The Asus Transformer Pad 300 will be out in the UK in early May, available at Currys and PC World when you fork out £399.
Your near-400 sheets gets you a 10-inch tablet running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, along with a keyboard dock that attaches to the tablet with a satisfying KER-CHUNK, enabling you to type at lightning speeds.
If that sounds familiar, it's because this tablet is very similar to the Transformer Prime that came out towards the end of last year.
Like the Prime, the Pad is powered by a quad-core processor and sports an 8-megapixel camera around the back. It's not quite as slick as its older brother in terms of design. Our US cousins at CNET have already reviewed the Pad 300, writing that it, "isn't as thin or sturdy as the Transformer Prime", and declaring that the screen isn't as bright either.
Those flaws didn't stop it landing three and a half stars -- a score deemed 'very good'. It's also worth noting that at £399, the Pad 300 is cheaper than the £500 Prime. We'll have our own British take on this transforming tablet soon enough, so stay tuned.
It's no secret that Android tablets have done little to challenge Apple's dominance when it comes to making shiny touchscreen slabs. Priced identically to the new iPad, I'm not convinced that the Pad 300 will do much to change that. A cracking tablet is always welcome though, and this could be a prime choice for Android enthusiasts who love to tinker.
Let's just hope it's not cursed by the same launch issues that affected the Prime -- dodgy Wi-Fi, GPS and a locked bootloader being just a few kinks in the Pad's predecessor.
The Pad 300 comes in blue, white and red, though only the blue edition will be available at launch. The white version lands late June, and the red one hits home in late July. If you're averse to buying from Currys or PC World, the Tab 300 will be on sale elsewhere from late June.
Will you be splashing out? Let me know in the comments or on our Facebook wall.
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anonymous 23 April, 2012 21:40
Now this (and the Transformer Prime Infinate 700) is going to be the true ipad killer! Definately getting one.
Naryan 24 April, 2012 16:47
Still don't see the point... We've gone full circle now. We bought tablets for some reason, we made them more and more fully featured, more powerful, then we attached peripherals and NOW what we've basically just done is reinvented the laptop/netbook. They told us we wanted it, we bought them like crazy till we were sick of them, now they've just started us aaaall ooover agaaain.
I don't get WHY people don't see this. What we're looking at is a little smaller than a laptop, the price of a laptop, less secure than a laptop, less powerful than a laptop, and faaaar less fully featured than a laptop, and people are going friecking crazy for them.
I honestly thought only Apple fans were stupid enough to buy something so incredibly pointless as an iPad-type-thing. I guess I was wrong.