Welcome to a laptop battery specialist of the Asus Laptop Battery
Coming to write this review of the Asus Transformer Pad 300 it was hard to decide how to tackle it. Are we meant to look at it as a tablet? A netbook? Or as a whole new category completely.
As a tablet it will be going up against its stable mates: the original Transformer, the Transformer Prime as well as the plethora of other Android tablets available. It will of course be also judged alongside the iPad which is stiff competition to say the least.
Looking it as a netbook, the competition is a lot less. The day of the netbook is effectively over, especially with the recent advent of the Ultrabook. While the Transformer Pad 300 runs Android rather than Windows, it can still provide a comparable typing experience for more productivity.
But to try and put the Transformer Pad 300 in either of these categories, would be doing it a disservice, as it combines some of the best aspects of both while retaining portability and value for money.
For those who don't know, the Transformer line-up from Asus combines a regular Android tablet with a keyboard dock which not only provides a 'proper' tying experience, but adds an extra battery such as Asus L5900 Battery , Asus A32-M9 Battery , Asus A33-W7 Battery , Asus A32-U5 Battery , Asus 90-NE62B3000 Battery , Asus 90-NIL1B2000 Battery , Asus Z91E Battery , Asus L8000 Battery , Asus BA-04 Battery , Asus S96 Battery and more connectivity.
The Transformer Pad 300, which is the 'budget' version of the line-up compared to the slick and sleek Transformer Prime, is a little bit bulkier than its more expensive sibling, but is still fairly compact.
Looking at the tablet section, the Transformer Pad 300 features a 10.1in screen covered with Corning's scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass. Like most Android, tablets it has a 16:9 aspect ratio, unlike the 4:3 aspect ratio offered by the iPad. The tablet is 9.9mm thick and has a footprint of 262 x 181 mm.
The rear features the same textured back you find on a range of Asus products including the original Transformer and the Asus Zenbook laptop. This prevents fingerprints mucking up your shiny tablet as well as making it easier to grip.
The tablet weighs 635g, which is less than the iPad (652g), and while it's not that heavy, we did find that holding it for extended periods of time got quite tiring, but there is of course always the option of popping it into the keyboard dock.
Speaking of which, the tablet slots into the dock using two clips on the bottom as well as connecting with Asus's proprietary data/power port. The keyboard dock itself is lightweight (546g) and features a plastic finish unlike the more premium metallic finish on the tablet.
The tablet is powered by the Tegra 3 chip from Nvidia, which combines a quad-core processor with a 12-core GPU. However, it should be noted that the Transformer Pad 300's processor is clocked at 1.2GHz rather than the 1.3GHz processor on the Transformer Prime. This is backed up by 1GB of RAM.
You get an option of 16GB or 32GB of internal storage and there is also the options to extend the amount of storage you have via the full-sized SD card slot on the keyboard dock; up to an additional 32GB.
Connectivity on the tablet itself is poor. You get microHDMI to output HD video to your big-screen TV but no USB or microUSB. For data transfer and power, Asus has used a proprietary port on the bottom of the tablet, and you should also note that you have to use the charger Asus supplies in order to power up your tablet.