Still TF101...

Source: Asus

Some books are hard to put down. Some tablets too. And TF101, from Asus, released on March 30, 2011 after it was announced in CES 2011 as one of the firsts Android tablets with a keyboard, is till hard to put down. Despite Asus' release of further iterations (e.g. TF201, TF300) of this docked tablet configuration, TF101 is still quite popular in the development community. 

KatKiss by Timduru Logo

As proof of this, TF101 still runs Kitkat 4.2.2 thanks to Timduru and the KatKiss Kitkat ROM, which as of this writing is now on dev build 23. Of course that will not be possible without first rooting the tablet and flashing a custom recovery. Frederuco's guide is still a handy companion for first time rooters (if they still exist). 

Source: Nvidia

Despite the  4 year old 1Ghz dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 and the meager 1 GB RAM, the hardware has proven that Android is such a versatile and powerful mobile operating system. TF101 can still beat any sub par Chinese tablet on many fronts. The optional (but very handy must have) keyboard dock with the additional 9.5 hours battery and USB and SD card ports is still unmatched outside the Transformer series.

For anyone who is still using and plan to use this tablet for another couple of years or so, of course depending on how long will the guys at XDA plan to continue supporting this tablet, this was indeed a very good investment. Fast forward now when at least every year a new slate comes out in various shapes and sizes, it was nice to think that at some point in time this tablet has graced us with its charm and usability well beyond the typical one year gadget life cycle.

Just like the Motorola Droid, TF101 can be considered an icon of the era of dockable tablets that have gone from prototype to mainstream and has lived longer perhaps than some of its future iterations.

Source: www.datamation.com