Kindle Fire thoughts and EEE Transformer review

I have been using my EEE Transformer tablet for a few months now and here are my observation:

• Pros:

1. Good internals: credit goes to nVidia's Tegra2 processor. It really make apps and games looks sooo much better and play smoother.
2. tons of storage: I got the 16GB version and was able to put my whole apps, books, music collection and some movies on there, but the cool thing is it comes with Micro SD card slot so I can get more space if I want to. But I haven't reach the need at all.
3. Andriod apps: though Android apps ecosystem is still catching up with Apple's, there are some really good games around for the Honeycomb tablets already... Here are some of the one I really enjoy: Muffin Knight, Dungeon Defender, Robotek HD, Destroy Gunners, Backbreaker THD, Pinball HD , Zenonia series, Inotia3, Reckless Getaway, Samurai II: Vengeance, Cordy, Roboto, Diversion, Galaxy on Fire 2 THD, The Mystery of Crystal Portal. And I've actually found myself playing game more on the tablet than my PS3 or PC nowadays. Other non-games apps I also want to mentioned that are outstanding: Jota Text Editor, Sketch Book Express, News Republic, and APPY Geek, USA Today, Netflix, oh, Dolphin For Pad browser, some of the children's story book apps are really nice too: The Candy Factory, The boy who Cries Wolf...
4. build: Asus did a great job designing the lines and building this product. It feels solid and look smooth. I haven't been using the hardware keyboard too much, but I know Asus has consistently been improving the firmware and the UI, as I have seen the Chinese input system been improved with better associate phrase prediction and the UI flow now.
5. customization: dock with full size USB adapters and full size SD card reader, on-tablet mini HDMI port... unbeatable.

• Cons:

1. Honeycomb: soft keyboard, and the input area a lot of time does not get focus properly. You open a web page, see a text field and tap on it to enter some stuff, I would say a good 3 out of 5 times it will fail and the text field will be covered by the soft keyboard or something else. It really pisses me off.
2. Microphone issue: I haven't really spent enough time to figure this out... so perhaps it's my fault. But I've tried to use the built-in microphone, the headphone comes with Nexus S (both headphone and mic share the same 3.5mm adapter), and a bluetooth adapter that works fine with my Nexus S. And no matter what I do, the other side of my Google talk Video chat can barely hear me. As a result, I have not been using my tablet as much as I wanted to for Video/voice chatting.
3. Live Wallpapers: I've tried a lot of Live Wallpapers on this puppy and 4 out of 5 of the Live wallpapers I've tried render the front end (Launcher) sooo sluggish that it's unbearable. While this is not a major factor, it just took the point off in the comparison.
4. Hardware: I run pass a co-worker with a Motorola Xoom tablet the other day and realized that, even though being lighter than Xoom, EEE Transformer does feels heavier, and bigger. Reason? I blame the overall diagonal ratio and the margins around the actual display. EEE transformer's overall body seems longer, and the margins are pretty big. If the margin can be cut down to half in Y-axis and to 1/3 in X-axis, then I think it will help the weight distribution and the look.

Seeing the latest Kindle Fire videos/photos reminded me to post this, since it seems like Amazon is on the right track to make a desirable tablet. 10.1 inch display is feeling a bit oversize for me and it's contributing the feeling of its being overweight too. I think 7 inch is probably a more suitable size for tablet, as I really, _really_, love my 6" kindle, I love its weight, portability, durability, and battery life.

So Amazon, I wish you luck to get this right. Please, please make sure the UI is smooth, keyboard is great, battery life is good, and weight great on the hand. (It seems like they are claiming all these so far, so I hope they can cash that check)... If all these are down, I am sure to be in the line of the pre-order list :)