Asus Transformer Prime TF201: A Tablet With A Higher Calling

Name: Transformer Prime TF201: Our Favorite Android Tablet - Asus Transformer Prime TF201: A Tablet With A Higher Calling
Author: Andrew Ku

by Andrew Ku April 18, 2012 at 11:00 PM

47 Comments

Transformer Prime TF201: Our Favorite Android Tablet

Tablets represent a new gadget category. You can buy one, but it won't replace your notebook. As a result, you end up with a growing list of "things" to carry around, each nifty in its own regard. Cumulatively, though, they're a pain in the rear. When you have a laptop, cell phone, and tablet all banging around in a bag, you wonder what ever happened to that horrible cliche word: convergence? Just as important, how did three different device manufacturers convince you to spend $500 bucks or more on their products?

Asus' Transformers effectively bridge the tablet and netbook/notebook spaces. They make it easier to accomplish productivity-oriented tasks on a tablet that might have only been good for content consumption previously. Just adding that keyboard (and its secondary battery) expands the device's repertoire significantly.

Without question, the number one reason our editors still take notebooks on the road with them is because keyboards are imperative for getting work done.

Beyond its utility as a workhorse, we're also glad to see Nvidia (and, by proxy, Asus) go after gaming, too. The top tablet titles cannot stand up to the games we play on our PCs. However, we still need diversions on the road, and it's nice to have an increasingly library of software with respectable graphics at our disposal. We saw plenty of cool stuff at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, and we're confident that developers will continue piling in for this party. The fact that Android supports wireless game controllers also helps open up a new role for tablets as quasi game consoles.

We know Asus is working hard on its next mobility-oriented launch. For now, though, the Transformer Prime TF201 is our favorite Android-based tablet. Yes, it has its faults. Asus missed the mark with GPS functionality, for example. But the company stepped up to address the problem with an external GPS dongle. That’s the type of response we expect from a company that wants a position at the top of a given segment. Incidentally, its four-month-old tablet still competes readily against newer hardware.

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killerclick

Is this a joke? Wait for the new iPad to come out and then review the Transformer Prime? Why didn't you review it sooner? Did Asus miss a payment or did Apple give you a little extra to keep a lid on it?
lancelot123

Wake me when it is running Windows on a x86 CPU so I can install whatever I want for free.
cangelini

326042 said:

Is this a joke? Wait for the new iPad to come out and then review the Transformer Prime? Why didn't you review it sooner? Did Asus miss a payment or did Apple give you a little extra to keep a lid on it?

Because we didn't have it sooner.
joytech22

I was thinking of getting this until I caught wind of the Transformer T701.
I think the 1080p display is worth the wait.
DjEaZy

... that thing with the splash effect... i do believe, that it iz a program issue... 3rd gen iPad haz power to burn... you can program some splashes... it's like M$ say, that, to play crysis and see the rays thru treas, you needed vista and DX 10... it turned out, that it waz a tweak, that enabled it on XP too... and i believe, if apple will implement some open standard of some physics engine, like Bullet Open Source Physics, all of the open standard devices will benefit, android and iOS alike... and nVidia physx will be not relevant... to program some separate android+nVidia version of a game? ...when there is many different android devices, that don't use Tegra? ... it could end for nVidia, like it ended for 3DFX with there glide engine... 3Dfx waz killed by OpenGL and DirectX... 3Dfx's Glide waz visually superior, but OpenGL and DirectX helped then ATi and nVidia to go multiplatform and to the masses...
... so, my point waz... prime is a nice thingy, but, if there are proprietary stuff on a open platform, like android... i don't believe, that Tegra can get some momentum without going open source... the question is... how big is the Tegra's market share on the android platform? ... and... is the market share for Tegra so big, that they can insist to use there proprietary things?...
"While the Transformer Prime supports output over microHDMI, it cannot push 1080p through the wire" ...When using hardware decoding, Transformer Prime actually pushes true 1080p-video to the television (..while the tablets screen remains unused = black). As an owner of TF201, I can confirm this.
mily

U're bienvenida: D Gracias por venir a mi artículo .. Espero que lea mis otros artículos

.. Me interesa conocer sus puntos de vista .. gracias
Echo de menos los comentarios de Lippo durante el proceso de ruptura de la pared, no puedo

creer que redujo el papel de Lippo como el
camisetas hombre
joytech22

DjEaZymy point waz... prime is a nice thingy, but, if there are proprietary stuff on a open platform, like android... i don't believe, that Tegra can get some momentum without going open source... the question is... how big is the Tegra's market share on the android platform? ... and... is the market share for Tegra so big, that they can insist to use there proprietary things?...

Ehh...? I have no idea what you are trying to get at.
Is it your first time on the internet? :\
DjEaZy

DjEaZy... that thing with the splash effect... i do believe, that it iz a program issue... 3rd gen iPad haz power to burn... you can program some splashes... it's like M$ say, that, to play crysis and see the rays thru treas, you needed vista and DX 10... it turned out, that it waz a tweak, that enabled it on XP too... and i believe, if apple will implement some open standard of some physics engine, like Bullet Open Source Physics, all of the open standard devices will benefit, android and iOS alike... and nVidia physx will be not relevant... to program some separate android+nVidia version of a game? ...when there is many different android devices, that don't use Tegra? ... it could end for nVidia, like it ended for 3DFX with there glide engine... 3Dfx waz killed by OpenGL and DirectX... 3Dfx's Glide waz visually superior, but OpenGL and DirectX helped then ATi and nVidia to go multiplatform and to the masses... ... so, my point waz... prime is a nice thingy, but, if there are proprietary stuff on a open platform, like android... i don't believe, that Tegra can get some momentum without going open source... the question is... how big is the Tegra's market share on the android platform? ... and... is the market share for Tegra so big, that they can insist to use there proprietary things?...

joytech22Ehh...? I have no idea what you are trying to get at.Is it your first time on the internet? :\

... smoke some and you will get the full picture...
In Italy Asus decided not to give the free dongle, because they say that it was selled as a localization system, and not a GPS, therefor, they will not help us improve our tablet experience. Since the prime doesn't have a 3G connectivity, I don't think the GPS is that important, also, a 10" GPS is quite annoying. I prefer to use the phone. Great review by the way. Although I don't trust benchmarka, nor asus ICS updates. At the biginning the wi-fi was working great, no overconsumption of power, now my battery drains in hours.
razor512

If you are going to use a tablet as more of a netbook then why not buy a netbook that will be faster, for significantly less money?

Netbooks, and many notebooks have gotten compact to a point where if it isn't possible for you to have a notebook or netbook with you, then you wont be able to have a tablet either.

I understand wanting to do more productivity related tasks, but for the cost, you can easily do something like buy a upper mid range notebook, or a cheaper netbook then use the left over money to buy a lower cost tablet such as the HP touchpad. (android development is going nicely, and it is fast enough to handle 1080p video and any other task and app smoothly, and when both cores overclocked 1.8GHz+ it offers general performance similar to the transformer prime (for CPU bound tasks, (remember very few programs can actually take advantage of a quad core CPU on an android device, they just weren't written that way)
gaborbarla

Well I got my tegra 3 Transformer Prime about a month ago, and updated it promptly to ICS 4.0.3.

All was well. Then more recently there was a mysterious more recent firmware update and I applied it.

Now my ASUS background had shooting stars and birds flying. Very beatiful. However, as it seems since this patch the Prime just became very unresponsive, browser scrolling was choppy and often tapping an icon or paging didnt respond the first time... Then I decided to uninstall some apps, but to no avail. A bit later I removed the ASUS animating background which I think is now way overdone (with a shooting star every 10 seconds) and VOALA it is smooth again like a well aged whiskey. How can ASUS not pick this up, or is it just my device?
chesteracorgi

Until there is cross platform integration of Android with a main OS on the desktop, be it Windows, IOS or Ubuntu, the Androids will be relegated to phones and toys for video. What might be a killer app/hardware combo would be a pad with Win 8 at $200. Until they OEMs come up with something that unifies phones/tablets/laptops/desktops there is no reason for most consumers to buy these expensive toys.
lamorpa

DjEaZy...i do believe, that it iz a ...

az
halcyon

I had the Transformer Prime...in fact (and this is an account many of you have already heard)...I had 5 of them. They all had pixel defects (dead or bad pixels)...so apparently they all came from the same bad batch. I'm sure that was unique but at the time it really left a very sour taste in my mouth.

The thing I really noticed about the Transformer Prime was how svelte it was. I never did anything to tap into the 4 cores of power really but it was fast. If it hadn't been for the screen issues I'd still have it...but I have to admit the 3rd Gen iPad that I subsequently replaced the Transformer Prime with hasn't left anything to be desired...for me any ways. I like the screen on the iPad better but that's probably just me.
dvanburen

If I spent this much on a tablet and had GPS issues I would be pissed. A dongle wouldn't cut it as it negates the while reason of owning a nice tablet: form factor and portability.

It would also be nice if they would rate minimum brightness. This is important to some of us that use a tablet in bed after the wife (or significant other) is asleep.
halcyon

dvanburenIf I spent this much on a tablet and had GPS issues I would be pissed. A dongle wouldn't cut it as it negates the while reason of owning a nice tablet: form factor and portability.It would also be nice if they would rate minimum brightness. This is important to some of us that use a tablet in bed after the wife (or significant other) is asleep.

Ssshhhh...it doesn't matter what might be wrong with the the Transformer Prime, the fact is, its not an Apple product...so its better. Do you understand now?
I want a Medfield design.
LordConrad

wake me when the T701 review comes out...
adampower

dvanburenIf I spent this much on a tablet and had GPS issues I would be pissed. A dongle wouldn't cut it as it negates the while reason of owning a nice tablet: form factor and portability.

I like the dongle. If I need to use the GPS I can plug it in. If I don't.. there's no Apple, Google, x-wife, anybody tracking my tablet.
killerclick

ChesteracorgiUntil there is cross platform integration of Android with a main OS on the desktop, be it Windows, IOS or Ubuntu, the Androids will be relegated to phones and toys for video. What might be a killer app/hardware combo would be a pad with Win 8 at $200. Until they OEMs come up with something that unifies phones/tablets/laptops/desktops there is no reason for most consumers to buy these expensive toys.

No need. Gmail works well on all platforms, all platforms are capable of reading all the standard document formats, and desktop applications on phones would be almost as stupid as a phone interface on a desktop (I'm talking to you, Metro!)
acku

Quote:

"While the Transformer Prime supports output over microHDMI, it cannot push 1080p through the wire" ...When using hardware decoding, Transformer Prime actually pushes true 1080p-video to the television (..while the tablets screen remains unused = black). As an owner of TF201, I can confirm this.

Half right. It can decode and output 1080p video (screen will turn off). But it cannot and will not output 1080p for the regular android environment. That includes games. Unless you're watching a 1080p video, TP will output 720p.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1474862
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1408728

Well documented issue.

Cheers,
Andrew Ku
hackholm

Too bad this runs Android. Would be an amazing Win8 tablet.
Dyseman

As an owner of the Prime and Keyboard, I Love it! I plugged my external 2.0 TB Drive in the USB slot... Worked Great! I have the 32GB version with a 32GB Micro SD in side and 32GB SD in Keyboard.

The product is FAST as hell and 3D Games in nVidia Game Zone rock! Also, I plugged my Xbox 360 for windows wireless controller into the keyboard and plays Game Zone games great as well as NES SNES emu's! And playing these games and other things on HDMI output Rocks!

They've said there's a problem with the GPS and are now Giving away a GPS Dongle to registered users upon request (THough that ends in July). Though I don't think I'll ever use GPS on this. I have my phone for that. (And a Garmin)

I have an iPad 2 (Well, wife does) and I'm sorry... I love my Prime over that!

Comes equipped with Free Splashtop Software to run your Windows desktop over LAN on your prime... which also rocks! (That is a paid for feature on other devices)

This isn't an ad, just my quickie review.