (vs 16gb of Asus) also helped me accept the inferior colors and viewing angle of the Xoom. I also liked the nice design of the various white & green charging LEDs, around the screen of the Xoom - the Asus has none of that. I was not enamored by the fact that Asus required special prorpietary data cables, where the Xoom uses microUSB. What also pushed me toward the Xoom was the mediocre camera in the Asus. No flash and grainy photos (though it let in an unusual amount of light, despite or because of no flash... but it was too much light, and washed out detail at times). The Xoom 5mp camera was excellent... perhaps better than that on my iPhone. I like the idea of snapping pictures on a tablet, because of the large viewfinder.

I'm kind of a stickler when it comes to design. On pure performance and lightness of weight, the Asus wins. But you might not feel like a winner, trying to listen to vidoes and music on those tinny built in speakers for extended periods of time. :D

My wife has a Samsung Tab 4, and comparing it with the Asus, I don't find the Tab 4 any much better in any way, and in some ways, not as a good (it has a cheaper build, for example).