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Asus Unveils Quad-Core Transformer Prime Tablet
MojoKid writes with an article in Hot Hardware about the fancy new Asus tablet/laptop hybrid. Quoting the article: "Asus and nVidia have collectively taken the wraps off the next-generation version of Asus's well-received Transformer tablet line. The new system aims to carve out a slice of the premium tablet market that Apple's iPad has dominated for so long. On paper and in pictures, the Prime impresses. The Transformer Prime incorporates NVIDIA's new Kal-El (Tegra 3) processor and is one of NVIDIA Tegra 3's upper-end launch systems. The new ARM-based CPU contains a fifth 'companion core' to reduce and manage idle power consumption and contains 12 GPU cores, up from the eight GPUs in Tegra 2. NVIDIA claims that Tegra 3's GPU is up to 3x faster than Tegra 2, thanks to additional architectural enhancements. Asus is also rolling out a new LCD they're calling 'Super IPS+.' The display's normal brightness tops out at ~500 nits, but the Prime offers an alternate Super IPS mode that pushes display brightness up to 600 nits for use in bright outdoor environments."
When the first one came out, it was the only tablet that piqued my interest. I like the idea of a dual use, "dockable," tablet since I don't imagine I'd use a tablet much longer after the novelty wore off. Asus has really done something great with this incarnation too, it looks like.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
I hope they make their tablets of a higher quality than their laptops.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"Mind share" is "even your grandmother knows about the iPad".
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
...five cores. http://www.theonion.com/articles/fuck-everything-were-doing-five-blades,11056/
This is absolutely terrible news and I'm angry at Asus for releasing this tablet.
Now, not only are most new laptops and netbooks more powerfull than my desktop- but now a tablet is too.
Screw you Asus!
Oh well, maybe I can afford to upgrade to a Raspberry Pi this christmas if I can catch it on a 50% off sale.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I'm waiting for the Transformer Megatron
I got a touchpad on firesale. It came in handy for preloading videos to watch on long trips since the battery life is substantially better than my laptop. It's also *very* useful for reading at night when I've got a toddler in my lap and I don't want to turn on a light for fear of waking him.
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so what is he trying to say ?
That Apple fanboys would sooner go a-grave robbin' to suck Steve off some more, than purchase something that might actually be useful.
At least, that's what it sounds like to me.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Give me a big tablet, between 12 - 21 inches.
Give me a tablet that runs windows.
Give me a tablet that has a stylus, and turns off automatically touch display once the stylus goes out of it's enclosure.
Give me that, for less than 700 (would pay up to 1000 for a 21")
Let me clear one thing: I own an iPad. i wont replace it with an android tablet, and I doubt any potential iPad consumer will change it's mind towards an android tablet.
Artists, though, may still find an iPad problematic because finger drawing is... not cool, and I dont want to wear a glove, and the thing is too small to do proper art.
I also want to use my current art software for windows, photoshop included.
Asus, ironically, has something close Link, but its too expensive. They want 1050 for a 12" tablet. I'm tempted, but the price is just too high.
I want a tablet that will do things that Apple will just not aim for. Stop trying to sell android tablets to people that want iPads and start making tablets for people that want more than just an iPad!
1) You could also get a much more powerful desktop workstation for that, yet laptops and tablets still sell. Perhaps because they're targeted at different markets and uses.
2) Android is a real OS. It runs on more than half of the smartphones out there, and nearly all of the non-ipad tablets. It has the advantage of running properly on ARM chips (which require less power and produce less heat), without losing 90% of it's application base like Win8 for ARM does. (Win8 can be run on ARM systems, but the majority of Win8 compatible applications won't, as they require x86 architecture.) The application base available for Android is very large, with a marketplace that is much more developer friendly (and thus has more content) than the apple equivalent for iOS.
3) The top model only sells to obsessive geeks (like me. I admit it - I have the top model of the first generation) and is of no interest to the majority of buyers, who would purchase the lower end model (less memory and storage), for a much lower price.
Asus sold 1.5 million of the first Transformer in 2011. Granted, it's not an Apple-magnitude number, but then Asus ain't Apple either. And I bet it still translates to some nice profits.
The "mind share" argument is quite weak in tablet wars. Even though iOS may look as dominant as Windows was back in the day, it does not really translate to significant difference in apps - pretty much everything worthwhile on iOS has just as good implementations on Android (whereas vice versa is not always true because of limitations on third-party apps in iOS). So things like price, form factor and quality are more interesting. And Transformer, of all Android tablets, has a lot of unique things to offer.
Asus sold 1.5 million of the first Transformer in 2011.
Added on to this point is that Asus was sold out of the first Transformer for the first six months after it was released - stores that got them in stock ran out within days, and online retailers were severely into back-order. (My own order was placed as back-order number 3754 for that product, with that reseller. Had I been willing to do without the keyboard, I would have only been back-order number 2000 or so in a different list.) If Asus had been able to produce more than 1.5 million units, they would have sold them.
All in all, I would say the product was worthwhile and profitable for them to produce, and their corporate shareholders were well served. From market interest and past example, they will likely spend the first few months of the new Transformer also sold out and back-ordered.
First there aren't a lot of $750 ultrabooks that I'm seeing. A Samsung series 9 is more like $1000.
Second, even an ultrabook is going to be heavier and physically larger (especially when opened) than a tablet and the battery life won't be as good.
1. What is about this device that will attract the average, non-technical buyer? (How are all these awesome tech features useful)
As you've spotted, the public don't buy tablets on CPU/GPU power specs: tablet CPUs only come with two speeds: fast enough, or not fast enough.
The potential USP of this is the keyboard dock. However, methinks they need to get the price of the original Transformer plus the dock down to the iPad price of $499 rather than trying to sell on specs.
Must admit, the Asus tablet offerings have always looked more likely to tempt me away from an iPad to me than Samsung and Motorola's iPad clones - at least they're trying to distinguish themselves from Apple.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
"Somehow, in all the excitement over the iPad 2, OEMs have apparently forgotten that netbooks became popular precisely because they didn't cost as much as full size noteboooks."
Technology-wise, it looks like a great little device, but I just don't see it selling in worthwhile numbers. $499 for the tablet itself puts it squarely in "Why should I buy this instead of an iPad?" territory, and $650 for the tablet and keyboard puts it into "Why should I buy this and not a regular laptop?" land.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
It's a Transformer, so wouldn't that be an Energon Cube?
I can see the fnords!
And it'll likely fail to come close to the iPad's sales figures.
It's not about price and feature parity, it's about interface and usability. Maybe, maybe ICS won't suck like Honeycomb or BlackBerry Tablet OS both did out of the gate, but I'm not holding my breath. Google and the OEMs don't seem to want to sweat the details, and the details are important in this market, otherwise the tablet becomes a rarely-used toy.
We've piloted all three. The iPads are the only devices people still use; the Android devices and the PlayBooks were returned because people found them too frustrating to use versus a normal PC and/or a smartphone.
Consumers don't care about Super-X-Hyper-AMOLED screens, Tegra-5-General-Zod chipsets or Adobe Flash/Java VM/Lisp/REXX (hah!) support. They that it works and isn't annoying, and they'll forgive a spec sheet difference. Tablets are not PCs, and can't use the fifty-percent-more-megahertz tactic. Hopefully Asus and Google will learn this before they're firesaling these at a loss while Apple's selling less-capable hardware at a premium.
--srj/mmv
Well, TFA says 12 hours without dock, and 18 with the keyboard attached. Since they also claimed 9.5 hours without and 16 with dock for the first model, and mine actually does manage that level of battery life on a regular basis, there's a good chance that it's accurate.
Incidentally, the 16 hour battery life on mine involved actively using the tablet for the whole period, web surfing, playing angry birds and a few other games, downloading and watching a movie, transfering 600MB of music files via USB thumb drive and playing music for several hours, editing a spreadsheet, and doing programming on my server via ssh.
So make one as a project. There's a voltmeter and oscilloscope attachments for the iPad. Make a microcontroller interface.
The ASUS enrichment center would like to remind you that the companion core will never threaten you and, in fact, cannot speak. In the event that the companion core does speak, the ASUS enrichment center urges you to disregard its advice.
Is the Transformer's dockable keyboard any better than any of the inline Bluetooth options for the iPad et al?
Yes. There are three big differences.
First, the hinge lets the docked tablet fold - in other words, when docked, it works exactly like any netbook. Also, unlike the various "keyboard cases", the hinge actually locks the tablet in place, so this thing can be held on your lap while typing - again, exactly like a netbook. This (being able to use it and type on it on your lap) is probably the single biggest use case that I've found missing with all keyboard docks for other devices that I've seen.
The second difference is that the keyboard includes a trackpad. It's not obvious why it is important - all it gives you is a mouse pointer that can be moved around to operate controls - but I've found it to be quite convenient to use in lieu of the touchscreen when surfing websites where I'm actively writing (such as e.g. Slashdot) - since you no longer need to move hands from keyboard to screen and back again. It also shines when you use remote desktop software that is mouse-aware.
The third difference is that Transformer dock includes a battery pack which essentially doubles the battery life (to 15-16 hours). They've also made it right in that, if docked, the dock battery will discharge first, and only then the tablet battery.
Yeah, the cachet of the Kindle amongst ordinary people is really amazing. I've had all kinds of older relatives expressing an interest. That the Fire will be a success seems like a sure thing.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
How difficult/easy/impossible is it to actually put an archlinuxarm.org on it?
Because if its doable I'm sold on the Optimus. err... the Transformer Prime.
BTW: by doable I mean a permanent install, no dualboot / flashCard idiocy.
-- no sig today