ASUS Transformer Pad 300 (TF300T) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on April 22, 2012 3:00 AM ESTThe Display
The Transformer Pad 300's display actually uses a panel that's closely related to what was used in the original Eee Pad Transformer and not the panel from the Prime. The most noticeable difference? The gap between the digitizer and the display itself. Similar to the original Transformer you can perceive the gap between the two, while the Prime's display narrowed that gap considerably. The comparison shot below exaggerates the effect a bit but it's present nonetheless:
 ASUS TF Pad 300 |
 ASUS TF Prime |
The air gap between display and digitizer can result in more reflections, however in practice I found the TF Pad 300 not nearly as bad in this regard as the original Transformer.
The 300's panel is dimmer than the Prime's and came in a little dimmer than our original Transformer as well. Black levels are a smidge better than its predecessor, resulting in a competitive contrast ratio:
Color accuracy, at least for the primaries and secondaries, is on-par with the Prime. Grayscale accuracy is worse, but a little better than the iPad 2:
Gamut remains unchanged from the Prime at roughly 60% coverage of the sRGB space:
Subjectively the IPS panel looks just as good as the Prime, it's just dimmer. The max brightness of the 300 is more than enough for indoor use, it's only in outdoor use that it's limiting. In general I've found that you need to be able to push over 500 nits in order to produce a legible screen in bright sunlight.
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shriganesh - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
Asus rocks! My original Transformer got ICS 4.0.3 update just a few days back! ICS is great and shuttering is gone! UI is much better and feels smooth!Netscorer - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
Even though I like the idea of dockable keyboard, from practicality perspective we would need to wait for Windows 8 tablet for this to take off. I just don't see Android ICS as a serious notebook replacement. Given the rest of the specs, for only $100 more one can get an iPad with vastly better screen, battery life, GPU and other characteristics that actually do matter in tablet. I am not trying to compare ICS with iOS5 here as both have they merits but we should also consider the maturity of the App Market comparing to Google Play and other Android contenders.Finally, ASUS have yet to prove that it can ship any significant volume of their tablets. I wanted to buy the original Transformer but for two months could not find any stock and then cooled to the idea. I was following the Infinity model again with no stock until new iPad was already on the market. What are the odds that ASUS will suddenly release this model in quantity?
I'm sorry ASUS but for Pad to take off, you would need to price it at no more then $350 (with 32GB of RAM) and a $100 dock. Otherwise no-one outside of the geek community would even consider your tablet as an alternative to iPad.
Naguz - Monday, April 23, 2012 - link
If only they had included a USB port on the tablet itself - along with a display connector you could connect a VGA adapter to for presentations.dreddit - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
Hey guys are you sure the dimension for the infinity are correct. If so then the Bezel must be much smaller than the primes, by 10mm either side.The asus web site still has dimensions the same as the prime. I hope it is a smaller form factor but with the same 10.1 ips screen
Lucian Armasu - Tuesday, April 24, 2012 - link
Put a dual core (or quad core next year) Cortex A15 chip at 2 Ghz in it, and with a 2560x1600 resolution at 11.6", and I'll take it. There's no way an x86 device with Windows 8 would be in the same price range. It would probably be closer to $1000 than $500.slagar - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 - link
Looks like another fine ASUS product.Absolutely second Anand's comments regarding one of these with Windows 8 later this year. I can't wait to see what happens :)
Thanks for the great info and reviews as always Anandtech!
Anonymous1a - Saturday, August 4, 2012 - link
I absolutely love Asus' product range but the only problem I have with them is that they don't have their own direct store. Although the base models are easily available on the internet, finding a 3G version of the TF300 is like finding a needle in a haystack and the only place I found the needle was ebay and at ridiculously high prices (600+) and considering the fact that two models have already come out after it and the iPad 2 has it's 3G version at 529, this is just wayyy too high, with these vendors exploiting the lack of a direct chain and lack of availability of these products. And there was literally nowhere I could the the Infinity or Prime with LTE anywhere. I wish they would, at least, for a few major markets like USA and UK have their own direct online selling point.