Asus Eee Pad Transformer review: First Look

The first Android 3.0 tablet to reach the UK is also a netbook in disguise. The Eee Pad Transformer could be the iPad 2's first serious rival that's actually available and we take a sneak peek at the WiFi-only model.

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The Honeycomb interface isn't radically different from its smartphone cousins, but there are noticeable differences. The applications drawer and Search toolbar are now located at the top of the screen while a permanent bar sits at the bottom of the screen holding the Home and Back buttons along with a button that shows a list of the five most recently used apps when tapped. A contextually-sensitive Action toolbar appears when invoking certain commands such as copy and paste.

Copy and paste is very similar to the way it is in Android 2.3, which is a good thing since it's a huge improvement over the fiddly copy and paste controls in Android 2.2. It's still not totally consistent between applications though - the Polaris office suite installed on our Transformer had its own separate copy and paste gestures for example.

Widgets take advantage of the larger, higher resolution screen the GMail widget shows a scrollable view of your inbox for example. The Notifications drawer now sits in the bottom right hand corner giving easy access to options such as switching wireless networks and locking the screen orientation.

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