Asus slips in a keyboard-tablet with the Eee Pad Slider

A tablet that was introduced at CES this year is finally making its way to our shores, with Australians now able to get their hands on the Asus Eee Pad Slider.

Packing in Google Android Honeycomb 3.1 on a machine with the Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core processor, 1GB RAM, either 16 or 32GB of storage, and a 10.1 inch backlit IPS screen coated in Corning Gorilla Glass, it’s a dead ringer for the Asus Transformer before it.

Unlike the Transformer, however, the Slider looks more like a tablet than a notebook, complete with the screen facing up and a chiclet keyboard sliding out underneath.

There’s also mini-HDMI, a microSD slot, one USB port, a 5 megapixel rear camera, 1.2 megapixel front camera, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, and an 8 hour battery.

Asus tells us that the tablet will be hitting retail this week, with the 16GB model fetching $649 and the 32GB for a hundred more at $749.

We were big fans of the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, as it was very different from all of the other tablets out there and packed in some useful features for the price. With similar hardware and what looks like a more compact design, we’re eager to see how the Slider performs.