A short review on an affordable yet surprising new toy manufactured by ASUS.
The
ASUS Transformer T100 is a Windows 8.1 tablet with keyboard dock and
often comes with Microsoft Office Student free. This device has a
Quad-Core 1.33 Atom processor boasting a ten hour battery life, while
online*. It is small, at ten inches, the screen is a five point touch
tablet and keyboard dock holds only a touchpad, keys, 1 usb3.0 and the
tablet dock pins. Color needs gamma correction, but unless you need to
do visual work, it will seem fine--I use the program to up contrast more
often then color correct. Sound is beyond surprising, two small speaker
grills on the back are deceptive. I've used this device since November,
and have yet to need to use the sound at max, even when showing youtube
videos while in a noisy area--since brightness is a minor
inconvenience, the fact it's highly mobile solves that. My model has
64gb SSD within the tablet, while only about 45~ are visible. Newer
model options have a 500gb HDD in the keyboard dock.
I personally used an online tutorial to remove the twice heavier
than tablet iron weight-plate from the dock, and have found it nice in
the hand, and in a bag. As a tablet, I can use the virtual keyboard and
tinker away with Eclipse, an IDE for general coding (and more
importantly have it work) and emulate Android. With the keyboard... it's
nice. A useful replacement for a smartphone search, along with having
Windows functionality. With a Wacom tablet, older games like the
Baulder's Gate series and the Fallout series work beautifully being as
the screen matches the wacom. Though using a touch pad is rage inducing,
especially for these. And a mouse feels overkill.
Final usage. Turning this tablet/netbook into a functional desktop.
You'll need a HDMI screen or adapters, 1 HDMI, one mini HDMI adapter
(unless you have a spare mini to full HDMI laying around), 1 audio plug,
1 3x usb hub (usb3.0 applicable?) for mouse, keyboard and probably an
external and just plug it in. This device barely gets hot, and it only
is a little wonky if I leave it on overnight playing videos. Fixes when I
restart.
At most this device is $400 when being ripped off. The worst: the
brightness is a pain, I apparently was lucky with no problems--there is
little quality assurance (some people have sent theirs back three+
times), there's only a microSD slot (which might be interesting with
Android emulation...) not including the dock's usb, Windows 8.1 is a
headache, and Windows Update eats the best driver configs!
BUT
Notebook forums really help with tweaking it and making the best
out of these situations. I am willing to bet the Transformer T100 is the
next EeePC, albeit a beta test in terms of assurance. My unwieldy ASUS
ROG makes this a great secondary PC. People have proven it has more
gaming potential than I'd think. I like it for programming, notepad++ is
more responsive than any IDE--Geany works well.
*Note most websites may underquote this device's battery power based
on two factors; one being the necessity of the charger the device ships
with; secondly rolling updates have solved various power issues and now
can be online, operate multiple programs, brightness+sound maxed and
while charging still maintain power if not also charge. The latter was
not true at first and cut battery life dramatically until power
management fixed in mid January. Though, it still needs the stock
charger which resembles any Android charger--on these the device still
drains while on.
Friday, May 23, 2014
NEW POST!
This weekend, the weekend of the miraculous meteor shower, I shall begin on some... projects--queue maniacal laughter. I so often either forget about things I feel I should actually care about, but for once there is a sense of desire, of a bloodlust for accomplishment. Of these projects I can elucidate on two right now: programming and writing.
Programming! Learning any one singular coding language is akin to learning the art of the privileged scribes. It does not have to be for a job, but as simple as fixing computer problems, tinkering around in old programs that do not work (at least not too well), making extensions for programs, making a program that actually does what you want it to do and the ability to make stupid little games, the kind middle age women play all day hoping her children will call. Suffice to say, tons of perks and the best perk is, once one language is known, said knower of one coding language can easily learn--from their recent tools of comprehension--the various other intricacies of other coding languages (as all coding language mean to do one thing... PROGRAM [being understood is a common denominator, but the few "odd" languages seem written by a rabid weasel crapping on a keyboard!]).
For me, I have stumbled and bumbled on more than a few road blocks. As hinted above, I am one to completely lose all sense of action when annoyance weighs the scale. I did great on my few college classes. I felt a need to over achieve, a place to show off, to ruin grading curves and to be generally terrified of the next pop-quiz. One may think someone who dropped out of high school and half a decade later aced a GED (top 2 percentile AND I had a killer headache) would have enough gumption to learn whatever-the-hell he damn-well chooses. The short answer is, yes. I learned about Plato, Pythagoras, the great German proto-psychologists... I learned tons about ancient history and their budding philosophy. I fell in love with what was taught by the Buddha, along with the New Agers.Then there was youtube learning. I tried, and I mean I really tried to learn with the free courses online, which consist of universities video-taping and uploading their classes. Meine (keine) Gott, were they dry. Thank Nerdom for SciShow, CrashCourse and a variety of interactive websites and learning software. I know that if I focus and place my dearest wanting of self-progression into programming languages, I shall prevail... so long as I do not become re-addicted to facebook, and can trust my willpower to turn off Netflix/Hulu/youtube for their entertainment value. GopherVids has been my newest dragon to chase.
Writing! I have been jotting notes, scavenging and salvaging mental leavings and am going to spend this very weekend finishing AT THE VERY LEAST a rough draft of my first official occult book. It reminds me of something Arin Hanson (Egoraptor, most recently known for GameGrumps) said... it was about upcoming projects. The more one talks about a possible project, the less likely it will be completed--paraphrased, of course. Steph recently posted something about quite a few authors in her circle. I have unique viewpoints, and I am sure other people share some of these forms of creativity. I am hoping this will be coherent, and voluminous enough to avoid saddleback staples. I just need to relax and not overact, not alienate the few readers I will acquire--or lose *rimshot*
My final thoughts include... "PLEASE LET THIS WORK!" and "I WANT TO FINALLY DO THIS!"
Hey, did you like this post? Awesome. Would you like to see more? Oh, okay. I'm sorry.
Programming! Learning any one singular coding language is akin to learning the art of the privileged scribes. It does not have to be for a job, but as simple as fixing computer problems, tinkering around in old programs that do not work (at least not too well), making extensions for programs, making a program that actually does what you want it to do and the ability to make stupid little games, the kind middle age women play all day hoping her children will call. Suffice to say, tons of perks and the best perk is, once one language is known, said knower of one coding language can easily learn--from their recent tools of comprehension--the various other intricacies of other coding languages (as all coding language mean to do one thing... PROGRAM [being understood is a common denominator, but the few "odd" languages seem written by a rabid weasel crapping on a keyboard!]).
For me, I have stumbled and bumbled on more than a few road blocks. As hinted above, I am one to completely lose all sense of action when annoyance weighs the scale. I did great on my few college classes. I felt a need to over achieve, a place to show off, to ruin grading curves and to be generally terrified of the next pop-quiz. One may think someone who dropped out of high school and half a decade later aced a GED (top 2 percentile AND I had a killer headache) would have enough gumption to learn whatever-the-hell he damn-well chooses. The short answer is, yes. I learned about Plato, Pythagoras, the great German proto-psychologists... I learned tons about ancient history and their budding philosophy. I fell in love with what was taught by the Buddha, along with the New Agers.Then there was youtube learning. I tried, and I mean I really tried to learn with the free courses online, which consist of universities video-taping and uploading their classes. Meine (keine) Gott, were they dry. Thank Nerdom for SciShow, CrashCourse and a variety of interactive websites and learning software. I know that if I focus and place my dearest wanting of self-progression into programming languages, I shall prevail... so long as I do not become re-addicted to facebook, and can trust my willpower to turn off Netflix/Hulu/youtube for their entertainment value. GopherVids has been my newest dragon to chase.
Writing! I have been jotting notes, scavenging and salvaging mental leavings and am going to spend this very weekend finishing AT THE VERY LEAST a rough draft of my first official occult book. It reminds me of something Arin Hanson (Egoraptor, most recently known for GameGrumps) said... it was about upcoming projects. The more one talks about a possible project, the less likely it will be completed--paraphrased, of course. Steph recently posted something about quite a few authors in her circle. I have unique viewpoints, and I am sure other people share some of these forms of creativity. I am hoping this will be coherent, and voluminous enough to avoid saddleback staples. I just need to relax and not overact, not alienate the few readers I will acquire--or lose *rimshot*
My final thoughts include... "PLEASE LET THIS WORK!" and "I WANT TO FINALLY DO THIS!"
Hey, did you like this post? Awesome. Would you like to see more? Oh, okay. I'm sorry.
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