ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime & NVIDIA Tegra 3 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 1, 2011 1:00 AM ESTCPU Performance
The big news with Tegra 3 is that you get four ARM Cortex A9 cores with NEON support instead of just two (sans NEON) in the case of the Tegra 2 or most other smartphone class SoCs. In the short period of time I had to test the tablet I couldn't draw many definitive conclusions but I did come away with some observations.
Linpack showed us healthy gains over Tegra 2 thanks to full NEON support in Tegra 3:
As expected, finding applications and usage models to task all four cores is pretty difficult. That being said, it's not hard to use the tablet in such a way that you do stress more than two cores. You won't see 100% CPU utilization across all four cores, but there will be a tangible benefit to having more than two. Whether or not the benefit is worth the cost in die area is irrelevant, it only means that NVIDIA (and/or its partners) have to pay more as the price of the end product to you is already pretty much capped.
The bigger benefit I saw to having four cores vs. two is that you're pretty much never CPU limited in anything you do when multitasking. Per core performance can always go up but I found myself bound either by the broken WiFi or NAND speed. In fact, the only thing that would bring the Prime to a halt was if I happened to be doing a lot of writing to NAND over USB. Keyboard and touch interrupts were a low priority at that point, something I hope to see addressed as we are finally entering the era of performance good enough to bring on some I/O crushing multitasking workloads.
Despite having many cores at its disposal, NVIDIA appears to have erred on the side of caution when it comes to power consumption. While I often saw the third and fourth cores fire up when browsing the web or just using the tablet, NVIDIA did a good job of powering them down when their help wasn't needed. Furthermore, NVIDIA also seems to prefer running more cores at lower voltage/frequency settings than fewer cores at a higher point in the v/f curve. This makes sense given the non-linear relationship between voltage and power.
From a die area perspective I'm not entirely sure having four (technically, five) A9 cores is the best way to deliver high performance, but without a new microprocessor architecture it's surely more efficient than just ratcheting up clock speed. I plan on providing a more thorough look at Tegra 3 SoC performance as I spend more time with a fixed Prime, but my initial impressions are that the CPU performance isn't really holding the platform back.
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MiSoFine - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
I had a TF 101 & used a cheap USB mouse & worked just fine--better than the touch pad in some instances; with my wireless printer I was able to print documents with ease. Didn't try the game pad--don't game. Might borrow an XBox to test with my preordered TF 201.Sanz84 - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
Android natively supports flash disks, usb external drives or devices and game controllers such xbox or ps3 wireless controllers - no need for third party apps. For the galaxy s2 you just need a cheap micro usb - female usb connector for exampleSanz84 - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
Great job with the review. However, I'd like to point out how many people are losing perception of what a portable computing device should be for, especially for the masses. On too many sites (not here ofc) I saw reviews like: not unleashing all the power like iOS does; such phrases start to become embarassing and I'll explain why. Sorry if I'm derailing a bit, still will describe the Asus Prime even if not mentioning it.Common users take such devices - mostly- for web browsing, video viewing, music listening, connectivity and file management.
Granted, I'd like to know in which of any of these fields is iOS such a beast.
Web browsing - performance wise is quite good, ics browser showed up superiority anyway; incomplete experience without flash: no video streams from many sites, incomplete facebook feeling without addons, no 1080p youtube (correct me if I'm wrong)
Video viewing: native player does not support popular containers such .mkv, paid apps not so smooth on 1080p? Video upload only via itunes, need to have fun with video converting.
Music listening: converts audio library to m4a format, hard times if you want to add a single song from a different terminal
Connectivity: no bluetooth file transfer, no wifi transfer outside itunes (on android can browse the device with w7 explorer), no usb, no sd.
File management: guess.
This said, why would an adult individual prefer an iOs tablet over the Prime? Why many reviewers take as normal the lack of file management and connectivity? If the iPad goes insane, you still need another device to recover it. It's not indipendent, but the Prime on its way, it is.
The Prime with ics will be a big step forward into mobile computing and will be completed when win8 and x86 will be in game aswell. For me the iPad is a toy with a drawn apple that is great in mobile gaming. (can use external controllers tough?)
Sorry for the wall of text and correct if I'm wrong :)
Icehawk - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
As an iPad owner and daily user who is a dedicated PC owner, gamer, and a prior IT admin for 10yrs, here is my reply:First it all comes down to usage IMO. I have an iPhone & PC, and aTV too. What I find myself using the iPad for is the following: gaming, reading books, and acting as a go-between for my PC share and my aTV/stereo. When I'm in the living room and we want to fact check, IMDB, etc I find myself reaching for my phone if it is closer because on neither do I want to do more than a quick look - I do not find either enjoyable mediums for "real" browsing. I like to play so-called casual games while I'm listening to podcasts, radio shows, audiobooks and the like and the iPad is great for that IMO. I have a large, diverse library - I use Airplay and apps like Airvideo to bridge the gaps between devices in my home and find it pretty simple. What I don't do is any real work, any browsing of multiple pages/any length, and obviously more in-depth games like Skyrim need to be played on an actual computer. Oddly I have been using my iPad to do video editing even though it's probably easier on my PC.
Regarding your specific points:
Web Browsing - I use this exclusively for a quick browse - usually looking something up on iMDB, checking a TV schedule, etc so Flash isn't usally an issue unless, for example, a restaurant uses a Flash splashpage. Keep in mind I watch little online content in Flash format in any event so YMMV. Do I agree with Apple, no, but for me it isn't a deal breaker by any means.
1080p, yup none of that but it's not a huge deal honestly - yes, I'd like it but you can't have everything and visual quality is good enough I can give up a little here. Maybe next time.
Music - I don't have any m4a files mine is all MP3 and that isn't an issue. Yes, you do have to use iTunes and it still sucks monkey testicles and that in my mind is the real problem with any iDevice. iTunes pretty much chokes on my 200gb of music. The reality is though that I can either stream music from Spotify, et al or from my PC share most of the time, for trips away I can suffer through loading music on it or my phone.
Connectivity - I can't disagree although it really isn't a huge deal for the most part. A lot of apps support file transfers btw seperate from iTunes or via iTunes without a sync. You do get AirPlay which works awesome most of the time and allows video & audio streaming. Regarding file transfer see my next comment.
File System - ok, w/o a jailbreak you are fairly limited no doubt. If you DO JB, and you will if there is one available, you can install one simple file and then use a million different programs to browse the file system and even transfer files. I do wish iOS supported pure drag & drop though, trust me!
Basically the things a lot of non-tablet owners think are an issue are not because it just doesn't fit the way you end up using them. IMO, YMMV, etc but this has been my experience ever since I got the iPad on release day. Where I find it to be the best damned thing I've owned is on flights - toss a few movies, ebooks, etc on there and I'm a happier camper.
Icehawk - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
One more thing - you said if the iPad goes insane you need another device to fix it. I don't know about Android but one thing I LOVE about iOS is that it is virtually impossible to brick them. Plug them into a PC/Mac and there is always a way to restore it.metafor - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
True but having had an iPhone for 3 years and having to restore from backup a few times, it's ultra-annoying to lose everything that happened between your last backup.I don't know that it's really possible to "brick" an Android device to the point where you need to restore from backup. I suspect this is just Apple being more conservative with the internal state of their device.
steven75 - Saturday, December 3, 2011 - link
With iCloud, backups are wireless on wifi and happen automatically every couple days. How much can you really lose in that time considering many apps themselves now backup to iCloud on their own?Sanz84 - Friday, December 2, 2011 - link
On android you can backup your data let's say on an external sd or usb flash disk and restore factory settings on the go (reinstalls the os basically). No need to plug the device to the pc. My iphone went nuts at least two times and couldn't call until I recovered it via itunes. On my sgs2 just restored factory defaults in few minutes and I was able to call.steven75 - Saturday, December 3, 2011 - link
That's no longer the case on iOS 5.vvk - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
iOS works seems to work better for none techie people. My parents are happy with their Ipad 2 (there was nothing better in May 2011 but my grandma is getting Android tablet for X-mas :)I personally feel like I am wearing straitjacket whenever I have to use iOS and the game of cat and mouse with the jailbreak gets tiring at some point. However, where I find restraints other people find support - humans are strange :)