How Asus triumphed over Apple | Hacker News Reader

How Asus triumphed over Apple

washingtonpost.com

27 pointsanigbrowl9 comments

Very linkbait-y/troll-ish headline, but I own an ASUS Transformer and for my money it is the greatest single gadget I have ever owned or used, even adjusting for technology inflation. The keyboard dock is the killer feature for me, I use the thing in "netbook" mode at least 80% of the time because I find it to be a superior form factor for anything but very casual "couch surfing". And when I do want to do that sort of casual browsing, I just pull the tablet part out of the dock.

Granted, you can do something vaguely similar by adding a bluetooth or USB keyboard (on tablets that support USB host mode) on other tablets, but you lose a lot of convenience by not having it be a proper fold-up netbook configuration, IMO (you're basically forced to use a bag to tote it, unlike the Transformer).

Concurred. Let's not forget that ASUS has mastered the netbook form-factor for quite some time. For many of us tablet is only an occasional need, say, read a long article, watch a show etc., so what I would call an "occasional tablet", i.e. the Transformer package, seems particularly natural.

I see this link here as flame bait. This guy is happy with his Asus tablet because it has a keyboard and Flash in the browser. Good for him.

the title is terribly linkbaity, but I do think it's interesting how Asus seems to have hit the bullseye with this product - almost evry review glows with praise, and many criticisms in the early reviews addressed flaws of Android 3.0 which have since been rectified. I was startled to see that Asus is apparently selling 400,000/month of these things - far short of the 3 million iPads a month that Apple is shipping, but impressive for a product that only became available in April. It is the leading Android tablet at present, at least until the next generation of devices featuring the Tegra 3 appear around August.

> Asus’s stock browser blows Safari away because it supports Flash.

Why do I feel like the guy didn't even use the thing? Oh right, because I've tested Flash in browser on every Android tablet I could get my hands on and it was extremely unimpressive, every time.

I have nothing against Asus, I loved my EEE PC and the only reason I don't have it anymore is because it was the perfect computer for my younger cousin. I also think the Transformer is one of the more interesting entrants into the Android tablet market. However, this article reads like an ad. Laments about bullet point features, totally skips real world use (the flash example being the best one).

If he had used it extensively, he never would have said "the stock browser is better because it supports Flash" he would have said "the stock browser is better because I can do x, thanks to the Flash-supporting browser".

> the Android widgets personalize the home screen, which is great if you want constant access to your audio controls. Once you wrap your head around the possibilities, the iPad interface will seem plain.

Why do I have to "wrap my head around the possibilities"? Why don't you just tell me some of the amazing and awesome things you did with widgets while you were reviewing the thing? It could be because widgets aren't actually that amazing in practice, and are really just little applets that run all the time. Is it really a deal breaker to have to tap on the Tweetbot icon to view tweets instead of swiping to the side to look at my Twitter widget? I don't think so.

What happens is this: Apple makes great products, people want them, other people make cheaper copies, people can afford them and so they buy them.

Android phones are a good example - they certainly do triumph, but because of Apple. Apple still wins, but we all benefit from what they do - and what they do is increase the demand for better appliances.

Awesome. I always wanted to build something like this. Next thing, it would be grate if one could adjusted the screen in height, so you can work in a natural position on a desk.

What has always worried me, is how to balance the center of mass. Do they put weights in their keyboard? All the batterie and computing power is in the tablet. So I would have assumed, that it is a lot heavier and would fall to the back.

I have a transformer 32GB (but not the keyboard part) and I must say I really like it.

The keyboard contains a battery as well so I imagine the center of mass would be shifted down a bit.

Am I the only one to notice a fancy designation ("senior Vice President and Chief Digital Officer")! Chief Digital Officer? :)

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