Asus Transformer Pad TF300

I bought one of these for sketching on and general surfing duties, I liked the idea of the keypad, and all for less than the I-pad! but you get what you pay for.

The touch screen is not a patch on the i-pad for smoothness and all round useability, the keypad is better than an on-screen touchpad, but only just, a couple of the keys, the @ key amongst them, need re-assigning, not a big job, apparently, but should've been right from the get-go.

With the gift of hindsight, I should have dug a bit deeper and got an I-Pad.

This Android tablet with keyboard dock is surely one of the best performing tablets on the market, with a very powerful processor and decent WiFi, GPS and screen. If you want the flexibility of Android (runs Flash, various games emulators, takes micro SD card for expansion, has USB port and can support external hard drives, PS3 controllers etc then this is probably currently the best alternative to an iPad (which better screen and many slicker apps, but very little flexibility, and done not have the keypad dock that extends battery life and can be useful for some applications).

However, I have discovered the screen is very vulnerable to damage. Dropped less the two feet onto wooden floor and screen severly cracked with display still looking okay, but touch functions not working. Needs new glass and digitiser, and best price I can find for repair is £200 (half of the total cost when new). By the time you allow for excess and loss of no claims to claim on my household policy would cost me £300, and if you but a dedicated policy the cost of that plus the excess would be about £150.

Moral: be very careful not to drop it (to be fair this one landed right on a corner, and might have been okay otherwise), and consider a protective case.