On Sunday, April 22, Asus began the US shipping of its Transformer Pad 300 tablet - an Android-powered 10.1-inch product which the company has largely been pitching as a gaming device as well as a notebook replacement.

Running a pre-installed Android 4.0 `Ice cream Sandwich' version, the $380-priced Transformer Pad 300 boasts Nvidia's quad-core Tegra 3 processor which is capable of clocking a speed of 1.2GHz, and its 12 integrated graphics cores allow the users a strong gaming experience.

The other notable specs of the new Asus tablet - which apparently is the best-priced full-Android tablet presently available in the market - include 32GB of storage, with a microSD card slot for memory expansion; 1GB of RAM; GPS capabilities; and 8-megapixel rear camera; and a 1.2-megapixel front camera.

In addition, the tablet's micro-HDMI port facilitates the connectivity of the tablet to the TVs; and its 10-hour battery life can further be extended to 15 hours with the help of an extra battery available in the optional $149 keyboard dock.

Despite the fact that the Transformer Pad 300, which reportedly has a notably faster Wi-Fi performance, has been advertised with 4G LTE capability, the tablet actually lacks mobile broadband connectivity features.

However, the Transformer Pad 300 tablet marks Asus' attempts to bulk up its cloud offering, with the users to get the advantage of 8GB of free storage on the Asus WebStorage service which will enable them to share files as well as backup data to PCs.