ASUS just dropped a bomb on CES, announcing three new tablets. One happens to have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard for those who want a tablet computer, but would miss the speed and tactility of using physical keys. The ASUS Eee Pad Slider features a 10-inch IPS touch-screen display and sports the latest version of Android designed for tablet computers – Android 3.0 Honeycomb.
The Eee Pad Slider is a nice alternative to your average tablet form factor in that it gives you the QWERTY keyboard, although one could almost argue that it’s basically a netbook with a touchscreen. Or is it?
The hardware itself is impressive, but it also uses NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 dual-core processor, which should help speed things along quite significantly. From what we’ve learned about the new NVIDIA dual-core processors, running applications should be a little more speedy and battery strain shouldn’t be as much of an issue as it is with other Android tablets.
The Eee Pad Slider also has a 1.2MP front-facing camera and a 5MP camera on the back – this way you won’t miss any opportunities to take photos or video chat with friends and family if you’re so inclined. Although, I can imagine it being a little awkward trying to snap pics with a gigantic 10-inch tablet that has a physical QWERTY keyboard packed away, but you never know.
For those of you really anxious about the Eee Pad Slider, it should hit some time in May for around $499 – $799, probably depending on capacity.
Be sure to stay tuned as we bring you more coverage of the Android tablet onslaught at CES 2011!