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Review on πŸ“± Transform Your Asus Eee Pad with the TF101 Mobile Docking Station by Eldrick Carlton

Revainrating 4 out of 5

Excellent

When I bought my Asus Transformer TF101 I avoided the keyboard dock. After all, I bought a tablet, not a netbook, and tablets don't have physical keyboards. The tablet itself is good for traveling. That's convenient, but typing even on a big-screen virtual keyboard isn't the best option. I finally broke down and got this keyboard dock. I was positively surprised. Everything worked right out of the box. In addition to the keyboard, I have a full-size SD card slot, two USB ports, and an extra battery in the dock to extend the tablet's runtime. The dock is well built. You may think that the tablet dock interface would be problematic, but it's actually well designed. The tablet fits snugly into the docking station, and together they function mechanically like a netbook. People have complained that their palm rubs the touchpad and moves the cursor on the screen while typing. There's a keyboard function key for turning the touchpad on and off, as well as several other function keys that duplicate on-screen controls like home, back, volume, screen brightness, and so on. The keyboard is big enough to be comfortable and the keys feel very comfortable. I plugged in the charger and the dock battery started charging after a few minutes. It was fully charged in about an hour. I have connected a USB wireless mouse. It just worked. To my surprise, I connected a 500GB portable hard drive and it worked! I suspect that would be a corresponding hit to battery life, but there are times when having a hard drive on a tablet is pretty handy. The serial number I received starts with C10 so is outside the range of originally faulty keyboards with a battery charging issue. Please note that I am not using standard ASUS firmware on my tablet. I am using a Cyanogen 9 ROM called Megatron. You might not be lucky enough to have all the features working as flawlessly as mine, but I've heard that ASUS regularly makes improvements to their ROMs, which are sent to your tablet over the air (or over the internet). ) Update. Therefore, it goes beyond the realm of initially defective keyboards with a battery charging problem. Please note that I am not using standard ASUS firmware on my tablet. I am using a Cyanogen 9 ROM called Megatron. You might not be lucky enough to have all the features working as flawlessly as mine, but I've heard that ASUS regularly makes improvements to their ROMs, which are sent to your tablet over the air (or over the internet). ) Update. Therefore, it goes beyond the realm of initially defective keyboards with a battery charging problem. Please note that I am not using standard ASUS firmware on my tablet. I am using a Cyanogen 9 ROM called Megatron. You may not be lucky enough to have all of the features work as well as they do for me, but I've heard that ASUS regularly makes improvements to their ROMs, which are sent to your tablet over the air (or over the internet). ) Update.

Pros
  • Easy to use
Cons
  • So far so good