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CES: Asus' Slider hides a surprise
The Asus EE Pad Slider attempts to solve the problem some of us have with software keyboards by including a hardware keyboard.
Will news of the Sliders QWERTY keyboard go down easy?...Sorry.
(Credit: Asus)I love the idea of tablets. A smallish, thin, quickly accessible portable computer with (hopefully) a low performance overhead. However, one of my biggest gripes with tablets is the size of my thumbs. Well, more accurately the size of the software keyboard keys and how they relate to the size of my large thumbs.
The easy solution to this problem is to add a hardware keyboard into the mix, as Asus is doing with the Eee Pad Slider. Though this would likely solve my large-thumb problem, it also encroaches on one of the previously mentioned advantages to tablets. Asus is taking a chance adding a full QWERTY keyboard to a tablet, but maybe not that much of a chance, since not all of the four tablets the company has announced today include full keyboards.
Chew on some specs:
- OS: Android 3.0 (Honey Comb)
- CPU/GPU: Nvidia Tegra 2
- Memory: 512MB or 1GB
- Storage: 16BG or 32GB eMMC flash
- Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, WLAN 802.11 b/g/n, USB 2.0
- Display: 10.1 WSVGA IPS screen with 1,280x800-pixel resolution and capacitive touch
- Camera: Front: 1.2-megapixel; Rear: 5-megapixel
- Interface: 1x Mini-USB port; 1x audio jack (headphone/Mic-in); 1x card reader, microSD; 1x docking port; 1x Mini-HDMI
- Unit dimensions: 273 x 180 x 17.7mm 1.9 pounds
The Slider will be available in Q2 at a price range of $499 to $799. Check back later this week for more info.
