Ok my Prime has finally arrived from Office Depot (props to them for having it available quickly as opposed to the 4-6 weeks on Amazon) and I am ready to go through my review. I have not been able to find the keyboard dock ANYWHERE so what follows is only a review of the tablet itself. I will post another review with the keyboard dock when I find one.
I came home and found the package from office depot and promptly ripped it open. As I open the Asus box, sunlight shines down from my ceiling and a choir of angels sings. This is a beautiful device. It comes with a little protective wrapping that also gives you a map of where all the controls are. The screen looks and feels durable, the aluminum back is the quality and design you would expect in a $500 tablet, and it feels both light and sturdy in your hands. As for the bezel goes, some people have complained it is too thick but it seems just about right for preventing any incidental screen bumps with wandering thumbs.
Let’s look at the software. The Asus came running stock Honeycomb and it worked well. However, I had a couple day lag before I got back to this review due to a few different things (mostly football playoffs). Tonight I picked up my Prime to a HUGE surprise – a firmware update waiting to be installed. Surely this couldn’t be Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. After all, that’s not promised until January 12th and we all know that companies are always late on their promises. Amazingly, it was ICS so I can offer a review of what this tablet can really do with an operating system that is a huge step up from Honeycomb.
The first thing I noticed after the update was how the fluid transitions from screen to screen now appear seamless. Apps load faster, home screens rotate faster, and sure enough my wifi connection is even a little better. A couple other nice improvements include the new font for the clock in the lock screen, the ability to stretch widgets, and the option to launch straight to the camera from the lock screen. The clock font is a little thing but it really makes the Prime look like the premium device it is.
Also, the ICS update comes with an update to the camera. I only took a few photos initially with the tablet before the update but the new interface is pretty nice. It includes the functionality for one motion panorama shots, too which is fun to play with. I will try to update a few pictures to this post in a few days after I have a chance to play with it.
A few cool things that Asus has preloaded on the device include the Riptide demo and the MyCloud app. MyCloud is a little cloud storage provided by Asus as well as it includes a My Desktop portion that allows remote desktop setup and control of any of your laptops on the network. The Riptide demo shows you what the quad core tablet is able to do when it comes to mobile gaming. The graphics are amazing and look even better than the countless youtube videos out there of the demo.
Finally, let’s talk about why I made the choice to go with this tablet over the iPad 2. First of all, let me say that I think Apple makes a good product that excels at what it does. However, I find the iProducts a little bland as far as the interface goes and the widgets and customization that Android provides were a much better fit for what I wanted. Another reason I chose to go with Asus’ Transformer Prime was because of the expandable memory. While the iPad 2 ships in different memory capacities (16, 32, and 64 GB) starting at $499, the Transformer Prime offers 32 GB built in at the same price point as the 16 GB iPad 2 and it has slots that allow you to expand that. The tablet itself has a microSD slot that can hold up to an additional 32 GB of data, and the keyboard dock has a full SD slot that can hold a card as well. The SD cards can be found at capacities of 128 or 256 GB right now and theoretically can hold up to 2 TB of data. I plan on getting a 32 GB microSD card and 128 GB SD card which will turn my tablet into a device with 192 GB of space to hold offline videos, music, and anything else my heart desires. The keyboard dock itself was another selling point as it is optimized specifically for the tablet and turns it into a mini-laptop. Apple does not provide this ability with the iPad 2, and I assume this is to ensure they don't sway any current or prospective macbook air customers to a cheaper option. Last, many people crave the iPad 2 because it offers 3g connections for additional data rates from several wireless carriers. For me, the ability to connect via wifi handles 80% of my needs. The other 20% can be supplemented by mobile hotspot or even pdanet which allows bluetooth to share data connection with my phone so this was not a deterrent for me.
This is just my humble opinion and a very non-technical review but I hope you found it useful if you are considering getting a tablet in 2011. I highly recommend the Asus Transformer Prime and I think you would be extremely happy with your purchase. Check back soon for a review of my favorite apps for the Prime as well as a review of the Samsung Nexus which I recently got my hands on.
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