I’m a smartbook fan. I want to see the netbook form factor extended right down into the mobile operating space by including always-on, location services, sharing, dynamic user interfaces, a huge app store and access to music, video and books as well as apps.

I also want to see the applications on the mobile operating systems mature to the point where I can run my business on them and right now, one of the most interesting mobile operating systems, and one that has made more progress than any other crossing the chasm into productivity and desktop worlds is iOS. The problem is, I don’t like the restrictive nature of iOS products for productivity work so I’m personally very excited about where Honeycomb is going.

I’ve tested Android 1.x on the clamshell Compaq Airlife 100 and 2.x on the Toshiba AC100 so to follow-on I’ve ordered an Asus Eee Pad Transformer which is running 3.x. Not only will this be a great smartbook test, it will also be the first 10 inch ARM-based tablet that I’ve owned. With the Galaxy Tab so woven into my daily life, it will be interesting to see if the Transformer has any impact there.

Through my social circle I see that there’s quite some interest in the Transformer. I think we all know it’s NOT going to be a business device from day one but the point is, it’s an important device to test and one that could mature well through 2011.

I’m unlikely to be one of the first to get one as high-street availability has already been confirmed in the UK and I won’t be picking mine up until next week when I visit my folks in the UK.

Naturally I’ll be setting up a LIVE REVIEW for when I get back home and this is provisionally planned for Friday 22nd April at 2100 Berlin time. We’ll go over the device and run through some Honeycomb tests, video playback tests, battery life tests and a whole suite of application tests including some productivity applications. I’m also interested to see how the USB host functionality is implemented.

I paid 429 UK Pounds for the 16GB version with docking station that should start to ship on the 18th. That’s not cheap compared to the Toshiba AC100 but it’s a  reasonable start price. You’ll see this for 25% less in a very short period of time I’m sure. There’s no 3G though so it means I’ll be carrying my MiFi or, strangely, the Galaxy Tab as a 3G hotspot.

16hrs battery life in 1KG is a stunning runtime figure but if the OS and applications can’t deliver, those 10 extra hours are worth nothing!

Stay with me, here on Carrypad, for testing next week.

Update: Unboxing below.

The Acer Iconia Tab A500 (not the AMD/Windows based W500) looks like its taken second place in the race to get Honeycomb tablets to the streets. There’s no more waiting in Taiwan because our friends Sascha and Nicole from netbooknews (German site) have already bought one!  Sascha wrote in his german site this morning that he’s on his way to get one for the equivalent of 429 Euro and in a recent tweet he says “Erste Eindruecke vom Acer Iconia Tab A500: Absolutes Schnaeppchen und einer der zukuenftigen Android 3.0 Bestseller! inch which means his first impressions are that it’s an absolute bargain and a future best seller. Strong words Sascha. JKK and I will be questioning you about it in this weeks MeetMobility podcast (Live Friday, 11am Berlin time)

We’ll update with the unboxing video from the netbooknews team after it airs, we suspect, later today. What we already know though is at that price, Acer is once again doing a great job of shaking up pricing. European availability is expected in a week or two in the 399-430 Euro range.

Unboxing is here (Via netbooknews)

Friday is turning out to be a good day. The iPad 2 launches in Europe (although I still don’t see any official pricing in Germany) and it’s my Birthday. Now, I hear that the Eee Pad Transformer is launching too. Decisions decisions!

The Eee Pad Transformer is an interesting product because it takes the idea of the smartbook one step further. It uses the Honeycomb operating system (which could enable a far superior laptoping experience than 2.x ever did) and it uses a keyboard mechanism that can be un-docked to allow tablet-only usage.

I tested the Transformer out at mobile world congress in February (video below) and wasn’t too impressed with the weight but full USB ports made me wonder if ASUS are building some nice USB hosting capabilities. The weight with the dock also seems a little over the top. With connectors and an additional battery in the keyboard unit, I’m expecting the total weight to tip 1KG. The unit I tested wasn’t running Honeycomb.

Pricing has me a little worried. The price for the tablet seems OK at 399 Euro although confirmation is still needed on storage and 3G capability. 32GB and 3G included is what I’m assuming at this stage. The price of the dock could add 120 Euro to that. The price isn’t too bad when compared with high-end tablets but when compared with the Tegra-2 based Toshiba AC100 smartbook (under 300 Euro with 3G) you get the idea that there’s a huge margin being added here and that the price should come down by at least 100 Euros over time.

The March 25th launch is for Taiwan only at this stage and will only include pre-order. Actual availability around the world is still unknown but we’ll probably hear more on Friday.

VIa Netbooknews

I was invited to join iPad experts Nick Robinson (@ratkat) and Kevin Wright (@kevwright) for a chat about the iPad2 on their Tech Talk UK podcast (formerly the iPad Chat Show) a few days ago and although I was still reeling from the ‘Jobs Attitude,’ I enjoyed it and come out of the podcast thinking I really should get an iPad 2 for further testing (and music, movie making etc. etc.) We discuss it in the light of early Xoom and Honeycomb reviews, talk about apps and the the ‘post-PC’ era.

You can listen and subscribe to the podcast over at the TTUK site.

MSI have the Tegra powered Windpad behind glass here at CEBIT.

The images above show full sd card slot, mini-hdmi, mini-USB, one full-sized USB port and the same optical mouse as seen on the Windows-based Windpad 110w.

MSI say that this will be available in the Q2 timeframe and MSI are aiming for the Honeycomb OS.

Posted from WordPress for Android with the Galaxy Tab

Many of the large U.S. based computing websites got a Xoom to test under embargo recently and obviously there’s been a quick rush of content out of the door as the embargo lifts today. (List of reviews below)

More images in our Gallery

Our Hand-on Here.

Full specs, review links and more videos here.

Of the Honeycomb tablets we saw at MWC the Xoom was clearly the best in terms of UI-feel but both Samsung and LG still have time to optimise their software before launch. Interestingly, the Xoom is looking very vanilla in terms of applications and that’s probably because this is a project that Google have been heavily involved with as the launch product for Honeycomb. Expect both the Samsung and the LG tablets to have different angles with Samsung likely to go for a heavily enhanced software package and LG using their 3D technology to make a difference.

Back to the Xoom though and it’s difficult to get a real feel from what looks like a 2-day hands-on before the ‘reviews’ were posted but there’s already unanimous agreement that the UI is good, it’s fast (we measured the fastest Sunspider/Android result ever on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 which uses the same hardware and software.)

There’s also a widespread worry about the lack of Honeycomb/Tegra2 optimised software (although the Google applications suite does look to be well designed) and obviously a question over the $799 price. That, however, is likely to drop fairly quickly as soon as market competitors launch.

Image via Slashgear

Battery life reports are positive as are thoughts on the camera quality and software. It remains to be seen just how many will be using it as a photographic device but there’s some interesting virtual reality use-cases that shouldn’t be forgotten.

One element of the software suite that I’m interested in is the video editing software. Without even looking at it I can’t see how it can be that fast at processing 720p video for overlays and fades; processes which take huge amounts of CPU power. We must not forget that the Tegra 2 platform is still in the sub-netbook performance category. Engadget report that Movie Studio is ‘ inchgenerally sluggish. inch Laptop Magazine, however, calls it a “fairly robust editing app. inch but then goes on to talk about how the Xoom started to get “bogged down inch when previewing and editing.

Flash support is missing along with support for the Micro SD card slot but Motorola are promising a software update to enable those features.

There’s a feeling that Motorola might not have been 100% ready for the launch of the Xoom but have gone ahead and taken the risk anyway. We would expect the first firmware updates in just a few weeks an at that point it’s probably worth re-visiting updated reviews to see if some of the holes have been patched.

At $799 the Xoom is not quite worth its money in its current state and with competitors like the Iconia Tab, Galaxy Tab 10.1, LG Optimus Pad and, potentially, an iPad 2 it would pay to wait. Certainly don’t go committing to a 2-year contract today!

A list of current reviews is show below and we’ve selected some YouTube videos for the product database page. Tip us here if you see any other good reviews.

Motorola Xoom Review Roundup
Motorola Xoom Review – PC Magazine
Motorola Xoom Review – Laptop Magazine
Motorola Xoom Review – Mobile Crunch
Motorola Xoom Review – Cnet
Motorola Xoom Review – JKontheRun
Motorola Xoom Review – Android Community
Motorola Xoom Review – Engadget
Motorola Xoom Review – Slashgear

Also check the Xoom Questions List before you buy.

Tegra and Honeycomb seem to be everywhere at MWC. We spotted the Acer Iconia 100 yesterday but that seems to be the only 7″-er. Everything else is 10″. At this early stage in the Honeycomb lifeline there isn’t a lot of time for manufacturers to make huge differentiation in the software layers so LG have chosen to go the hardware route on their tablet and have added 3D cameras. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to test them.

With Honeycomb being so new its difficult to come to any conclusions but I saw an amazingly sharp and high-contrast screen that was let down by a user interface that should be a lot, lot smoother.

On the back you have a removable panel which seems to be only for the Sim card. I think I must have missed something there but I’m sure there’s no removable battery. Build quality overall seems very good and the gaming experience was an obvious step up from what I’ve seen on other devices. If developers jump on the bandwagon and optimise for Tegra, it will a real advantage in the gaming space.

With that 3D feature in the device I’m certainly not expecting it to be cheap and I wonder, is anyone really crying out for 3D camera like this?

I’ve just shot a video of the Iconia A100 tablet here at MWC and its an interesting one. Tegra 2, Honeycomb, 5MP AF cam, gyroscope, hdmi outand possible 3g. No word on pricing or timescales. This could make a great mobile gaming device.
Video coming later.