Asus launches Honeycomb-powered Eee Pad Transformer

Yesterday I went along to the press launch of the new 10.1in Asus Eee Pad Transformer, which runs Android 3.0 ('Honeycomb'). My first impressions after a brief hands-on session were that it's an impressive little device (it weighs 680g) that feels very robust and well-made. The novel clip-on keyboard is excellent, although the attachment/release mechanism is a bit fiddly.

Having tried and hated an Android 1.6-based tablet (the Viewsonic Viewpad 10, which also runs Windows 7), Honeycomb is a revelation. It looks good and is easy to use, with a much-improved on-screen keyboard. But the best thing about the Eee Pad Transformer is the price: at launch, there is a 16GB Wi-Fi version costing £379, or £429 bundled with keyboard. There's also a 32-GB Wi-Fi model costing £429. 3G models will apparently come later. So it sits very squarely in iPad territory, although personally I think the iPad's aspect ratio is much better for general use (and certainly for ebooks or magazines) than a widescreen format.

Asus quotes 9.5 hours battery life, which can be extended to 16 hours using the battery in the keyboard dock. It also has two cameras, proper USB ports and an SD Card slot. It goes on sale on 6th April.

Here are brief specs taken from the press release:

* NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual core processor for optimum performance
* 10.1” LED backlit high resolution, scratch-proof screen
* Front and rear facing high quality cameras
* Access to thousands of home and work applications via Android Market
* 10 Finger Multi-touch support and sensors including GPS
* Preloaded utilities including remote access, work suite and library
* Mini HDMI output to extend stunning visuals to external devices
* 3D Stereo audio quality with SRS sound technology

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Benchmarking, 1993 style

In 1992, I started my tech publishing career with Ziff Davis UK, working in PC Magazine Labs as a tester. Along the way I accumulated all manner of memorabilia, including this old promotional video from the US parent company.

ZD Labs was built in 1991 in Foster City, California, as a shared resource for all the tech magazines, and cost an absolute fortune (PC Magazine also had a 5,000 sq. ft. lab in New York). It's amazing how much effort was put into testing for magazines in those days - it was all part of Bill Ziff's publishing philosophy. Our labs in the UK were also very expensive, but nowhere near the scale of this. ZD created its own benchmark suite (WinStone, WinBench, NetBench and 3D WinBench), which it gave away free to anyone who wanted it.

These days, we're reduced to testing kit at our desks or in a broom cupboard, but that's the way it goes. I must say that the years I spent testing hardware and software at PC Mag were very enjoyable on one level, but an enormous drudge on another - I came across an old feature table for a notebook group test the other day that has over 400 rows of features for each of 30 products. No wonder I hate Excel so much.

Review: Aztech WL556E Wireless-N repeater

Sold by Solwise, the Aztech WL556E is an affordable 802.11n Wifi repeater (it costs about £40 including VAT). It's pretty easy to use, but has some gotchas - for example, once configured, you can't access the setup menu from a PC unless you change the PC's IP subnet to 10.X.X.X. But apart from that, it works pretty well. You can read my full review on Computeractive's site.

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Review: Fritz! Fon MT-F

AVM's Fritz! Fon MT-Fis a stylish DECT phone that's described as the ideal accessory for Fritz! Box 7270 and 7390 VoIP routers, and in general I agree, as you can see in my review at IT Reviews. It certainly gives my trusty old Siemens S685IP a run for its money.

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Feature: Free versus paid software

Computeractive has now published online a feature I wrote for the print edition that picks the top commercial software in a number of categories and suggests free alternatives. The categories have been published as separate articles, using the tag 'free-versus-paid'.

Review: Netgear XAVB5001 Powerline AV 500 kit

It took Netgear an awful long time to release the UK version of these 500Mbps powerline adapters, but they have now finally appeared. They use an Atheros AR7400 chip that employs a broader frequency range than standard Homeplug AV kit. They are excellent devices, and you can read my full reviews, including performance results, on IT Reviews, The Inquirer and Computeractive.

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Review: Fujitsu ScanSnap S1100 scanner

As I reported a few weeks ago, the S1100 is the smallest and lightest member of Fujitsu's ScanSnap range of personal colour scanners. You can now read my full review of this excellent little device on IT Reviews.

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Review: Plustek SmartOffice PS286 Plus

V3.co.uk has just published my review of Plustek's latest desktop ADF scanner, the SmartOffice PS286 Plus. It's a versatile piece of kit that can even scan credit cards and folded A3 documents, although the bundled software looks a little dated when run on Windows 7.

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Brain - the first ever PC virus

Mikko Hypponen (@mikkohypponen), the CRO of security company F-Secure, has made a short documentary about the first PC virus, Brain. Well worth watching, especially as he returns the virus to its original creators in Pakistan.

(via USA Today)

Cisco launches Linksys E4200 450Mbps router

We're starting to see a trickle of 3x3 450Mbps Wifi routers being announced, and it's going to be neck-and-neck between Cisco and TP-Link to see which gets its product into the UK shops first. I've written a short  piece about the Cisco Linksys E4200 (which is supposed to ship in early April) for ZDNet's First Take blog, but I will be doing a full review in the very near future. As you'll see in the ZDNet story, it's quite a peculiar beast, boasting a grand total of six internal antennas.

I'm looking forward to seeing how it works with the newly-hacked 450Mbps Wifi on my Acer Aspire One.

Review: Uniblue PowerSuite 2011

The 2011 version of Uniblue's system maintenance suite, PowerSuite, has had a bit of a makeover. It consists of three programs; RegistryBooster, DriverScanner and SpeedUpMyPC. You can read my full review of it over on IT Reviews.