ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime Review Part II: Battery Life & More
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 15, 2011 3:45 AM ESTSuper IPS+
I rode around town as a passenger equipped with the Transformer Prime and dock to test out how usable the setup was as a truly mobile platform. Glare is still a big issue if you're in a sunny environment; however, I was surprised to see that even without engaging the Prime's Super IPS+ mode that the display was usable in many cases outdoors. I definitely preferred the experience with Super IPS+ mode enabled though. While the glossy screen picks up fingerprints and is extremely reflective, the 600+ nits the panel is able to put out in its brightest mode definitely overcome both of these concerns.
Color Gamut
Some of you have asked for color gamut charts for the Transformer Prime, which I have provided below vs. the original Transformer:
ASUS Eee Pad Transformer
ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime
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medi01 - Thursday, December 15, 2011 - link
It's not about "what is Prime's color gamut", but rather "how does it compare to other tablets".Hopefully it will become standard part of your tests, since brightness/contrast tell only small part of the story.
Ric_Margiotta - Thursday, December 15, 2011 - link
Thanks for this follow-up article, Anand! It was a good read and answered some of my remaining questions about the TF Prime. Still looking forward to picking one of these up in January!sotoa - Thursday, December 15, 2011 - link
Too bad these weren't ready in bulk for Christmas. Not to mention ICS.tipoo - Thursday, December 15, 2011 - link
I read elsewhere that engineering samples of Tegra 3 weren't performing as much better as Nvidia originally expected them to, due to the cores and GPU being constrained for memory bandwidth. I don't know of them changing this in the original design. I'm curious how much ICS will improve T3 performance with its better multithreading and better GPU acceleration, and how much comes down to all the elements competing for bandwidth or some other hardware limitation?druter - Thursday, December 15, 2011 - link
I guess we should not have expected a non apple slanted review from such a mac fanboy site. I dispair for tech journalism when the point becomes less about an honest unbiased review and more about ones allegiance to apple.Nice try though to sound unbiased though, stating that it is a much improved tablet, your apple bias showed through though when you indicated you felt that it was only in comparison to other Androids and that it was still below anything Mac.
The lesson I learned don't come to Anandtech.com when you want an honest unbiased review.
piiman - Thursday, December 15, 2011 - link
If you think this is an Apple fan site why do you even come here? Just so you can bash the reviews?tipoo - Thursday, December 15, 2011 - link
What parts of this came across as biased? To me it seemed all the facts were laid out impartially, and they put effort into correcting the old battery life measurements as well as promised performance updates when ICS hits. If everything comes back to the iPad, its for a reason, like it or not its still the standards bearer for these tablets, and I'm a hardcore Android user. I think the Prime will be better than the iPad personally when ICS hits, but the review is based on current software of course.IKeelU - Thursday, December 15, 2011 - link
It's important to show how it performs against the iPad, especially with regards to battery life. Most people don't care about android vs iOS, they just want a media consumption device, and will therefore choose the device that allows them to do that better.Second, the numbers for battery life are in Apple's favor. It would be biased to ignore them.
Sounds to me like you would be better served by going to an Android fanboy website.
Belard - Thursday, December 15, 2011 - link
You are a fool druter. I and others do not know WHAT you think you read or watched.A) Anand isn't much of a tablet user (AFAIK from his previous articles)
B) He uses all kinds of technology - he does have the right to use what he wants for his personal uses, no? He uses AMD and intel for his own servers and in general - has kept standards pretty good on this sight.
C) All devices WILL compare market leaders, including the iPad. With what is on the market TODAY from Samsung, ASUS, Toshiba, etc - None of them have the battery or GPU (graphics) performance of the 9 month old iPad2 and some are below that of an iPad1 especially when it comes to battery life.
D) "below anything mac"?? he didn't compare the TF-Prime to any Mac. Apple only has one type of tablet on the market and its NOT a Macintosh. He stated the simple fact that tablets DO NOT replace actual notebooks. That is true if the iPad2 as well.
E) Use the best tool for the job or personal preference and budget. Simple as that, eh? I build my own desktops, own ThinkPad notebooks and have an iPad. My dislike for apple is the same for Microsoft, so it just doesn't matter.
F) Get over yourself.
melgross - Thursday, December 15, 2011 - link
Some people aren't happy unless something is reviewed as being much better than any comparable Apple product.Like it or not, the iPad is still the gold standard, and everything is going to be compared to that. This guy will be very unhappy in March when the new one comes out.