No worries... its a slow morning here today, so I thought I'd post a few more thoughts
Follow-up thoughts
Ok, so I've had a good chance to play over the weekend and tweak it etc. First off I would maintain that its not as "out-of-the-box" as an IPad, so the geeks/techies among us will have no problems.. but joe-average may be a little put off. I guess that's down to Google to tweak and refine, but the die is cast for this version of Honeycomb and I doubt many of the "core" things that aren't glaringly obvious or simple, will be changed.. that's not a bad thing, but it is worth a consideration..
Battery life. Awesome - as good as my ipad 1 for sure.. and I've found that the chargers
can be used on each device but they will only trickle charge. So using the small ipad mains charger will charge the Transformer (if the screen is left off).. and the Transformer's psu will charge the ipad - again, slowly
Screen. Some light bleed unfortunately (this is also being reported by other users on XDA forums/Modaco etc) - not a deal breaker, but it is there.. admittedly only noticable when using at night... Still great images though. The fingerprint magnet screen continues to be a pain but c'est la vie! Kind of in two minds about whether to get a screen protector (when they become available). It would certainly reduce the fingerprints, but that gorilla glass is on there for a reason and it'd be a shame to have to bypass it
Cases. REALLY want a Yoobao style case now. I've got one on my ipad and love it - sure, it adds a bit to the weight but the extra "bulk" actually helps me to hold it a bit more securely. The same would be true if the asus had one I reckon - and DEFINITELY when typing for longer periods.. its soooo easy to put the Yoobao into "stand" mode and type.
I'm hoping to get a keyboard dock (have now heard back from
[email protected], and paid for my dock - late/end May delivery apparently)
But can't see myself getting it out and docking the tablet every time I wanted to type something, here for example.. or in a GTalk session.
Going to try and send Yoobao an email registering my interest - perhaps others here could do the same??
Browsing
Great overall. Bit narked that some sites don't work smoothly (AVF text entry as mentioned in an earlier post), but at least there's Firefox as an alternative... and despite NOT missing Flash when casual surfing on my ipad.. it is finally
really nice to be able to have it available when browsing on a tablet.
Downloading/opening files and attachments are a lot more like a desktop experience rather than the Goodreader/Dropbox cludge you have to work with on the ipad. Again, not world changing but a refreshing change on a tablet device
Multitasking
In a word, awesome! iOS4 brought a better implentation to the ipad, and I found myself making use of it.. in Honeycomb its just so much more seamless! Using it, you wonder how you ever did without it... In GTalk, then you wanna check something on the web.. a couple of clicks.. boom! Then back to GTalk.. easy..
UI Tweakability and stuff
Never gets boring. Nice to have at-a-glance info with widgets.. again, not game changing but it does alter your workflow (for the better), in the way you interact with the tablet..
Apps
Everyone's probably waiting for the volume of quality apps to increase. Its nice that older apps scale so well for the most part (and when they work) However there's more than enough out there already.. got most of the bases covered with alternatives/equivalents to apps that I use on the ipad every day. Some more games would be nice, but not a deal breaker really
Google DO need to sort out that market place though. Its a bit of a street bazaar feel, and the search results (for the worlds leading seach company) are a bit haphazzard
Video
Nice to be able to just plug it into a PC and dump video files straight on (I'm looking at you ITunes!). Have installed the free MoboPlayer and Rock Player - both seem to work fine with DivX/XViDs so far.. not really interested in whether it deals with 1080p content as I simply don't see the point on such a small screen.. I appreciate that others want it because they don't want to have to re-encode to a lower resolution, but for me personally.. its not an issue.
And that about wraps up my second set of thoughts.. I'll bow out with a few recommended apps (taken from suggestions etc.)
File managers/System Apps:
Astro File Manager (although the SMB module crashes with an FC)
Columnar
** NEW (for me) *** Wyse Pocket Cloud Free (great Remote Desktop app.. free version only lets you keep one connection but just tried it and it is
much nicer than the RDP Free on iOS - you get a decent remote keyboard implementation AND stuff we take for granted like right
mouse click etc.. - quite impressed)
Desktop Widgets:
Circle Launcher (Free)
Beautiful Widgets
Widgetsoid 2.x
Gauge Battery Widget
Ext Date Widget
Wifi Signal Widget
Productivity:
Thumbkeyboard
Calendar Pad (Free)
Browsing/Comms:
Firefox
Skype
(IM+ is broken on honeycomb)
Media:
Rockplayer Free
Mobo Player