ASUS Transformer AiO P1801-B054K 18.4-Inch Desktop

CUSTOMER REVIEW



I ordered this on 4/12/13 and it was delivered the next day. Here are my initial thoughts. I'll add to this as I use it more. Asus took a cue from Apple with their packaging. Very clean and orderly. Cables are tie with velcro straps, no twisty ties. Batteries included for the keyboard/mouse. The mouse's power was toggled to off. Don't forget to turn it on! The tablet/monitor was delivered with nearly zero power. You have to charge it above 20% before it will update to the latest version of Android that Asus provides (4.1.1). Windows 8 needed what seemed like a lot of patches for a system that just came out. I'm using 802.11n on both the tablet as well as the base to a Netgear WNDR3700 and get approximately 190mbit for file transfers. For reference, my home file server will completely saturate the gigabit connection to my desktop. The base/tablet are in the same small room as the router. The Win8 computer's 1TB drive came formatted with 750GB dedicated to a data drive (D:) with the rest for system / recovery.



As far as the Android side, the Tegra 3 in the tablet is plenty fast for my needs. I'm using a beta build of XBMC for Android with hardware acceleration and it handles 720p / 1080p mkv's marvelously. I've tried a few tegra specific games and they run great as expected. So far the only issue that I've run across that has me disappointed is Amazon Prime instant videos using flash. The audio is out of sync no matter what browser I try to use. I'm quite disappointed in Amazon for not having an android app yet. That's not Asus's fault though. The wireless signal on 5ghz isn't too great so far. I've got 802.11n capable laptop that seems to get a much stronger signal in my home. Even with a android showing 1 bar of signal I can still get > 55mbit speed. The audio coming out of the tablet is loud. VERY loud. It's a bit on the tinny side but still good. The audio from the base (different speakers) is a bit better but still in need of some base. Definitely worth picking up some PC speakers.



Now for the user experience. The IPS panel is gorgeous. The touchscreen is VERY smooth and responsive in both Windows and Android. The experience is not quite as responsive when using Win8 away from the base. It's very usable, mind you, but it is obvious that you aren't attached anymore. I've only tried a few PC games so far. I've been replaying Portal 2 and Torchlight 2 recently so I tried both on this system. They play great with everything maxed. Torchlight 2 works fine with a touch screen though I didn't see any immediate way to "right click" with touch. Portal 2, on the other hand, was unusable with touch. I could even play Torchlight 2 with the touch screen away from the base but the FPS dropped noticeably.



The tablet is definitely heavy. You're not going to carry it around and use it in your hands. It's fun to use on the couch though or propped up on a TV tray. It did not handle direct sunlight well in Android mode. Though it has a camera, it doesn't sense light in the room which means you need to adjust the brightness yourself. Speaking of which, the webcam is mediocre.



There a few negatives that made this a 4 instead of 5.



* Sometimes the transition between desktop monitor mode to tablet remote control mode gets.. confused.

* Webcam doesn't work in Skype on android side of things. It's also not very good.

* Wireless radio in the tablet is poor or the signal measurement is faulty.