Reviews - ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime

[Scribe]

I think parts of the review discussing benchmarks, boot times and perhaps even battery life need to be taken with a pinch of salt at this stage. At the end of the day by release either ICS will be ready to download over-the-air or will be ready within a few weeks.

We already know that ICS has much improved SunSpider performance and likely NVIDIA will have focused most of its later patch work on ICS and so I'd expect better core optimisation including a focus on making sure that 500MHz core is used as often as possible. No doubt other aspects of ICS programs will have been reviewed for quad-core usage by Google as well.

[keithwalton]

I hope Asus uk read this thread or the info gets passed back to them as I really want a transformer prime but with the single uk sku has completely priced me out of getting one.

Even though they have missed the christmas window I would of liked to of purchased the base tablet myself (for £350 odd) and then received the dock and other accessories as presents. Or at worst buy tablet now, dock a month later but having to save up the extra for higher spec dock and tablet other tablets may of been announced by that point and will get the sale instead (samsung 11.6)

[slef2003]

"you can't ignore the fact that fully-fledged laptops are available at around the same price"

Sorry but I can ignore that as this is a completely different product! How many £499 laptops have an easily detachable tablet which is thinner than than the oft mentioned ipad2? Why did this comparison need to be in the article? and especially in the final thoughts? where incidentally the reviewer was comparing the price with a from £399 ipad. At that price you get a 16Gb ipad that is also equivalent in price to a good specced core3 laptop with 8gig of memory!. If we compare prices of the 32Gb ipad the cost difference is roughly £25 (ebuyer prices as of this time and date) for which you get a well fitting matched keyboard with better storage and connection options. Hmmm, perhaps there is a bit of bias in the review in which the transformer was unfairly compared cost wise with a lesser specced machine.

The other issue for me in reading the article was that I was unsure of whether it was a stand alone review of a piece of hardware or a comparison article between the transformer and the ipad; though this might have been completely unintentional and subconscious by the reviewer.

I did not that there was a list of apps that are used by his GF and at first I wondered why flash was not in the list, but then I remembered it is not an app and that his GF would not have had the chance to use it as it was verboten lol

I also have to clarify that this is the first time I have ever pre ordered a bit of hardware as I normally wait a while to let bugs get ironed out and prices to fall, but events conspired as I am using Xmas as an excuse to buy it as I wanted a replacement for my trusty 12" netbook which has travelled to Thailand with my daughter and the aged lappy sitting on the kitchen table is so big and heavy that my desktop is most probably more portable LOL

[crossy]

"you can't ignore the fact that fully-fledged laptops are available at around the same price" Sorry but I can ignore that as this is a completely different product! How many £499 laptops have an easily detachable tablet which is thinner than than the oft mentioned ipad2?

Quite true - I just can't see a tablet being a suitable replacement for a laptop. On the other hand if you're in the market for one of these new "ultrabooks" then surely a tablet is in with a shout. Just checking and even an Acer (usually cheapest) is about the £700 mark, in which case the Transformer Prime at £200 cheaper looks like a bargain! (And yes - I realise that the Ultrabook runs Windows, so all your software will probably work, whereas the TP runs Android, so you're limited to whatever's available for that platform)
That said, I replaced a £200 netbook with a £400 Transformer last year, so maybe I should get a T-shirt with this icon "" on it.

The other issue for me in reading the article was that I was unsure of whether it was a stand alone review of a piece of hardware or a comparison article between the transformer and the ipad; though this might have been completely unintentional and subconscious by the reviewer. I did not that there was a list of apps that are used by his GF and at first I wondered why flash was not in the list, but then I remembered it is not an app and that his GF would not have had the chance to use it as it was verboten lol

Agree totally with the comment about Transformer v's iPad - seemed a bit daft to review the Asus and be generally complementary, then recommend buying something else.

As to the app comparison - I don't think it was worthwhile doing, nor particularly valid either. Yes, iPad/iPhone have more apps (at the moment) but I think increasingly you'd have to search quite hard to find something major that's not covered in both app shops.

[Jay]

I have been thinking of getting one of these for when I travel, the battery life is good for long flights and unlike laptops you dont need to take them out of your bag when going through the scanners (this is a real pain when you need to make 3 or 4 flights in a single day)

[crossy]

I have been thinking of getting one of these for when I travel, the battery life is good for long flights and unlike laptops you dont need to take them out of your bag when going through the scanners (this is a real pain when you need to make 3 or 4 flights in a single day)

Battery life point is very valid - just remember to take that booster-battery/keyboard!

The no-inspection thing I'm not so sure of though. Haven't got any experience of it myself, but an acquaintance of mine got a major league dressing down for not getting out the Transformer. Unfortunately in it's "ultrabook" mode it's indistinguishable from a device that needs to be taken out. That said, he'd been smart enough to leave it on (and in "airplane" mode) so it was pretty darned easy to prove it wasn't a very thin laptop.

Actually, is "airplane mode" good enough to use on a flight? I'm also sure that I remember someone else telling me that they got a dressing down from the steward(ess) for having a device out and operational, (and no it's wasn't at landing/take-off when they say that all electronics should be off/in-bag). I haven't tried myself, but I'm wondering if one of those Android-based PMP would be worth getting.

[Jay]

The rules are anything with a hard disk or CD Rom so ipads etc dont need to be removed for scanning also airplane mode is fine during flight.