The Asus Transformer Pad is one of the fastest tablets currently available on the market. The Pad has a 10.1-inch LED Backlight (1280x800) ISP screen with scratch-resistant glass and 10-finger multi-touch support. It has a 178° viewing angle and weighs 635 grams. Its tree trunk-like ringed pattern on the back looks and feels a lot better than the slippery covering on most other plastic tablets. It’s not the metallic beauty the Transformer Prime is, but it’s well made and very solid and sturdy. The Transformer Pad comes preloaded with Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich. The Pad uses the latest quad-core nVidia Tegra 3 processor along with nVidia GeForce graphics card. This processor operates at 1.2 GHz when utilising multiple cores. It is paired with 1 GB RAM and the device is equipped with 32 GB of flash storage. The only thing that’s poorly placed is the single speaker. It’s located on the back and directed away from you, and it’s placed exactly where the fingers on your right hand will naturally gravitate when you hold the Pad sideways. The speaker is loud enough to blast through your fingers and has good, clear sound. A microSD card slot is also located on the left side and allows the user to increase the storage space of the tablet. The 8 megapixel rear-facing camera, capable of Full HD video, is located on the back side of the device as well. The lens for this camera is placed in the middle of the device, toward the top edge, and is slightly recessed into the surface to protect it from scratching. The focus can be adjusted by the user at the touch of a fingertip. The relatively fast lens allows for shorter shutter speeds and the camera is able to capture photos even in relatively weak lighting. The camera is also capable of Full HD video recording at 30 frames per second, but it does not have a LED flash or light. The picture quality is not great. While the lighting and colours captured by the camera are good despite the colours being slightlyg faded, the overall picture lacks sharpness, especially in the corners. The camera can capture good pictures even at night but they have a rough, grainy quality. The front-facing camera has a 1.2 MP resolution. The Pad family has docking keyboards available. By design, the keyboard is the same size as the tablet and the two fuse together to provide the appearance and feel of a 10-inch netbook. The keyboard serves not only as an input device but also as a dock that provides a USB 2.0 interface and an SD card reader. The docking station can be attached to the pad using a 40-pin connector. When connected to a power outlet, the tablet battery is charged through the docking station. The Pad uses a 22Wh Li-polymer battery that provides more than eight hours operating time. Inside the Pad’s keyboard dock is a big 16.5Wh battery. When you combine the two you’re looking at a tablet you won’t have to charge more than a couple of times a week, even with heavy use. I got 12 hours and 45 minutes of battery life with heavy use. The keyboard keys are cramped and a little mushy. The trackpad is smooth and useful: two-fingered scrolling works smoothly through web pages and moving around in apps is easy, though Android is clearly designed for touch rather than a mousepad. The Pad is priced at Dh2,699 From gulfnews