- 10.1" Wide XGA 1280 x 800
- 1GB Memory
- Android 3.2 Honeycomb Platform (upgradable to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich)
Great EXCEPT no Bluetooth+WIFI streaming
08/03/2013
This review is from: ASUS TF201-B1-GR 1GB Memory 10.1" 1280 x 800 Transformer Prime - Gray Android 3.2 Honeycomb Platform (upgradable to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich) Gray
Pros:
Speed is very good for a tablet. I can still overwhelm it but its still quite impressive. Screen display looks good though not a "retina" display. Has been reliable.
Cons:
WIFI reception isn't consistent or reliable. In close proximity to the router I still don't get full strength reception. That never made sense to me. FATAL FLAW, not to bury the lead, but if you plan to use this to stream video (e.g. Netflix) or music (e.g. Rhapsody, Pandora) and use a nice Bluetooth speaker, think again. Apparently this is a known limitation of the piece that I only discovered after many frustrating attempts to fix the problem. I think there's only one antenna or the case causes signal loss - whatever it may be, you won't be able to use both BT and WIFI at the same time. You'd think they would have foreseen that, huh? Well, I use the table mostly for work and communication when I can't use a proper PC and it serves that function adequately. ASUS makes many great products, I've built systems with their motherboards for longer than I'd like to say and my Nexus 7 (which I believe they make) is excellent. But I think this Bluetooth flaw is really a thoughtless omission - tablets are used mostly for entertainment, Netflix and Pandora are very common tablet apps and the inclusion of BT in the first place could only be for speakers or headphones. Just seems a no brainer that they should work together or be advertised as NOT working together. Oh well.
Overall Review:
The keyboard for the Transformer series is pretty good and gives extra battery life as well as a USB port. All in all a good bit of kit. However, when you've combines these together along with a leather case for protection you've essentially got a notebook PC's weight and size (and cost if you got it when it was released) but not a real Windows or Mac experience: the processor, which is fast for a tablet, is not suited for multitasking or Office level applications. It's best as a personal tablet - if you want a notebook PC experience, invest in one of ASUS's excellent laptop computers. The keyboard is just for a niche market.
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- John H.
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Verified Owner
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Owned For:
1 month to 1 year
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