The front edge of the tablet houses a speaker strip, which doesn’t produce what I would call a pleasant listening experience, but it’s loud and decent enough for pumping out the audio of a YouTube clip. And yes, Honeycomb’s improved USB host support allowed for successfully connecting a mouse and USB flash drive. To its credit, the Slider’s extra girth does allow it to accommodate a full-size USB port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, microSD card slot, a volume rocker, and a Mini HDMI jack. Bottom line: the Slider is more akin to a basic 10.1-inch netbook than a tablet. (The Transformer’s dock happens to weigh more since it houses a 24.4Wh battery.) I’m not trying to harp on the dimensions here, but this is the obvious compromise of the form factor - there’s no way to leave the keyboard and a few extra ounces home and it is just heavy and cumbersome to hold. 77 pounds more than the iPad and Galaxy Tab 10.1, though. And as you might have guessed, it also causes it to weigh a heavier 2.1 pounds that’s. 7-inches thick, or what would be the equivalent of two iPad 2s or Galaxy Tab 10.1s stacked on top of each other. Being that the device is really a tablet layered on top of a keyboard, the Slider measures. There’s no doubt that the Slider’s design and the way the tablet’s screen slides up vertically to reveal the keyboard is incredibly awesome, but sadly, it’s that very uniqueness that causes the entire package to be overly chunky. (Asus says the test units had to pass a total of 30,000 swing counts, which consisted of six cycles per minute.) Unfortunately, there’s no way to adjust the angle of the screen - once popped into the keyboard mode, it’s locked at a 45-degree angle.īottom line: the Slider is more akin to a basic 10.1-inch netbook than a tablet Speaking of the mechanism, which you can see by only peeking around the sides, it works quite well and it’s sturdier than I imagined it would be. It’s a bit odd that you don’t actually push up from the bottom of the screen, like you would on a smartphone, but it seems that lifting the screen allows the mechanism to glide along smoother. Of course, what really sets the Slider apart is the fact that you can slide the display upwards by lifting a small latch behind the top of the panel to reveal its physical keyboard. There’s also a mocha / black version, but you know how some of us around here get pumped up about white gadgets. While the top of the device has the typical black glossy display - albeit with a much larger bezel (more on that below) - the back and edges are coated in a combination of white and champagne-colored, soft-touch plastic. However, there’s no mistaking the Slider for either of Apple’s tablets. And by extremely similar, I mean they either look a lot like the original iPad or the iPad 2. At this point, most of the tablets on my desk look extremely similar.

Slidepad review