Asus Transformer Prime Review
Alright, so I have had my Asus Transformer Prime for about 4 days now and my initial impressions are: WOW! For a base price of $499 (if you can find it anywhere for that price) it was hoping it would wow me. The hardware is magnificent and the software is silky smooth. That being said:
My initial experience with an Android device was an older HTC Magic running Android 1.5 and while I saw the potential, the hardware itself was a major factor in holding the OS back. Then, came my switch from an iPhone 3GS to a Samsung Captivate. I loved the open-ness of the software and the hardware definitely backed up what the Android OS (2.1 at the time) could do. Then I ran into software problems mostly because of Samsung and their crap TouchWiz interface (all of the mandatory AT&T applications didn't help matters either.) Samsung and AT&T then finally released, after much delay, Android 2.2 and while that fixed some things, it still sucked. Then CyanogenMod came to the rescue and now I am running Android 2.3 on my phone. There are still some quirks but I am very happy with it.
The reason I am telling you this is because I wanted to describe what I have gone through so far with Android and its ecosystem. Things are getting better with each new Android version but while I was excited to get this tablet I was still worried about all the issues that I have had in the past cropping up in this new piece of technology. While 4 days aren't much of a gauge compared to over a year of use on my phone, I can tell you that a lot of the issues that I have had in the past I am no longer worried about. This OS is very polished, though it has its weird spots (which I will get into later) and the hardware is simply gorgeous.
I am going to break this review down into three categories. Hardware, software and overall impressions. Since I am new to this, it might be the completely wrong way of doing it, but dammit, I'm gonna do it.
This machine is extremely pleasant to look at and even better to hold in your hands. At 10.1" its large, but very thin at only 8.3mm thick. If you are used to an iPad or any other tablet you shouldn't have any issues. I have large hands and it is thin enough that sometimes I have trouble holding it. Yes, I said it. Thin is causing me problems here (only sometimes). The case has very nice edges however they can, I believe, make button pushing a little tough. The edges are angled slightly backwards so holding the tablet is very comfortable but it can make pushing the power/lock button and volume buttons a little hard. It also makes inserting and removing memory cards pretty tough.
The power button is pretty small and can be hard to find and push.
Here you can see the volume buttons and the micro HDMI out port.
On the back of the case is an 8MP camera with flash and accompanying it is a 1.3MP front facing camera. They are both average quality cameras but I wish they were a little higher quality. Really though, who is going to be toting this thing around taking pictures with it?
The screen is beautiful with rich colors and very crisp visuals. The screen resolution of 1280x800 is pretty much standard for 10" tablets. Expect the next iPad to have a much higher resolution and even a revised Transformer Prime is set to be released around Spring-time boasting a full 1080p display. I am very pleased with the quality of the Prime's screen but I am sure I will be jealous when the new version comes out with that full HD screen. The screen also has, what Asus calls, a Super IPS+ panel which basically allows the screen to go to ridiculous amounts of brightness while outdoors and renders the screen very easily viewed in full daylight.
The screen is backed up with amazing visuals all powered by NVIDIA's Tegra 3 quad-core processor. This processor does all the CPU number crunching as well as the GPU video rendering and it does this in a superb fashion. I have only played Frontline Commando (because it is free and I am cheap) and it is gorgeous. It isn't even regarded as having the best visuals of these new "tablet shooters" and it still looks amazing compared to where we were just a year ago. This tablet, along with its Tegra 3 processor, makes my Captivate and my first gen iPad seem like an old 386. It's fast.
The other nice thing (as well as bad) is its wonderful sounding speaker. Yes, speaker. One. I was really hoping that this tablet would have at least stereo speakers for the price, but it doesn't. It also happens to land right where you right hand would be when holding the tablet in landscape orientation. I have gotten used to holding the tablet upside down so that the speaker is basically at the top of the device. That all being said, it sounds fantastic for a small tablet speaker. Asus used their new technology called SonicMaster to render sound very well and it definitely sounds better than any tablet or phone speakers I have heard. It also sounds better than most laptop speakers, but I can't help but think how much better it could sound if there was another speaker in this thing.
When I first got this tablet, the first thing I did was install Android Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS or 4.0) from Asus. The install went very quickly and smoothly. There was another update to the camera firmware that came down after the ICS update, but I am not exactly sure what all it fixed. After the update I started setting up my accounts and installing the applications that I knew I had on my phone and my iPad. Most of the applications I use on my iPad are available on the Android platform so I was good there.
I am still tweaking my home screen, but I think that will be one thing that is constantly changing.
Overall, I love the new interface and a lot of the tweaks in Ice Cream Sandwich. While I am no pro and don't have much experience in the Android world I can tell that Google has put a lot of work in the cleaning up the interface. That being said, it still feels to me that this OS is designed mainly for phones. Hell, even in the beginning during the initial setup and in some of the settings menus they mention "phone" and not "android device" or something. Anything other than phone...come on! The other thing that makes me feel this is still very much geared towards phones is that when you get a prompt to do something, the "OK" or "Cancel" boxes for example are huuuuuge. It's almost like it was designed for a phone and it doesn't know what to do with all that extra screen real estate.
Do those buttons really need to be THAT big? And what's up with all that blank space above the "Forget" button?
That aside, I think they have done a very good job in merging Gingerbread (Android 2.3) and Honeycomb (Android 3.2) together. I remember when Apple did this same thing with iOS. It took a while for the iPad to really set itself apart from the iPhone but it did happen. Hopefully Google can do the same thing but they are going to have to do it fast or get run over by the iPad 3.
One of the features that I really like within ICS is the bandwidth metering. Google has made it very easy to see what apps are using the most bandwidth. They give you a very handy graph and allow you to specify a certain time frame that will in turn only show you the applications that used data during that term. Very handy indeed! Now, I have heard that ICS will allow you to cap your data usage at a certain point to keep yourself from going over your data allotment (this is mainly for devices with carrier service like AT&T, Sprint, Verizon etc were you have a monthly allowance of data.) Now, it could be just because I have a WiFi only device, but I can't find that anywhere on my Prime.
It will be interesting to see what that graph looks like in a few months!
When it comes to applications, there are only a few that I know of that are actually designed for tablet use. Now, almost all applications will work in the marketplace. If the application isn't designed for a tablet it will run like it usually does but you can run it fullscreen or you can make it run at the usual resolution which just feels weird on a tablet screen but it works. HOWEVER you have to remember that not only is the shift going from phones only to tablets AND phones but we had a major OS revision. It is going to take some time to get mainstream ICS tablet apps into the wild. I come back to my statement earlier of what happened with iOS when Apple really merged things together and released the iPad. Its going to take some time. Because of the easier developing that comes with ICS it should be a lot easier for developers to hop on the train so hopefully it will be a rapid change.
As far as software goes there is a lot to write about and since I haven't had much time with this Prime I wont go into a lot of the different things. But rest assured that ICS is a very nice operating system and that it is a very solid base for Google and developers to build upon. The next few years are going to be pretty awesome in the world of Android methinks.
One other thing. Along with ICS comes the ability to "disable" certain apps. This basically allows you to hide them from the programs list, hide them from the apps list within the marketplace and keeps them from running. They still take up space storage wise because they are still installed, just disabled. Some apps (like the Asus apps that came pre-installed) I couldn't disable and I am not sure why, but the rest I could disable without any issues.
I love this tablet. I really do. Its powerful, lightweight, easy to use and going to be very capable of things in the future because of its massive overhead in the horsepower category.
As for the hardware there are a few issues. The power/lock, volume buttons on the sides and the memory card slot can be hard to use, but I have already found myself getting used to it. The metal casing is very nice and feels like it should (even if it is a detriment to Wifi, GPS and Bluetooth reception which I have not encountered nor have I really tested.) The one speaker does sound very nice, but it would have been nice for Asus to include another speaker for stereo sound. But overall, I love the feel of this tablet and I am amazed at the performance that shells out. It can, and should, only get better with time with updates from both Asus and NVIDIA.
When it comes to software, ICS is a huge step in the right direction. Its clean, its easier to use, it has more options than Gingerbread or Honeycomb and its going to be easier for developers to design applications for it (whether its a tablet or phone) so what's not to like? Well, there are a few things. It still feels like an overly phone-based experience at times, but when you start messing around with different apps and homescreen setups and really figure out how much screen space you have to play with the possibilities are endless. Once said developers start getting some applications out there I think its going to be a lot of fun the Android tablet world. With updates and revisions I think ICS will end up being the OS to beat in the mobile world (take that Apple.)
I give the Asus Transformer Prime a 7/10.
PLEASE let me know what you think by either posting a comment on here or replying to me on twitter (@Tedders85). You can also find me on Google+. Feel free to ask me any questions too!
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