I’ve never purchased a laptop. After my first Gateway 2000 PC I’ve built every computer I’ve ever owned. It was the geek in me, the flexibility these systems offered me allowed me to dance on the edge of future functionality in ways that weren’t really possible in laptops and pre-made desktops. To oversimplify there were never enough ports. Over the years I’ve jumped to the mobile platform because now that is where the edge of future functionality resides. When I looked at the landscape I knew there was only one dance partner I could rely on to take me to the limit, Android. The question is does the Transformer Prime have the moves.
The Sad State of Android Tablets
The Transformer Prime is not my first tablet. Over a year ago I purchased the Archos 70. It was my first foray into the Android world and, to be honest looking back on the year I had with it, it was not the most pleasant of experiences. The device was hobbled by limited ram, shoddy build quality, and most importantly custom hardware and software. Take every complaint you’ve ever heard about the fragmentation of android and I lived it. In fact in order to even have access to the android market I needed to perform a rudimentary hack. The thing is I knew almost all of this before I bought it, and the reason I ultimately did buy it was price. It cost half as much as an ipad and at the end of the day it did a decent job for what the hardware allowed. The Archos though wasn’t what google had in mind when they envisioned tablets, and it wasn’t truly sanctioned by them (hence the need for the marketplace hack). The Transformer Prime on the other hand, has all of what google envisioned and more.
Specifications
For the spec hounds here is how the Transformer Prime Stacks up:
While it’s easy to drool over list specs over the years I’ve learned to take them with a grain of salt. This is particularly true with the world of android because manufacturers really have carte blanche to do what every they want in terms of how they build their hardware. The reason why I avoided laptops was with rare exception manufacturers made hardware choices I didn’t agree with and very few of those choices could be changed after purchase. These hardware choices can create problems down the road, when it comes to upgrading to the latest version of android, because it takes time, effort and resources to update drivers for the latest software. This leaves you at the mercy of the hardware manufacturer and their commitment to your product. That said when evaluating any Android product you need to consider the companies track record, and their commitment to releasing timely updates. In this regard Asus has shown tenacious commitment to the prime. The day after I received my tablet I was delighted to receive the upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich, and since then a number of updates have been released to address bugs reported by users. Hopefully Asus will continue this level of commitment.
The Breakdown: Hardware
The Super IPS+ screen is bright and crisp, and video playback looks quite good. You will however cringe the moment the screen shuts off and you see all smudge marks your fingers leave on the screen. 32GB is a decent amount of space for most tablet use cases, but the fact that it offers an sd card slot means I’m unlikely to run out of room for the life of the product. People have reported problems with the wireless, bluetooth, and gps when used together. Personally I’ve experienced none of these issues, but as stated above, Asus appears to be responsive and is releasing updates to try to address these issues. The battery life is spectacular, I’d say it’s not the 12 hours it’s rated for but easily in the double digits.
The cameras are less impressive then their specs would have you believe. While both front and rear facing cameras take passable shots the images quality always seems a little grainy. I’m not a camera aficionado but the fact that I pick up on this is an indication that things could have been much better. Worse still shutter speed is depressingly slow even in bright light scenarios. In other words, don’t expect to take a decent shot of a child or animal with these cameras. That said, due to it’s size I have limited use for a camera on my tablet besides a possible video conference or the occasional still shot.
The darlings of the hardware though have to be the Quad-core Tegra 3 processor and the 1GB of ram. If you’ve read reviews of android tablets, or played with them in your local best buy the common complaint is screen response. Android, compared to ios can seem slightly laggy to people. There are a number of theories as to why this is, that said the Prime with this hardware does not appear to suffer from this under almost any circumstances. The Tegra 3 is a graphical beast and the few games I’ve played look phenomenal despite my hatred of onscreen controls.
The Breakdown: Software
Honeycomb was nice, and the few hours I played with it seemed passable though even in my limited time I saw many rough edges. Ice Cream Sandwich on the other hand has the delicate finesse I’ve been waiting for out of android for the longest time. The notification bar is one of the first innovations android brought into the mobile space. With Ice cream sandwich the notification bar has been dramatically improved. Notifications can now be individually dismissed or en masse. In addition applications such as music players now have access to the notification bar allowing for simple play/pause ff/rr controls without leaving the active app. In addition Ice Cream sandwich brings a beautiful interface for multitasking on the tablet. Included on the device is a number of pre-bundled software, an office, a note taking app, a video editing app, and some miscellaneous apps including an asus cloud storage solution. To be honest I’ve barely touched these apps beyond the initial “what does this do” curiosity. I will give Asus credit the apps included all have a look and polish that feels right.
Where things go wrong
As of now I see no android tablet on the market the can hold a candle to the prime. It is however far from a perfect device. For one I’ve tried almost every web browser on the market and no matter which one I use there is occasional a painfully noticeable lag when loading a new page. Without reason I get prompts telling me that media.android.process has be terminated, I don’t know what is accessing this program or why it’s crashing. Availability is also a major ding against this device. One of the major reasons I purchased the prime was my interest in the keyboard dock. I would have loved to include my opinions on the keyboard dock, if I could find one. The list price for the dock is $150 dollars a cringe worthy figure but considering it all but doubles the battery life and adds additional ports it was a reasonable add on. Due to the shortage though I’ve seen prices as much as $250, or half the price of the entire device.
The lack of a large number of tablet optimized apps also makes for a great experience. Google has done a fantastic job creating a platform for tablet app creation. There are tools to make it easy to develop for the tablet and the phone at the same time. Unfortunately few developers have taken advantage of this yet. Developers though, are now refreshing many of their apps though to integrate better with ice cream sandwich. As this adoption takes place I believe more developers will incorporate tablet optimized version.
ipad killer?
As I said before the Transformer Prime is the best android tablet on the market. Given the current state of android tablets, that is not the most difficult of feats. It is no ipad killer particularly considering the chances of a new A6 powered ipad 3 coming out in a matter of weeks. Nothing on sale now can match the deep integration of hardware and services that apple is capable of. If you’re deeply invested in the apple ecosystem I cannot give a compelling case for leaving that behind. The prime does, however rewrites the script about what people say about android tablets. It is fast, stylish, and a joy to use. Ice cream sandwich is a major evolution in the Android OS. There is a greater emphasis on design and it unifies the tablet and phone OSes, in the coming months it will be interesting to watch how the OS matures.
The Sad State of Android Tablets
The Transformer Prime is not my first tablet. Over a year ago I purchased the Archos 70. It was my first foray into the Android world and, to be honest looking back on the year I had with it, it was not the most pleasant of experiences. The device was hobbled by limited ram, shoddy build quality, and most importantly custom hardware and software. Take every complaint you’ve ever heard about the fragmentation of android and I lived it. In fact in order to even have access to the android market I needed to perform a rudimentary hack. The thing is I knew almost all of this before I bought it, and the reason I ultimately did buy it was price. It cost half as much as an ipad and at the end of the day it did a decent job for what the hardware allowed. The Archos though wasn’t what google had in mind when they envisioned tablets, and it wasn’t truly sanctioned by them (hence the need for the marketplace hack). The Transformer Prime on the other hand, has all of what google envisioned and more.
Specifications
For the spec hounds here is how the Transformer Prime Stacks up:
| Display | 10.1" LED Backlit screen with Super IPS+ (1280 x 800) 10 finger multi-touch, Corning® Gorilla® Glass |
| Operating system | Android™ 3.2 Honeycomb (1) (Android™ 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich upgradable) |
| CPU | NVIDIA® Tegra® 3 Quad-core CPU |
| Memory | 1 GB |
| Storage | 32GB / 64GB |
| Wireless | 802.11 b / g / n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR |
| Camera | 1.2MP (front), 8MP Auto focus (rear) with flash / F2.4 large aperture |
| Ports | PAD: 2-in-1 Audio Jack (Headphone / Mic-in); 1× micro HDMI port 1 × Micro SD Card Reader; Internal Microphone & Stereo Speaker Mobile Dock: 1 × USB2.0 port ; 1 × SD Card Reader |
| Sensors | G-Sensor, Light Sensor, Gyroscope, E-compass |
| Battery | 12 hours; 25Wh Li-polymer Battery (4) 18 hours pad with dock ; 25Wh(pad) + 22Wh(docking) Li-polymer Battery (4) |
| Size/ Weight | 263 × 180.8 × 8.3mm ; 586g (pad only) / 263 × 180.8 × 8~10.4mm ; 537g. (dock only) |
While it’s easy to drool over list specs over the years I’ve learned to take them with a grain of salt. This is particularly true with the world of android because manufacturers really have carte blanche to do what every they want in terms of how they build their hardware. The reason why I avoided laptops was with rare exception manufacturers made hardware choices I didn’t agree with and very few of those choices could be changed after purchase. These hardware choices can create problems down the road, when it comes to upgrading to the latest version of android, because it takes time, effort and resources to update drivers for the latest software. This leaves you at the mercy of the hardware manufacturer and their commitment to your product. That said when evaluating any Android product you need to consider the companies track record, and their commitment to releasing timely updates. In this regard Asus has shown tenacious commitment to the prime. The day after I received my tablet I was delighted to receive the upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich, and since then a number of updates have been released to address bugs reported by users. Hopefully Asus will continue this level of commitment.
The Breakdown: Hardware
The Super IPS+ screen is bright and crisp, and video playback looks quite good. You will however cringe the moment the screen shuts off and you see all smudge marks your fingers leave on the screen. 32GB is a decent amount of space for most tablet use cases, but the fact that it offers an sd card slot means I’m unlikely to run out of room for the life of the product. People have reported problems with the wireless, bluetooth, and gps when used together. Personally I’ve experienced none of these issues, but as stated above, Asus appears to be responsive and is releasing updates to try to address these issues. The battery life is spectacular, I’d say it’s not the 12 hours it’s rated for but easily in the double digits.
The cameras are less impressive then their specs would have you believe. While both front and rear facing cameras take passable shots the images quality always seems a little grainy. I’m not a camera aficionado but the fact that I pick up on this is an indication that things could have been much better. Worse still shutter speed is depressingly slow even in bright light scenarios. In other words, don’t expect to take a decent shot of a child or animal with these cameras. That said, due to it’s size I have limited use for a camera on my tablet besides a possible video conference or the occasional still shot.
 |
| Kids tend to move around a bit |
The darlings of the hardware though have to be the Quad-core Tegra 3 processor and the 1GB of ram. If you’ve read reviews of android tablets, or played with them in your local best buy the common complaint is screen response. Android, compared to ios can seem slightly laggy to people. There are a number of theories as to why this is, that said the Prime with this hardware does not appear to suffer from this under almost any circumstances. The Tegra 3 is a graphical beast and the few games I’ve played look phenomenal despite my hatred of onscreen controls.
The Breakdown: Software
Honeycomb was nice, and the few hours I played with it seemed passable though even in my limited time I saw many rough edges. Ice Cream Sandwich on the other hand has the delicate finesse I’ve been waiting for out of android for the longest time. The notification bar is one of the first innovations android brought into the mobile space. With Ice cream sandwich the notification bar has been dramatically improved. Notifications can now be individually dismissed or en masse. In addition applications such as music players now have access to the notification bar allowing for simple play/pause ff/rr controls without leaving the active app. In addition Ice Cream sandwich brings a beautiful interface for multitasking on the tablet. Included on the device is a number of pre-bundled software, an office, a note taking app, a video editing app, and some miscellaneous apps including an asus cloud storage solution. To be honest I’ve barely touched these apps beyond the initial “what does this do” curiosity. I will give Asus credit the apps included all have a look and polish that feels right.
Where things go wrong
As of now I see no android tablet on the market the can hold a candle to the prime. It is however far from a perfect device. For one I’ve tried almost every web browser on the market and no matter which one I use there is occasional a painfully noticeable lag when loading a new page. Without reason I get prompts telling me that media.android.process has be terminated, I don’t know what is accessing this program or why it’s crashing. Availability is also a major ding against this device. One of the major reasons I purchased the prime was my interest in the keyboard dock. I would have loved to include my opinions on the keyboard dock, if I could find one. The list price for the dock is $150 dollars a cringe worthy figure but considering it all but doubles the battery life and adds additional ports it was a reasonable add on. Due to the shortage though I’ve seen prices as much as $250, or half the price of the entire device.
The lack of a large number of tablet optimized apps also makes for a great experience. Google has done a fantastic job creating a platform for tablet app creation. There are tools to make it easy to develop for the tablet and the phone at the same time. Unfortunately few developers have taken advantage of this yet. Developers though, are now refreshing many of their apps though to integrate better with ice cream sandwich. As this adoption takes place I believe more developers will incorporate tablet optimized version.
ipad killer?
As I said before the Transformer Prime is the best android tablet on the market. Given the current state of android tablets, that is not the most difficult of feats. It is no ipad killer particularly considering the chances of a new A6 powered ipad 3 coming out in a matter of weeks. Nothing on sale now can match the deep integration of hardware and services that apple is capable of. If you’re deeply invested in the apple ecosystem I cannot give a compelling case for leaving that behind. The prime does, however rewrites the script about what people say about android tablets. It is fast, stylish, and a joy to use. Ice cream sandwich is a major evolution in the Android OS. There is a greater emphasis on design and it unifies the tablet and phone OSes, in the coming months it will be interesting to watch how the OS matures.
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