ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime & NVIDIA Tegra 3 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 1, 2011 1:00 AM ESTThe Dock & Keyboard
Despite what ASUS originally told us when it launched the first Transformer, the Prime does not work with the old dock. Admittedly you wouldn't want to use the sleek new tablet with the clunky old dock, but I'm just not a fan of being used to convey incorrect information.
The new dock matches the Transformer Prime perfectly. The docked Prime isn't as elegant as the Zenbook and I'd argue that the dock does take away from the tablet's beauty, but if you need to hammer out long emails or a big document the dock is a great solution.
The dock's beauty isn't just that it's convenient (it behaves just like a notebook once mated to the tablet) but that it acts as a second battery for the Eee Pad. ASUS has also done the necessary customizations to Honeycomb to appropriately track battery levels in the dock and the tablet. There's also a little animation indicating that the dock is charging the tablet. To the best of my knowledge, the tablet will never be used to charge the dock.
Scrolling is rarely as smooth as I'd like it to be via the dock's trackpad. Many times the gesture just won't register on the trackpad or the trackpad will detect my two fingers but it won't scroll. With the screen inches away I found myself preferring to use the touchscreen for scrolling and stuck to using the dock for typing. You can control pointer speed and cursor style in the OS now, which is a nice addition.
The typing experience itself is great on the dock. The keys are big enough (around 15mm x 14mm) to type quickly on and feedback is good. The keys were a bit taller on the old dock, but as the new model is thinner the keys went on a similar slimming process.
Using the dock on a desk is fine, but use the dock on your lap and you'll have to keep applying a little bit of downward force with your wrists to keep the system from leaning backward. The dock is angled forward so if you're not typing on a flat surface the system might pivot backwards. The correction is simple, you just need to push down with your wrists/palms a bit while you type. I even have to do that a bit on my 11-inch MacBook Air. The difference is the MBA has enough surface area for me to comfortably rest my wrists, the Transformer Prime's dock does not. While I don't notice much fatigue while typing on my MBA, my wrists do feel it when I use the Prime + dock on a couch.
My dock had a connection issue between the Prime and the dock itself, which ASUS insists shouldn't be happening. Tilt the Prime towards you when in the dock and the screen would occasionally go white. It feels like a manufacturing issue, although I'm apparently the only one who has reported it.
Android is still not beefy enough to be a full blown laptop replacement, but the Prime does come with enough apps to at least let you do some basic word processing and spreadsheet work. If you're going to do a lot of typing on your tablet I'd easily recommend the dock, it's the best way to get your thoughts into words on the Prime. Otherwise, the $150 adder just adds bulk and cost to the platform. The Prime is really great to use on its own. If you want an alternative to the dock, ASUS will have its own clone of Apple's iPad smart covers at some point in the coming weeks.
ASUS' five row virtual keyboard is back on the Prime. While it doesn't look as good as the standard Honeycomb keyboard, I do like having the numeric row visible above the rows of letters. Nuance's T9 Trace is still supported by the keyboard (Swype-like continuous text input) although I'm not personally a fan. You can disable Trace as well as revert to the stock Honeycomb keyboard if you'd like.
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Tchamber - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
I'm glad you brought up the fact that the Prime has a higher resolution than the iPad2, I think a lot of people overlook that when then see performance numbers. This seems to be the tablet I wanted when I bought my 1st gen iPad, if I like it, I'm done with Appletunes. Thanks for the good review.tim851 - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
They were reviewed at the same resolution(s)...hakimio - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
CNET reviewers also got a unit with defective WIFI. So don't worry - you are not alone.Morelian - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
Nice review. As an original Ipad owner I am always interested in new tablets but so far nothing since the original Ipad would get me to replace my current tablet. I did get my wife an Ipad 2 and while it is speedier the function of my original product still holds up.I really don't get the back camera on these things-a tablet is too big to really use as one's camera of choice and if you have a tablet surely a phone would be preferable? The front facing cam I understand and that would let people do the facetime/skype thing which I see as potentially useful.
I take my Ipad to work with me. When I have spare time, I'll use it to check my email-much easier to read on the Ipad than my phone and the Ipad facebook app is pretty good. If things get really slow I can open a book and read. Rarely I'll watch something on Netflix but currently I don't have Netflix going because the kids grab the Ipad at home and watch cartoons instead of doing homework.
As to doing work I just don't see it. A few months ago I got a Toshiba 14 inch laptop from Best Buy for 500 bucks. My thought was if I got good use out of it I'd get a Macbook Air and toss the laptop to the kids but technical limitations at work prevent me from doing what I'd really like with the notebook. The Toshiba laptop has an Intel processor with the Intel graphics, I doubt it could game and never tried, but it tosses up web pages nicely and has a nice keyboard. I can do work on it and don't mind typing on it. To do work I need Windows compatibility and I can't see where the Asus tablet would help me there.
So, I don't really get this docking station except for a way for Asus to make a few extra bucks for people who don't know what they want to use a tablet for. To me a tablet is something lightwight you use for data consumption, and for "work" you need something that runs Windows software and is reasonably designed for data entry.
The Windows 8 tablets might be the place where things are headed but a Win8 tablet with a docking station keyboard is a notebook.
I guess we'll see where all is headed.
efficacyman - Monday, December 5, 2011 - link
The rear facing camera can be used for scanning in documents using google documents or other scanning applications. The better the quality of the camera, the better the quality of the resulting product. The best camera you have is the one you have with you all the time. If you are using your tablet as your work machine, having a camera with you that is high quality can't hurt.Stupido - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
I'm not following this tablet development much, but I kind a like the "tablet idea"...But so far I haven't seen any tablet with USB support. Is this notion OK or I'm missing something?
Death666Angel - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
If by USB support you mean USB host capabilities (as in, you can plug a USB stick in and read data off it), every modern tablet/smartphone I know can do that, except Apple iStuff.Mice, gamepads, printers etc. are a more complicated matter.
Stupido - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
By complicated matter I guess you refer to the driver level of the OS?Because once you have USB host, than I guess it will be up to the OS to provide the correct drivers?
I don't know how different are the kernels (and their corresponding driver architecture) between Android and Linux...
I just know that Android is a fork of the standard Linux kernel...
Death666Angel - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
Yup, driver implementation and program support was what I was getting at. :-)If you are interested in that sort of stuff, XDAdevelopers is always a great place for any smartphone/tablet questions of a technical nature.
Stupido - Friday, December 2, 2011 - link
Thx! I'll check that...