damn…bad review
There are a lot of good reviews out there, too. This is not the only one. Maybe the one that hisses should be returned? I have owned ASUS products and I think they are great. So great that people break into my house and steal them. LOL.
I picked one of these up a while back. It’s okay. It’s fine for sitting on the couch, watching TV, and keeping up with my fantasy football team. It is a little underpowered if you’re trying to switch between a bunch of apps, but for basic web browsing it’s not bad. It has a GPS that is usable even for navigating. It will upgrade to 4.1 and run just about any app out there.
I’ll say this about the Asus TF700t, this is a good deal from Woot, even if you have to pay tax. There’s a similar deal from NewEgg that’s a bit more expensive, but will ship to AK/HI.
The stock firmware in the tablet is quick and responsive, Android for tablet is simple and intuitive. While the software is easy to upgrade, I would root it beforehand.
The tablet has a camera with flash, expandable microSD slot, and microHDMI output. The dock adds a full-USB slot for external mice, gamepads, keyboards. The keyboard is a bit squishy, but it is a portable after all. The speakers on the back can get covered by your hands, but still power through.
Two caveats: One, the dock ASUS gives you for the TF700t can be a modified TF200 dock. The initial TF700 docks had better balance, but so-so battery life. The modified TF200 docks had a bigger battery, but were prone to tipping backwards when fully opened.
Second, ASUS is going to launch a revamped TF700 Infinity this year that blows away the current specs of this Infinity (yeah, the naming was confusing). According to the Verge, it’ll be $500 with dock, new.
And for a good review of why the TF700 is the best slate/dock option, here’s a YouTube review of its improvements over the TF300 (the previous best slate/dock option):
Not sure how it compares to the MS Surface RT, but it is a good deal cheaper.
info request:
can the bluetooth keyboard offered in this sale be used with android devices too?
thanks all!
Yes. Apple does not own bluetooth yet. If you can pair a bluetooth device than you should be able to work this fine. You might miss out on some of the Apple specific functions walks to the corner and sulks but you get a solid battery operated keyboard that has been shown to work with everything from a ps3, Android, et al.
And if you’d rather have something more flexible than the stock firmware, Cyanogenmod 10.1 (JB 4.2.2) works great. Add Apex Launcher and you’ve got a very streamlined, lightweight, customizable, and fast Android tablet experience.
In for a TF700. Yeah, the 2560x1600 Tegra4 version will be out later… I’d rather save some money and get this now, especially since my m11x seems to be on the fritz. My mom has one, and raves about how much better the custom firmware is.
What happened to the Motorolas?
I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for a new 10" 64Gb.
I wanted to like this tablet, really I did. It had such great specs, and a lot more screen real estate than a 7" tablet. But, alas, it was slow, quirky, unstable and just plain annoying. Craigslist got it, and I said bye bye Vizio.
agreed. The vizio tablet is horrible. I’m on my third tablet as the first two were defective. The first one would randomly sut itself off, and the second one had connection issues (mini hdmi would not work). This third one I just got gets really, really hot. Almost unbearable and the battery life sucks.
Save your cash and skip this device. I wish I did… On the plus side, Vizio has great customer support.
Wanting to get a good tablet for the kids while I wait on a Tegra 4 for myself. But the TF700 at $380++ is only about a $100 less than say the new HP Slatebook X2 which is coming out in just one month. If this TF700 was new than I could see that pricing, but not for a refurb. These should be nearer to $300 now. The TF300 would be good for the kids and if it included the keyboard, I might be willing to pay up to $280.
actually this devices works great!