Why It Matters:
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.
More: Asus Transformer Prime Super Tablet Hits Australia In January
Using It
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 10 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.
Like
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, it animates transitions. The Super IPS+ screen is incredibly bright, and I had no problem seeing the screen in sunlight. Colours were nice and vivid, too. The Gorilla Glass protected screen has a 1280×800 resolution and 16:10 aspect ratio.
Battery life is also terrific. With fairly conservative use and Wi-Fi only on half of the time, I got 10 hours out of it. When I pushed it way harder, I still got close to eight.
No Like
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.
Should I Buy It?
Note: CES begins in just a few days, stay tuned for news on upcoming tablets.
Asus EEE Pad Transformer Prime Specs
OS: Android 3.2.1
Screen: 10.1-inch Super IPS+
Processor and RAM: 1.3GHz quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor / 1GB RAM
Storage: 32GB and 64GB (expandable via MicroSD)
Camera: Back: 8MP/1080p HD, front: 1.2MP
Weight: 586g
Battery: 25Wh li-polymer
Price: $US500/32GB $US600/64GB $US150/docking station (Australian pricing not yet announced).
Giz Rank: Four stars
Music credit: Dub Terminator.
Adam
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 10:37 AMThe real questions I want answers to are: When will we have it in Australia? And How much?
morkai
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 11:01 AMnever, and one billion dollars
Tuan Duy
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 9:25 AMThis weekend. And $794 for 32GB with dock.
aous
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 10:42 AMWell, it is a bad time to buy any such tablets. Asus Transformer Prime is not available yet, iPad 3 is around the corner, and there is a rumour that prices have to come down to compete against Kindle fire. It is time to watch and see what happens in the next 2 to 3 months and then decide what to get.
Tom
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 10:53 AMI could not possibly buy it… the main problem is that it says “ASUS” on it, and you can’t trust anything which has “ASUS” written on it. It may be faster than the competition right now, but more reputable manufacturers will adopt the faster processor. Everyone I know has had so many problems with ASUS hardware that I have serious doubts with the claim this tablet is well made, unless you are saying its the most wellmade quadcore, in which case, yes, as long as it remains the only one.
ogre
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 1:53 PMReally? I have never had trouble with ASUS hardware, except the motherboard for the first PC I built myself, and even then, I never figured out what the failure was. Meanwhile, I’ve seen heaps of people swear by Gigabyte motherboards and graphics cards, while I have friends that have had nothing but trouble, including one friend who went through three Gigabyte motherboards in the space of a month.
What evidence do you have of ASUS hardware being poor?
MotorMouth
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 4:37 PMTom, I think you might have just been unlucky, because I know a few serious tweakers who really rate Asus. My UX21 has been really good so far and seems to be built like a tank. It certainly makes my doubly expensive Vaio and the Acer S3 look flimsy.
ds22
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 12:38 PMWow, really? Working in the industry, my colleagues and i believe Asus to be one of the best, by far. Sony is up there, but far too expensive.
Sharon
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 1:16 PMI agree. We are a 3-Asus household and the oldest model, a 2010, is still running great. Have not had problems with any of these machines. I’ll hold out a bit longer to see if Asus makes the TP in a 7 or 8 inch model since I prefer that size. If nothing is forthcoming, I’ll get in line for this one.
Wok
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 6:47 PMAsus is a good brand.
Deb
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 1:47 PMTHAT’S WHY THEY SAID THAT THIS IS THE TABLET FOR YOU IF YOU KNOW YOU DON’T WANT AN IPAD! so who cares about the ipad 3!?
Sam
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 5:15 PMI only buy asus or lenovo laptops/tablets/towers, as they are the only 2 brands I trust.
darkAura
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 11:04 AMThank you. Nice review but no mention of CES? Are you really recommending people buy/order something 1 week before CES?
If i were to take your advice and go order it online and then find out 7 days later that there are 4 more quad core devices to choose from in the next month or so I would be very disappointed in giz….
Perry
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 1:40 PMI’ve had a number of ASUS devices, including the transformer, and they’ve performed to spec and without fault. I would certainly buy more.
darkAura
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 3:07 PMHi Perry,
I have nothing against ASUS devices or the review as a whole my point is based around recommending buying a product with mention of CES which is a week away.
My point was there should be a mention and i now see they have added a note about CES under the “Should I buy it” section, Which is perfect but should of been there from the start.
Now i’m very happy with the article :-)
MotorMouth
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 4:40 PMLots of things get announced at CES but who knows when we get to actually buy them e.g. Last year Samsung announced the TX100 tablet, which looked like my dream portable device, saying it would available in March. 12 months later and there is still no sign of it. You can spend your whole life waiting for the next big thing or you can just dive in when you see the thing that makes the most sense for you right now.
chris
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 10:34 AMThats like someone telling you not to buy an xbox because E3 is a week away and they are showing off their new console.. which will then take a further 12 or so months before it even gets close to production.. well you get my point. Just because CES will show off alot of new tablets etc doesn’t mean they will be available day one or even at all. The Prime is well ahead of its competition, i’ll be surprised if another tegra 3 device is out before March
Chris McMahon
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 11:04 AMWhat’s the screen resolution and aspect ratio?
Danny Allen
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 11:19 AM1280×800 / 16:10
NOZ
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 12:14 PMAs much as I love Giz….poor review. I really expected more from what is to be such an epic tablet and first of its kind….
Harvz
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 1:07 PM“still running Honeycomb… it’s still not a very intuitive UI.”
ICS looks the same as honecomb, getting the upgrade wont help if you dont like honeycomb
salmonpie
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 1:34 PMI like Honeycomb am I the only one? I don’t think this review went into enough detail
Sam Timmins
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 3:05 PM“The big ding is”
I have trouble with dings all the time. This ding, that ding, many dings.
epic
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 3:14 PMNo 3/4G?? Stoopid
wynn
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 3:43 PMYep, No 3G is the deal breaker for me…….
soundasleep
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 7:39 PMGotta agree with you there, mate. As much as I love the first Transformer the lack of 3G means I’m more often than not using my iPad on the road instead.
Didn’t Asus have some problems with the original keyboard dock where it would just stop charging for no reason?
Esophagus
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 11:30 PMI tether my Android phone for 3G on my Transformer. But the option would easily make the extra dosh worth it.
vin
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 10:31 AMyeaaa, no 3g is a deal breaker.
no doubt they’re aiming for the ‘tethering’ market (which is faster anyways imo), however we’re in a business situation with a shared laptop pool :S noOOOooo!
Your Name
Friday, March 16, 2012 at 3:24 PMWho cares about 3G? Tether it to your mobile and use the data from ur phone.
Commander Shepard
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 8:28 PMCan we get one article about an android device that doesnt mention an i device?
Husky
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 8:45 PMDid you get a dock for reviewing? I want some pictures or size comparisons with the dock.
smac
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 9:49 AMHardware sounds awesome. Great to see some really powerful stuff going in to a tablet. Software needs to catch up with hardware in these tablets now. iOS is already doing a pretty good job at efficient use battery/speed, it’s time Android caught up. Let’s see what these things can really do!
Esophagus
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 10:37 AMI don’t know, Apple has their own share of software problems…
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/06/ipad_typos/
Kroo
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 12:59 PMAnd Android Tabs UI isn’t unresponsive? After trying out one I could have thrown it against the wall, the lag and response was that poor. Nice troll though.
Aaron
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 3:46 PMDoes anyone else think it’s a bit ridiculous that it only contains 1gb or ram??
Aaron
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 3:50 PM*of ram??
illogical
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 6:59 PM$500 for a quad core is extremely competitive. well done. they just need good marketing now.
smurfydog
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 10:21 PMAs others have noted, I’m looking forward to seeing the dock.
At US$150 I expect the dock would be more than just a keyboard.
Perhaps a couple of USB ports, SD reader, and a battery? I don’t know what the original Transformer dock has as I wasn’t in the market last year.
smurfydog
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 10:25 PMAlso, if they wanted to Asus could probably put 3g connectivity into the dock. Or at least allow it via a USB dongle.
Deb
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 1:48 PMThe original transformer dock had all of those things, so I can’t imagine that they would exclude them out of the prime dock.
smurfydog
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 8:14 PMThanks Deb.
I’m definitely looking forward to some hands-on time with the TP and dock. The Aussie prices – unofficial as they are – may seem a little steep, but having a device that will meet my minimal needs for a laptop and a tablet as well makes it a pretty sweet offer.
John
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 11:49 AMSurely they will release wifi connectivity soon…. right?
Jambon
Monday, January 9, 2012 at 2:44 PMWhy, oh why is every android device reviewed with a condescending tone (despite superior specs) and every Cupertino offering worshipped with doe-eyed, marionette reverence on this otherwise reasonable website? It’s REALLY starting to grate!
Andy
Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 1:32 PMthis tablet has been showing up in a couble of JB Hifi stores in Melbourne today. Priced at $895 for 64gb & $790 for 32gb (both incl Keyboard dock)