The Eee Pad Slider SL101 reviewed by Nathan M. at Robert Morris University
Submitted by Nathan M. from Robert Morris University
This review is about the ASUS Eee Pad Slider SL101 tablet running Android 3.2.1. After using this device for roughly two weeks, I will be giving the in’s and out’s of the device, as well a general look at the software it runs as compared to iOS 5 (my iPad 2) and Android 2.3.4 (my Droid 3).
Look and Feel
The ASUS Eee Pad Slider is definitely an interesting, yet somewhat lackluster device. The device is a bit thick because of the keyboard, but it does fit firmly in your hands.
From left to right: Micro SD card slot, power button, volume rocker switch, reset button
On the left side of the tablet there is the Micro SD card slot, the power button, the volume rocker switch, and a reset button. That’s right. The Slider has a dedicated reset button. After being ever-so curious as to what this button did, I can’t say this is the brightest feature ASUS included in the device.
From left to right: headphone jack, USB 2.0 port
The reset button is slightly indented though, to prevent accidental use. On the right side of the tablet is the headphone jack and USB port (for the importing of photos and videos). On the top of the tablet, there is the charging port (which is ASUS-proprietary) and a mini-HDMI port.
The Slider comes equipped with a 5MP camera on the underside, as well as a front-facing 1.2MP camera. The underside of the device also has rubber bumps in each corner. Underneath the screen itself, though, is the main feature of the tablet, which warrants its own section – the keyboard.
Keyboard
The main feature of this device is without a doubt the keyboard. At the top of the unit, in front of the front-facing camera, you can lift the screen up, sliding it up to an oh-so-comfortable angle revealing a 66-key chiclet-style keyboard.
The keyboard is a full QWERTY keyboard with the Android Back, Home, Menu and Search keys, as well as a fully-functioning Tab key and Caps Lock key. It also has a Function (Fn) key, allowing the user to adjust the screen’s brightness, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, as well as accessing Home, Page Up, Page Down and End. That being said, the Slider’s keyboard is an absolute dream to type on.
The Slider features a 66-key Full Qwerty slide-out keyboard
It’s as if I’ve never left my laptop when I’m on the go, and it makes text-entry so much better than the standard on-screen keyboards. What makes the keyboard even better is that the under side of the device has rubber bumps on the bottom to keep the tablet from moving around.
My only complaints, however, is the length of the right Shift key, which I often end up pressing the ‘/’ key. Text input from the keyboard can sometimes be slow, depending on what the app is. It also sometimes misses keys and adds extra letters, and sometimes remains in all caps. Otherwise it is a very innovative feature.
A 1280x800px resolution IPS display ensures wide viewing angles and clear pictures
Display and Sound
The Eee Pad Slider boasts a very bright, very colorful 10.1” IPS display with a 1280×800 resolution. And when I say this screen is bright, I mean BRIGHT! The brightness on this tablet brings every other tablet device to shame (with the exception of the iPad 2). Because of this, it makes colors on the screen much more enjoyable.
The sound quality on the Slider is very somber, however. The speakers are very quiet, even turned all the way up with the screen angled up, and the quality is very lack-luster. Using proper speakers or headphones is the only way to use sound with this device unless the room you are in is extremely quiet.
Performance
The Eee Pad Slider comes with a solid, dual-core NVIDIA® Tegra™ 2 CPU running at 1GHz, and comes equipped with 1GB of RAM, making this a powerhouse of a tablet device. It ran every graphics-intensive game on the Android Market that I threw at it with minimal lag and almost no stuttering.
The only thing I noticed, even with the Slider’s Tegra 2 and a sizeable chunk of RAM to work with, is that Adobe Flash still runs slow in the web browser. The Slider disappointingly boots up in roughly 45 seconds, making my laptop slightly quicker. With 16 or 32GB of internal storage to store music, movies, files and whatever, I can’t really complain how slow it is to boot up.
Real-world battery life comes in around 5-6 hours with a listed 8 hours possible
Battery Life
The battery life on the Slider is touted to be around 8 hours. On the contrary, I experience about 5-6 hours of battery life with moderate use. This is in contrast to the iPad 2, which I almost always get 8 to 9 hours with moderate use. This would be slightly disappointing if I wasn’t the type of person who charges their devices every night before bed.
Operating System
Here come the meat and potatoes of the review. Hold on to your hats, Android lovers, because it’s nothing but a bumpy ride. The ASUS Eee Pad Slider comes with Android 3.2.1 (soon to be upgradeable to Android 4.0).
Coming from Android 2.3 on the Motorola Droid 3, I am mostly disappointed with how different Android 3.x is. The interface for Android 3.x is very smooth-scrolling on the Slider and feels mostly fluid, which is a big plus, but not without its problems.
For starters, the UI is changed in Android 3.x, with the notification bar no longer at the top of the device. The notification bar is now at the bottom-right corner, and is no longer a swipe-down interface, making it extremely difficult to go into the device settings when you’re getting notification after notification from running apps. Android 3.x also puts the Back, Home and Menu buttons in the lower-left corner of the screen, across from the notification bar.
A close-up look at the sliding mechanism of the Eee Pad Slider SL101
Another thing to note about Android 3.x is that the web browser is absolute trash. Often times while browsing the web, the browser constantly closes or redirects back to the home page. Coming from iOS 5 on the iPad 2, this is a huge let-down because tablet devices are supposed to rely on having a good web browsing experience (something the iPad does very well).
The browser is clunky and feels very unpolished, and it often times touches the wrong link, doesn’t load pages properly, or outright crashes. Browsing is also very slow and cumbersome with Adobe Flash installed. Another disappointment of Android 3.x is the lack of tablet support in apps on the Android Market. Apps in the Market are not designated whether or not they are supported on Android 3.x, which brings me to the next section: Software.
Software
The software that comes preloaded on the ASUS Eee Pad Slider includes ASUS Launcher, MyLibrary, MyNet, MyCloud, File manager, Kindle books, Zinio Magazine, PressReader, Polaris Office and ASUS sync.
These apps are a great, non-bloatware-feeling addition to the Slider, with the exception of Polaris Office. Polaris Office 3.0 is a professional office app to use for creating, viewing and editing documents, spreadsheets and slideshows. While the keyboard makes using the Slider for professional use much more appealing in ASUS’s eyes, Polaris Office itself makes it hard to see why.
With confusing menus, buttons with no labels and no auto-saving feature, I do not recommend using this preloaded app. However, this is how I feel about almost all of the office productivity software on Android. Half way through writing this review on the Eee Pad Slider, and switching from Polaris Office to the web browser and back, it had deleted my whole review, and it wasn’t saved in to memory. In short, I wouldn’t use this device to type a document, let alone do any of my homework.
The best feature of this tablet is without a doubt the slide-open, fully-functioning keyboard
Conclusion
In conclusion, the ASUS Eee Pad Slider SL101 is a creative, yet mediocre tablet device. The best feature of this tablet is without a doubt the slide-open, fully-functioning keyboard, as ASUS attempts (very well, I might add) to bridging the gap between tablet and netbook.
However, with poorly-developed office productivity apps, I highly recommend sticking with a full operating system for a proper office suite. At $499, the clunky, unpolished Android 3.2 operating system and its poor web browsing experience makes the iPad 2, (or even a netbook), a much more viable option.
My wife bought it and it got WiFi connectivity problem with our P1 modem/Wireless AP after upgraded to Honeycomb. Had to sit very near to the damn P1 modem/Wireless APin order to enjoy good signal. Problem still exists. Conclusion – SL101 sucks!!!
An odd review: objective and subjective points are jumbled together, making it hard to tell which of the issues might be relevant for me.
e.g. the location of the notification area (I don’t really care if it’s at the top or at the bottom) is unlikely to bother me, whereas a short battery life would (that said, I usually get a lot less than 8 hours out of my iPad, but that’s probably because I use it for skyping and for video a lot).
So for battery life, a well designed test would mean more to me (e.g. running the same video file through an iPad vs the Android pad until the battery gives out), than the subjective impression in a review.
I’d have to agree with your review. I do believe that the Transformer bridges the gaps that this device was missing. I’m a big fan of the Transformer, it’s my daily driver.