ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime & NVIDIA Tegra 3 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 1, 2011 1:00 AM ESTCamera Quality
Over the past couple of years of reviewing ARM based tablets, I've really never wanted to use any of them to take photos with. I see it happen from time to time and I can definitely see the use when making video calls, but otherwise it's just not that big of a deal to me. I use my smartphone far more frequently to take photos. Despite this being the case, ASUS has improved image quality out of both the front and rear-facing cameras in the Prime.
The rear sensor is now 8MP while the front is 1.2MP. I didn't have too much time to do a deep investigation here, but capture quality is much improved over the original Transformer:
TF Original, Rear Camera
TF Prime, Rear Camera
The rear camera shoots stills at 3264 x 2448 and produces JPGs that are typically around 2.4MB in size. The time between the first tap and capture of a still is under 2 seconds. The rear sensor can shoot 1080p video as well.
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Mumrik - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
I get the feeling Anand didn't enjoy the 39 hour thing :)Btw:
"The resolution is a Honeycomb-standard 1280 x 752. The 16:10 panel measures 10.1-inches diagonally,"
Huh? 1280x752?
That's not a 16:10 resolution...
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
It's technically 1280 x 800, the 752 is what you get when you remove the Honeycomb nav bar.mwildtech - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
Great Review Anand! Much better than Engadget's. We are lucky we still got nice sunny skies in Raleigh!SpacemanSpiff13 - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
Awesome review, Anand. I already had one preordered, but your review makes me really comfortable about my impulse buy, and it's not just a play for page clicks. Really solid, in-depth. Thanks.jwcalla - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
very well done reviewjjj - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
Nice to see a decent tablet and glad they didn't dropped (like some nutjobs) the microSD slot.Asus should really sell the keyboard much cheaper would help them gain considerable market share and maybe make one without the battery for 50-70$.And ofc bundle realVNC or Logmein with it.
TrackSmart - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
I agree that a cheaper keyboard option (or bundle w/ keyboard) would help sales.Regarding a version without the battery: the thing is already dangerously top-heavy when plugged into the dock. Can you imagine how bad it would be without the weight of the battery in there? They'd probably have to put some kind of weight near the front edge. Or use a design that connects the tablet further inward on the dock, as has been done on other tablets, which would ruin the laptop-like aesthetic (which is pretty nice).
Just my 2 cents.
jjj - Friday, December 2, 2011 - link
I was aware of that problem and amusingly enough i was also thinking about the same 2 solutions..The version without battery would be just to bring the price down a lot.The battery costs 20-25$ and that adds 40-70$ to the retail price so it would make a big difference.joe_dude - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
Personally, I'm not so interested in comparisons to the iPad. What I really want to know is how it compares to a tablet + netbook/ultrabook/MBA???If it can do a decent job in both roles, then it would really make life easier. Wouldn't need to sync files or deal with two different OSes. Save time and money.
Anand Lal Shimpi - Thursday, December 1, 2011 - link
Better than a netbook (what isn't? :-P) but not as good as an ultrabook/MBA for getting actual work done.Take care,
Anand