Update: Thanks to our man Irwin, it seems stock will not hit stores — such as Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi — until May 31st; so says Asus. So much for that huh?
If you’re a fan of Asus and their Eee range, and are also an Android fanboi at heart, like us here at Ausdroid, then maybe the Eee Pad Transformer is up your alley. Starting tomorrow, the Honeycomb 3.0 tablet–come–laptop will be touching down in Oz in two variants. First off is the 16GB Wi-Fi version, which will come keyboard-less at $599 and then the bigger 32GB Wi-Fi version with included keyboard dock priced at $799.
The keyboard will be sold separately but will not be available till July, Asus said. Cost for the keyboard dock on its own is said to be around the $200 mark. The biggest advantage to the keyboard, other than the fact its a physical keyboard, is its built-in battery, which is rated to double the amount of battery life of the tablet — from 8 to 16 hours. 3G versions of the Transformer are to be available in Q3 of this year, along with the 3.1 Honeycomb update around August/September of this year.
Anyone really interested in the Transformer? Let us know in the comments.
way too expensive!! buy from US is way way cheaper!
Does anyone know if any of the telcos are certifying the Asus Eee Pad Transformer for 3G in Aust ?
Bought 16Gig with keyboard dock at the Taiwan airport on the way home. Sales guy assured me it had the global warranty, but I’m figuring he can say what ever he wants. I’ve bought ASUS laptops in Taiwan before, but they’ve never broken down. (I’ve got a 5 year old one that still works, my sister in law has a 7 year old one that still works)
Checked credit card today, $576 including currency conversion fees. Pricing is very rarely set according to production costs and the inflated pricing in Australia is just following apple’s Lead.
Won’t be buying in Oz.
Isn’t any body worried about warranty when you buy from overseas
Asus has a global warranty on the transformer (like most of their other products). People have already had sucessful warranty claims on american-sourced hardware here in aus, so it looks fine.
The only thing which is questionable is the taiwanese-sourced units. Apparently they have funny warranties, and i can’t remember if it was fine here or not. Probably are…
perhaps they think were dumb.
Acer iconia at $420 is now a good option while the hn sale is on. Too cheap.
Why is Asus Eee Transformer $599 for 16 Gb & $799 for 32 Gb? In USA & Canada, price is $399 & $499. With the Australian $ being stronger than those 2 countries. Harvey Norman & JB Hifi is ripping Aussies off again. Motorola Xoom is selling in USA & Canada for $800 before tax & Telstra is only selling it for $840!!!!!!
Indeed we are getting ripped off 🙁 Contemplating getting the Asus Transformer from Adoroma.com as they ship to Australia for my DSLR gear fine 🙂
August for 3.1 upgrade? I’d rather pay $800 and get a zoom that gets instant updates. I’ve been spoilt with my nexus1 and can’t stand these OEM update delays.
these have been on sale on ebay for months now. I bought mine 3 weeks ago, for the same price as an ipood2. The best devices always take too long to get too Oz! and when they do get an inflated price tag. If anyone is considering buying this tablet I can strongly recommend it, I have used it everyday since I bought it and have not had 1 fault with it, the battery is mega, only needing 1 charge after a WEEK of internet surfing and email/RSS reading. I chose this device because of the keyboard dock option and… Read more »
these have been on sale on ebay for months now. I bought mine 3 weeks ago, for the same price as an ipood2. The best devices always take too long to get too Oz! and when they do get an inflated price tag. If anyone is considering buying this tablet I can strongly recommend it, I have used it everyday since I bought it and have not had 1 fault with it, the battery is mega, only needing 1 charge after a WEEK of internet surfing and email/RSS reading. I chose this device because of the keyboard dock option and… Read more »
these have been on sale on ebay for months now. I bought mine 3 weeks ago, for the same price as an ipood2. The best devices always take too long to get too Oz! and when they do get an inflated price tag. If anyone is considering buying this tablet I can strongly recommend it, I have used it everyday since I bought it and have not had 1 fault with it, the battery is mega, only needing 1 charge after a WEEK of internet surfing and email/RSS reading. I chose this device because of the keyboard dock option and… Read more »
these have been on sale on ebay for months now. I bought mine 3 weeks ago, for the same price as an ipood2. The best devices always take too long to get too Oz! and when they do get an inflated price tag. If anyone is considering buying this tablet I can strongly recommend it, I have used it everyday since I bought it and have not had 1 fault with it, the battery is mega, only needing 1 charge after a WEEK of internet surfing and email/RSS reading. I chose this device because of the keyboard dock option and… Read more »
these have been on sale on ebay for months now. I bought mine 3 weeks ago, for the same price as an ipood2. The best devices always take too long to get too Oz! and when they do get an inflated price tag. If anyone is considering buying this tablet I can strongly recommend it, I have used it everyday since I bought it and have not had 1 fault with it, the battery is mega, only needing 1 charge after a WEEK of internet surfing and email/RSS reading. I chose this device because of the keyboard dock option and… Read more »
these have been on sale on ebay for months now. I bought mine 3 weeks ago, for the same price as an ipood2. The best devices always take too long to get too Oz! and when they do get an inflated price tag. If anyone is considering buying this tablet I can strongly recommend it, I have used it everyday since I bought it and have not had 1 fault with it, the battery is mega, only needing 1 charge after a WEEK of internet surfing and email/RSS reading. I chose this device because of the keyboard dock option and… Read more »
these have been on sale on ebay for months now. I bought mine 3 weeks ago, for the same price as an ipood2. The best devices always take too long to get too Oz! and when they do get an inflated price tag. If anyone is considering buying this tablet I can strongly recommend it, I have used it everyday since I bought it and have not had 1 fault with it, the battery is mega, only needing 1 charge after a WEEK of internet surfing and email/RSS reading. I chose this device because of the keyboard dock option and… Read more »
these have been on sale on ebay for months now. I bought mine 3 weeks ago, for the same price as an ipood2. The best devices always take too long to get too Oz! and when they do get an inflated price tag. If anyone is considering buying this tablet I can strongly recommend it, I have used it everyday since I bought it and have not had 1 fault with it, the battery is mega, only needing 1 charge after a WEEK of internet surfing and email/RSS reading. I chose this device because of the keyboard dock option and… Read more »
these have been on sale on ebay for months now. I bought mine 3 weeks ago, for the same price as an ipood2. The best devices always take too long to get too Oz! and when they do get an inflated price tag. If anyone is considering buying this tablet I can strongly recommend it, I have used it everyday since I bought it and have not had 1 fault with it, the battery is mega, only needing 1 charge after a WEEK of internet surfing and email/RSS reading. I chose this device because of the keyboard dock option and… Read more »
these have been on sale on ebay for months now. I bought mine 3 weeks ago, for the same price as an ipood2. The best devices always take too long to get too Oz! and when they do get an inflated price tag. If anyone is considering buying this tablet I can strongly recommend it, I have used it everyday since I bought it and have not had 1 fault with it, the battery is mega, only needing 1 charge after a WEEK of internet surfing and email/RSS reading. I chose this device because of the keyboard dock option and… Read more »
these have been on sale on ebay for months now. I bought mine 3 weeks ago, for the same price as an ipood2. The best devices always take too long to get too Oz! and when they do get an inflated price tag. If anyone is considering buying this tablet I can strongly recommend it, I have used it everyday since I bought it and have not had 1 fault with it, the battery is mega, only needing 1 charge after a WEEK of internet surfing and email/RSS reading. I chose this device because of the keyboard dock option and… Read more »
these have been on sale on ebay for months now. I bought mine 3 weeks ago, for the same price as an ipood2. The best devices always take too long to get too Oz! and when they do get an inflated price tag. If anyone is considering buying this tablet I can strongly recommend it, I have used it everyday since I bought it and have not had 1 fault with it, the battery is mega, only needing 1 charge after a WEEK of internet surfing and email/RSS reading. I chose this device because of the keyboard dock option and… Read more »
these have been on sale on ebay for months now. I bought mine 3 weeks ago, for the same price as an ipood2. The best devices always take too long to get too Oz! and when they do get an inflated price tag. If anyone is considering buying this tablet I can strongly recommend it, I have used it everyday since I bought it and have not had 1 fault with it, the battery is mega, only needing 1 charge after a WEEK of internet surfing and email/RSS reading. I chose this device because of the keyboard dock option and… Read more »
I was going to drop some cash for a 10″ eeepc, have been considering one for quite a while. This post brought the existence of the transformer to my attention, and now it’s a no brainer! I’m putting my order in to ship one from the states. Might go with the 16gb model since i have so many SDHC cards lying around. :p
Who edits these posts? So many spelling errors! “you’re”, “alley”, “separately”, “its own”/”its built in battery” (no apostrophe for a possessive of “it”, to avoid confusion with “it is”). Gosh!
It’s crazy how much they’re selling these things for. Considering that they have less gear in them than say the 10″ Acer Netbooks or eeepc which now sell for $299 AUD. The guts inside are actually cheaper than the Intel Atom chipsets.
A fine example of shafting the market because it’s something “shiny and new”. In parity, these things should be selling for $250~$350.
The touchscreen is probably expensive.
The touchscreen is probably expensive.
I’ve had a look around at a few IT supplier sites that sell Asus. It seems like it’s Asus who’s ramping the price up in Australia, as the suppliers seem to be passing this unit on at almost identical prices to the RRP. So don’t expect any discounts more than $5-15 off the unit from most aus based resellers. My guess is that Asus has been running the Transformer at a loss in the states in an attempt to steal sales from Apple/T-Mobile/Viewsonic/Samsung/Motorola/ect, and maybe trying to make up the loss in the rest of the world. US$499 (32gb) +… Read more »
What a rip off…I wonder when it will occurr to Australian businesses and corporations that we arent in the 90’s anymore and that we have a global marketplace now with direct visibility of the price differences of their products between regions….at this rate we’re going to hit a local recession….Hello Asus, we know you’re selling it in the US for $399USD…..and you want to charge $599AUD here??….get your head out of your respective posteriors….. I’ll take my business overseas…
Though I’m not in the market for something like this right now I certainly like to hear about them.
Agree with everyone else on the pricing though.
Yep, interested but not at that pricing…I’ll be buying from the USA too unless they get real.
Isn’t anyone waiting for the 3G version? I though that pads are much more useful with 3G. Or are you all tethering it with a phone / modem?
Tether, don’t see the point in paying another monthly bill when I have 2gb on my phone plan and I use about 600mb of that.
Having to lug around the keyboard just to use the full size USB = fail. This device would have been awesome otherwise.
There’s an accessory available (at some point in the future I assume) which plugs into the port and turns it into a USB port. Nifty … as long as it materialises.
http://www.transformerforums.com/forum/asus-transformer-accessories/69-new-accesorries-surface-asus-eee-pad-transformer.html
At $599 AUD for the tablet version that sells in the US for $399, the only smart move is to boycott AU sellers and buy online from overseas
exactly. With the AU$ stronger than the US$, there’s no more reason for the prices to be higher.
for US$550 I could already get the 16gb version AND the keyboard dock and still come out cheaper than for what these greedy ********* are selling it for here.
the only problem with that is it makes the AUS market look even smaller and then some products just dont come or have higher prices. it just goes round and round and round.
True, Justin, but in all honesty, I think we have spent long enough trying to prop up the local market and a lot of people are sick of it. I personally always bought Nintendo DS games from Australian retailers. No R4 cartridge, no overseas orders, not even online. That is until the retailers were flooded with shovelware and overpriced first party games, with bugger all else releasing in Australia. Similar circumstances have occurred over and over again, through years of us paying Australia tax. People are over it and don’t care if something launches in Australia or not, as long… Read more »
the only problem with that is it makes the AUS market look even smaller and then some products just dont come or have higher prices. it just goes round and round and round.
the only problem with that is it makes the AUS market look even smaller and then some products just dont come or have higher prices. it just goes round and round and round.
Why such a bad price? Its $399 in the US. God i hate the horrible pricing is Aus.
Want
I’m very interested in this device, like others, but I won’t be paying ASUS AU’s crazy prices. Just waiting for international sellers to have reasonable stock before ordering.
Jeez. why is everything so overpriced in australia?! Im going anyway to the US this July. US$399 in best buy. I’m getting it there.
Jeez. why is everything so overpriced in australia?! Im going anyway to the US this July. US$399 in best buy. I’m getting it there.
I’m going US on the 8th of June, so i’ll be getting mine from there 🙂
Had a play with the Transformer in London a week ago, liked it more than the XOOM. Trouble is the 16GB is only $399 from USA/32GB is $499, so with freight can land a lot cheaper than the prices here.
Can you comment why you liked it more than the Xoom? just curious as I’m considering this now its shipping ahead of planned date.
I have had a 16 Gig version of this for a couple of weeks and the keyboard dock arrived yesterday. I thought it was fantastic before the keyboard arrived, but once I conected it, it became a whole new device! so useable that I have not gone near my laptop since. Even for work, it does a great job for most of the things I need it to do.
Cant recomend it more highly.
Still too much of a difference compare to the US price.
I have my one on backorder with B&H. Total of the 16Gb Tab + Keyboard + UPS shipping + insurance = $640 USD.
So with the AUD giving us about 1.05 USD, that should come to about $608 AUD.
I would by Oz if it was about $100 cheaper for the tablet itself
Wrong, Zathras0.
It needs to be the same price here, before GST, as it is in the US, before anyone should consider buying it here.
It’s not old stock from when the USD was worth more than the AUD, and where AU retailers had to buy their stock at the higher price. the AUD has been at parity if not better than the USD for months now. That, to me, makes the pricing disparity on this Android tablet and keyboard utterly unacceptable.
You are mostly right, however supply costs often play into the price. If it was $50 more here I’d lump it, but that large a disparity is just appalling.
I wonder how much this has to do with propping up regular netbook sales – why buy a $500 netbook if you can have this?