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Asus Eee PC Slider SL101 Review

Asus’ other tablet, the Eee PC Slider SL101, will officially launch on Friday, September 30. We had a couple of weeks with it along with the Transformer. See our full review of the Asus Eee PC Slider SL101 after the break.

With the over dozens of Android tablets available in the market, the Asus Slider is the first one have a built-in, slide-out qwerty keyboard.

As such, it’s a bit chunkier at 17.3mm — very thick for a tablet but still thinner than most netbooks out there. That being said, it’s also obvious this tablet is much heavier than any other Honeycomb device we’ve seen or reviewed. The keyboard slides out from the back side, anchored by a large, metal hinge and a strip of data cable.

The Slider has a bit of an odd shape, straight on the top & bottom and curvy on the sides, and has all the needed ports — HDMI, microSD for storage expansion and USB.

The full qwerty keyboard slides out from the back and forms a stand for the display at around 30-45 degrees. There’s not much room on the keyboard, with the small chiclet-type keys, which is a little cramped but is comparatively as much as what you’d get on a 10-inch netbook.

Typing feels a little odd because of the absence of the palm rest but it’s definitely usable for the most part.

Aside from the physical keyboard, you can also use the virtual qwerty keyboard.

In sitting position, the angle of the display is perfect for watching movies. Display is bright and crisp with rich and vivid colors. The screen resolution (1280 x 800 pixels) is just right and viewing angles are very wide — all thanks to the IPS display. However, you’d notice the glare and reflection will hinder you to use the tablet in the outdoors (much like any other tablet out there).

Video playback at 1080p is smooth and flawless, YouTube HD streams well without noticeable choppiness and sound quality is decent, but not very loud.

With the Asus Slider, you get a combination of a full-sized USB 2.0 port and a mini-HDMI port most other tablets don’t have. That means you can attach and external storage, a mouse or even a 3G dongle (with the right drivers, of course).

Since the tablet is powered by an NVidia Tegra 2 chip, playing HD games is great on the Slider. You can download hi-def games from TegraZone to get the most out of the tablet’s performance. The over-all weight of tablet makes it a little cumbersome and tiresome to hold and enjoy gaming for prolonged periods of time.

Asus Eee Pad Slider SL101 specs:
10.1″ LED IPS display @ 1280×800 pixels
NVidia Tegra 2 1.0GHz processor
1GB RAM
16GB & 32GB internal storage
WiFi 80211 b/g/n
Bluetooth 2.1
GPS
5MP rear camera
1.2MP front-facing camera
25Wh Li-Po battery, up to 8 hours
Android 3.1 Honeycomb

The Slider runs on Android Honeycomb and brings with it all the goodness of the thousands of apps available in the Android Market. With the Tegra 2 chip, you also gain access to Nvidia TegraZone which offers a number of HD games to download and play on the tablet.

The 5-megapixel rear camera on the tablet takes decent still and good 720p HD videos though they’re not as great as the one on the BlackBerry Playbook. I’d say it’s on par with the one on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Asus Transformer.

Battery life on the Asus Slider is good, but not as impressive as the one on the Asus Transformer. I’m able to get around 7 to 8 hours on video playback after a full charge.


The Slider also came with this really nice leather and suede carrying case.

Over-all performance on the Asus Slider is actually very good — very responsive, handles multi-tasking really well, has tons of apps from Android Market and great HD games on TegraZone, wider selection of connection ports and a usable keyboard.

I’m not very sold to the idea of a built-in keyboard though, unlike the Asus Transformer that’s removable, and it doesn’t offer much value to the tablet as a whole. I was hoping that the additional hardware space would allow for more area for the battery, thereby matching the awesome longevity of the Asus Transformer.

Asus Philippines is supposed to launch the Slider SL101 this afternoon but eventually postponed it due to the typhoon. As such, I am not able to get the exact release date and suggested retail price in time for publication of this review. I am told though by one Asus rep before that the Slider will be priced under Php30k or below the SRP of the Transformer with the Dock (which means somewhere in the Php25k to Php28k).

Updated: The suggested retail price has been pegged at Php26,995.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

26 Responses

  1. Avatar for Tony Tony says:

    You can get this slider along with a pocket wifi bundle plan on Smart. About P1,400 plus for the unit, and about P500 plus for the pocket wifi with 50 hours internet per month. Good thing Smart has this P999 anti-billshock in case you go over your allotted monthly consumable.

  2. Avatar for Mia Mia says:

    Abe please help me sell this! Thanks http://bit.ly/A4pwcn

  3. Avatar for The Best Tablet PC The Best Tablet PC says:

    Hi there all, here every person is sharing these kinds of knowledge, thus it’s pleasant to read this blog, and I used to go to see this web site all the time.

  4. Avatar for jose L jose L says:

    cud someone show mi how unlock the asus 101 my daughter locked.please.

  5. Avatar for camil camil says:

    I got this for a week now..so it’s the coolest..

  6. Avatar for seraphica_seven seraphica_seven says:

    much better if its running Windows 8..
    so far.. I WANT IT!!!!! :D

  7. Avatar for GREEN LANTERN GREEN LANTERN says:

    IPAD LOVERS! IPAD ARE FOR PEOPLE WHO LIKE TO STAY HOME AND DO NOTHING WITH THERE LIVES…… ANDROIDS ARE FOR US WHO LIKE TO WORK FOR THE FUTURE AND AT THE SAME TIME HAVE FUN AFTERWARDS. IPAD SUCKS! ANDROID RULES!

  8. Avatar for Canada Canada says:

    I’m very happy with this machine. No BSODs or system errors of any kind so far. The NVIDIA video card seems to be doing a very good job. All of the drivers on the machine and on the DVD are current, so I only had to update Windows 7. The keyboard will take some getting used to, that’s all.

  9. Avatar for lau beruin lau beruin says:

    the next eee slider will be thinner and quad-core powered. ..i hope..

  10. Avatar for Fanboy Anyone Fanboy Anyone says:

    soooo many apple fanboys here… you do realize that the 32GB IPad2 retails @ 28-30k… but does the IPad2 comes with a keyboard? MicroSD slot? 1GB Ram? 5MP rear camera? 1.2MP front camera?…

    Clearly now, you are getting more with what you paid for this…

    • Avatar for Soul Annihilator Soul Annihilator says:

      Well, I don’t know about the iPad 2 but for P28K price range I could care less about this gadget and go for a good laptop that’s almost the same size but for less. Besides, I don’t know what’s the edge of this gadget over laptops.

    • Avatar for Jason Jason says:

      Well does an Ipad replaces a laptop too? I don’t think so. So the answer to your question is, its a luxury item, its for people who really really wants a tablet OR for those who already has a notebook and wants a tablet.

    • Avatar for Soul Annihilator Soul Annihilator says:

      I don’t have an Ipad. I’m not planning to buy one ever. I could care less about it.

  11. Avatar for mike mike says:

    fail. Just buy a netbook

  12. Avatar for angelo angelo says:

    Hope to see rear view shots in future reviews. Thanks.

  13. Avatar for nooni nooni says:

    if they could make this thinner and lighter, this would become a big hit!

  14. Avatar for pedring pedring says:

    Price is what its holding it back, i’d get an ipad2 instead at this price range.

    • Avatar for quzaqi quzaqi says:

      i bet you would coz . . . .

      you dont need a USB port;
      you don’t need a keyboard or perhaps you’ll just buy an external keyboard or can get it for free so you don’t have to spend more cash;
      u don’t need flash support;
      you don’t need HDMI port; you have absolutely no use of a microSD slot;
      all apps you need are available at the fruit tablet store;
      you love VGA quality for a front camera;
      you love iOS and would die to defend it;
      you don’t tire holding your tablet or would spend (or might get for free) a case which could make it “stand” on a flat surface or just lay it flat and crane your neck.

      i have to say, you have such an impeccable taste.

      i can say almost the same things to INVEST IN YOUR FUTUR (above post)

    • Avatar for melvin javier melvin javier says:

      quzaqi is right.. and specially if you are a apple fanboy XD. it got all the connectivity you’ve needed. im not sure if it has 3g ?

  15. Avatar for lanie lanie says:

    Nice gadget! nice review htt://yugatech.com

  16. Avatar for crazyf1 crazyf1 says:

    Were you able to test 1080p movies with DTS audio?

    • Avatar for Invest in Your Futur Invest in Your Futur says:

      I can’t imagine anyone buying this tablet with the price point stated. It’s going to be a tough sell for me because you can get an iPad for a lot cheaper. Also, android has not established itself in the tablet arena. It still has very few apps compared to iOS and the status bar just sucks!

  17. Avatar for Name: Name: says:

    can this run 1080p movies with DTS audio?

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