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I suppose it’s not a little ironic that what is easily the best Android tablet of the last year does not look a little bit like an iPad, but a lot like an iPad, and is being sued for trademark infringement—though not by Apple. If you want to be generous, you could say that Asus’s Transformer Prime stands on the shoulders of giants. With spiked boots.
In a word: speed. This tablet has not a dual, not a triple, but a quad-core 1.3Ghz processor, plus a dedicated GPU. It is the first device to run Nvidia’s Tegra 3 processor—the first quad-core Android tablet—and it simply blows the doors off of everything else. In terms of speed, anyway. Just imagine when it’s not hobbled by the crippling inefficiencies of Honeycomb. Of course, it won’t be the only quad-core tablet by this time next week.
At just 8.3mm, it’s thinner than the iPad 2 (8.8mm) and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 (8.6mm). There’s no cheap plastic on this thing. The back is a solid panel of brushed aluminium—the texture feels slightly off though, to some of us. The result is a very low-profile device that feels incredibly strong (unlike the Galaxy Tabs). It’s not quite as comfortable to hold as Motorola’s rubberised Xyboard tablets, but the lightness makes up for it.
Right now, the Prime is running Honeycomb (Android 3.2.1). All Honeycomb tablets have had problems with consistency. They’re fast one minute, and then slow as hell the next. Not with the Prime. Even when I had ten programs running simultaneously (most of which were HD games) there was virtually no stutter or lag on the homescreen or anywhere else. Nvidia delivered a package of sample HD games that use all four cores and the GPU, and they are absolutely gorgeous. Asus has done some light, (mostly) inoffensive tweaking to the stock Android experience. It adds some extra controls, which are nice, and some software which ranges from useful (Polaris Office) to useless (@vibe Music, a Pandora clone). When it get its Ice Cream Sandwich update, you’ll be able to remove anything you don’t want, and considering we’ve already seen ICS running on the Prime, that should be very soon.
The Transformer Prime shows how Android tablets could and should be built. And this tablet actually lives up to the hype as far as speed and performance goes. It’s easily the fastest Android tablet out there, and may well be faster than the iPad 2—though Android has a knack for feeling slower, because of the way, for instance, that it animates transitions. The Super IPS+ screen is incredibly bright, and I had no problem seeing the screen in sunlight. Colors were nice and vivid, too. Battery life is terrific. With fairly conservative use and Wi-Fi only on half of the time, I got ten hours of use. When I pushed it way harder, I still got close to eight.
The big ding is that it’s still running Honeycomb. While the Tegra 3 over-powers Honeycomb’s speed problems with obscene processing power, it’s still not a very intuitive UI.
The most glaring design flaw is the speaker. Yes, speaker. Singular. If you hold the tablet in landscape (as you will for most games and for all movies) the speaker is on the far right side of the tablet, under your hand. Because the tablet is so thin your hand doesn’t really block the speaker, but you can absolutely tell that it’s only coming out of one side.
Asus has provided their own sliding keyboard (similar to Swype) which is awful. Not only does swiping not make much sense on a giant screen, but the predictions were very bad indeed (fortunately you can easily switch out the keyboard, because it’s Android.). No 3G/4G radio on board (just Wi-Fi), which may be a deal-breaker for some.
Yes. If you know don’t want an iPad 2. That is, if you know you want an Android tablet. This is the one to buy. It’s the best constructed, fastest Android tablet out there. The only people who should hesitate are those who don’t want to be confined to Wi-Fi. That said, this is my new favorite tablet. Maybe it’ll be yours too.
Asus EEE Pad Transformer Prime Specs
OS: Android 3.2.1
Screen: 10.1-inch Super IPS+
Processor and RAM: 1.3 GHz quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 Processor / 1GB RAM
Storage: 32GB & 64GB (expandable via microSD)
Camera: Back: 8MP/1080p HD, Front: 1.2MP
Weight: 586g
Battery: 25Wh Li-polymer
Price: £499
Giz Rank: 4 Stars
Music credit: Dub Terminator
Looks like an iPad? Fuck off. It has a keyboard dock, spun metal back, different aspect ratio, and apart from looks has totally different hardware and software. There is only ONE viable form factor for a tablet computer. Just because something is a thin rectangle almost entirely composed of screen does not mean it looks like a damned iPad. It means it looks like a tablet. Apple didn’t invent the tablet form factor. Designs of products inevitably evolve to look alike as manufacturers find the most ergonomic formats and adopt them. Every product stands on the shoulders of those that came before it, Apple being exactly as bad as everyone else. Try writing your opening paragraphs from a neutral perspective, it’ll differentiate you from every other review out there, since every one is biased one way or the other.
Oh, and before any Apple fans have a go at me – I’m not supporting people being biased towards android either, if you’ll spend a few seconds reading my post again. I just hold out hope that one day someone will write a genuinely impartial review. Call me an optimist.
Couldn’t have put it better myself
Totally agree about a neutral review but that’s what reviews these days do.
The iPad is the leader in the tablet market and inevitably all tablets will be compared to the iPad from looks to features. Thankfully the amount of comparing between both was pretty low, so that’s something at least.
I also agree there are some big design differences between the Transformer and iPad, but watching that video, it looked exactly like an iPad from some angles.
Just enjoy that Asus took design ideas from Apple and built upon them and making it something better aesthetically.
I have to disagree with you here, this article is anything but biased. I have been following Brent for a little while, and he is one of the most unbiased (if the word exists) journalist I have seen, he is also an Android user and at the end of the article he says that this would be his choice. Read again, and you will see that he is pointing the flaws we all know both platform have and in the end he still chooses this tablet.
Um. “The best Android tablet of the LAST YEAR does not look a little bit like an iPad, but a lot like an iPad”
They were referring to the galaxy tab.
I think they were referring to the Transformer, hence the “and is being sued for trademark infringement—though not by Apple” comment, as Asus are being sued by Hasbro for the Transformer name. What do others think?
Anyway, if anything, the front screen view is more similar to the Samsung than the iPad. Landscape set-up, similar aspect ratio, camera in centre of longer side, metallic edging. HOWEVER, who cares? They have to look similar as that is the best design. A non-black bevel would look wrong when its switched off. Angular corners would not be comfortable. Any other shape than rectangle would be foolish.
I think its time for companies and customers to stop focusing on the similarities is look, and compare functionality. That way the companies can focus on producing the most usable personalised UI in a familiar shell.
I guess you’re probably right. I did read that part. But I figured that since the transformer prime was released this year and that its quite different from the ipad 2, that they must have referred to the galaxy tab since that’s the only thing that made sense to me D:
Why don’t asus stop being Asses, they stole the name for the tablet and then copied the iPad 2′s design, I mean just look at the lines on this thing, stop stealing Asus. Fair enough it’s got different guts and the color also, but the design and name are a blatant rip off. Apple lawyers should pursue..
Please don’t feed the lawyers, they bite.
I’m also pretty sick of the ipad comparisons. You know what it looks like? A tablet!!! There are only so many variations of any design. The ipad had the benefit of being the first small tablet but that doesn’t mean its the be all and end all and nothing else should even remotely look like it thats frankly ridiculous square with a black bezel isn’t really trade-markable. And its got completely different dimensions to an ipad as well which is a huge difference. Not to mention that apple wasn’t the first company to make a tablet computer either they existed long before the ipad.
I also don’t get a lot of the complaints about android and honeycomb I have a tegra tablet it hardly ever slows down and doesn’t feel slow at all. Maybe mine is unique but I doubt it, its certainly very different from an ipad but personally I prefer its UI and feature set to the ipad and I have used both a lot. The animations in HC don’t have the snappiness of the ipad but that is a design choice and I don’t mind it. If you are dead set against it the nice thing about android is you can change it.
“Yes. If you know don’t want an iPad 2″ what is that supposed to mean. Try comparing them on its merits not assume the ipad is the default choice for everyone. You make it sound like the only people that wouldn’t get an ipad are people that want android. The Prime like you said is a lot more powerful than the ipad its packed full of cutting edge hardware that the ipad doesn’t have. When I bought my Tegra 2 tablet I bought it because I wanted to things solid easy to use media access and the ability to play games both of those things any android tablet is better than an ipad for.
Can we get some kind of review that actually includes the main selling point of the Transformer Prime – y’know, the Transformer bit. What’s it like to use with the keyboard? I am seriously considering getting this beast for uni, considering the near-total death of netbooks.
No 3G is not an issue for most people, and remember, Android allows tethering!
When someone says that Honeycomb is “not very intuitive” without articulating why, should we just substitute “I normally use an iPad and anything different is wrong”?
This has more cores than my PC and once it has ICS it’ll be even faster, would be the perfect big brother for my Galaxy Nexus.
I’ve been thinking the same thing, I’m waiting to see what CES brings and if the rumours of a Nexus Tablet come to anything, but a tablet will probably be on my list of tech for this year.
iPad 3. Do it! You will never look back Jonesey! Conform!
./catching up on old posts
Old posts Pffff, that’s nothing I had a reply to a comment I made back in October last year today, seriously.
iPad 3? Never. I refuse to buy another iPad.