A belated Xmas gift to myself

[pbray]

Back in 2012 when my beloved ASUS netbook died right before I was leaving on vacation, I replaced it with an ASUS Transformer, a tablet with optional keyboard attachment. The tablet works fine for websurfing and typing short bits of text. But it's always been a pain to use when you have the keyboard attached. The cursor has a habit of jumping unexpectedly as you type, and it's incredibly easy to hit the send key by accident. All my friends know that any email from me that unexpectedly ends in the middle of a sentence will be followed by another with the missing text and a string of curses directed at the ASUS. Googling revealed that I'm not the only one who has these issues--it's apparently a design problem.

And the Android operating system can be a pain--many websites assume that I'm on a mobile phone and don't give me the option to click thru to a full featured version of their website.

I've put up with this for about a year and a half, but I've finally lost my patience. So I'm looking at possible replacements, and the Microsoft Surface is at the top of the list. I don't want to join the church of Apple so an iPad is out, and I've heard good things about the Surface from friends. Though I can't help feeling guilty at the idea of replacing a tablet that is still perfectly functional--normally I only replace electronics after they have catastrophically failed.

Think tomorrow I'll head over to the store and take a look at what's available in the post-Xmas sales.

Comments

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

Does your Transformer not have a trackpad on/off button? I could've sworn they all had those... I just leave my trackpad off permanently -- the touchscreen serves me well enough.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Mine is the model before they added that button. A design flaw that they corrected in later editions.

A valuable lesson why you never buy release 1.0 of anything.

[icedrake.livejournal.com]

I vaguely remember your original thread on picking the new device. Which one did you end up buying? I ask because there are some -- shall we say, less-documented? -- backward compatibilities between the keyboards and the tablets themselves. (for instance, my TF101 charger works just fine with my TF700). You may be able to pick up a new dock with the button for about $120 -- or a refurbished one for $75 or so. Just throwing the option out there as a possible alternative.