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Asus Joins High Density Display Club With New Transformer Tablet
crookedvulture writes "The new iPad has received a lot of attention for its high-density display, but it's not the only tablet with extra pixels. Enter Asus' Transformer Prime Infinity, which has a 10.1" screen with a 1920x1200 resolution. The display doesn't look as good as the iPad's Retina panel, which has crisper text and better color reproduction. However, the Android-based Transformer has perks the iPad lacks, like an ultra-bright backlight, a Micro HDMI port, a microSD slot, and more internal storage. The Infinity is also compatible with an optional keyboard dock that adds six hours of battery life, a touchpad, a full-sized SD slot, and a standard USB port. The Transformer's tablet component is definitely no iPad-killer. When combined with the dock, though, the resulting hybrid offers a much more flexible computing platform."
Ok. I get it. You have to compare it to the defacto tablet, the iPad. But really? The summary is more opinion with a few marks of fact about the tablet, all comparing it to what the iPad does. Just say what the damn thing stands on in its own merits and let the reviewers give opinion. The summary comes off more as a damn review than a fucking news post. I haven't even checked the fucking article, because if the summary is any indication, this is a bullshit article compared to others out there on the same thing...
What's this obsession in the media with regards to consumer tech (phones, tablets, portable music players) in which products different to the current market leader are qualified as to whether or not that are a -killer? In the case of tablets, the iPad has its strength and weaknesses, and although it seems like a good all-round device it's not for everyone. Some people want more ports, more expandability, something a bit more like a portable computer than a portable appliance (which the iPad is marketed as). In this case it doesn't need to "kill" the market leader - it just has to offer something different that people want. In this way, we have choice.
Now of course it will be compared to the iPad, but what's this obsession that if you're not the market leader, you're not worth buying? If that were the case there'd be no market for Android phones, or even WM7 phones. Is there perhaps some deep-seated personal feeling that if you don't buy number one, you're by extension not a winner and instead a second-class individual? Or is it just the apps?
Most people on Slashdot are fucking idiots.
You can use any Bluetooth keyboard with the iPad and battery docks are a dime a dozen....
Because the keyboard dock turns it into an Android netbook, rather than a kludgy collection of knocked-together addons where you have to support the display with your knees?
Clearly, its more than meets the eye.
That's simply not true. I carry my laptop around with me many times without having it plugged in, even around the house. The circumstances are when you're using it as a portable computer instead of as a tablet--emphasis on portable--and not just as a lightweight desktop workstation.
The full size USB port is on the "lapdock." Once docked, it basically has a full keyboard (better than most netbooks I've used) and a full sized usb port. With a USB to Serial adapter, I use mine to connect to Cisco switches quite often.
finally the 16:9 fad is over. maybe soon i'll be able to replace my 15" WUXGA D830...
As an owner, in my experience the nice thing about the battery dock is that you don't *have* to be near an outlet. All the internals of the tablet are in the tablet itself, so the keyboard/battery dock is just that. A keyboard with a big battery. So you can juice it up overnight and drop it into your bag when you leave the next morning. For someone like me, a field engineer, that's a godsend. I never know when I'll be near an outlet. Now, admittedly, I may be a special case. But it's definitely nice for someone who's on the move quite a bit.
So pairing a Bluetooth keyboard and a using a stand makes it a "kludge"?
Uh, yes. Is this supposed to be a trick question?
And at $149, it's a super-affordable accessory and doesn't push the total price up into the range of really low-end ultrabooks that have the same form factor but are likely more powerful and more compatible with software that sort of user would actually be using.
Oh. Wait.
Yeah the resolution is great but I wouldn't go far as to say it is like holding a magazine page. The color gamut and contrast aren't there yet.
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Hardhead_7 is probably referring to the Prime Infinity's predecessor which uses the same "lapdock".
"However, the Android-based Transformer has perks the iPad lacks, like an ultra-bright backlight" The iPad 3 backlight is very bright. I doubt you could make a brighter display without having a negative affect.
No, it's a pretty good Android tablet and a not so good netbook.
Because along with a keyboard, it adds a track-pad, full size USB ports, "another" slot for storage expansion, and of course another full day battery. It also folds up nicely similar to a netbook for protection.
It's an actual accessory designed specifically for this particular tablet, not some 3rd party attachment designed to try and fill a void.
The keyboard and track-pad play nicely with the OS. The keyboard offers plenty of shortcuts for the OS and the track-pad offers a pointer -- which can be toggled on or off with a keyboard button; Android supports pointer input along with multi-toch unlike iOS.
And because it's Android, one can plug a hard-drive, thumb-drive, another keyboard, mouse, whatever into the added USB ports, and of course the tablet itself has Bluetooth support. So the doc makes this more than a tablet.
I own an Asus Transformer, iPad, and a few other tablets for reference. The iPad is a great for what it does, but for what I like to do, it falls way short of my Android tablets. Just adding on a Bluetooth keyboard or extending the battery to an iPad doesn't resolve its shortcomings.
I agree with you. I absolutely love my Transformer Prime for the fact that I can charge it overnight and use it all day without having to recharge.
I spend perhaps 3-4 days a week in my car, visiting clients and attending trade shows etc. I never have to worry about the charge on my Prime. Does email, Citrix client, word processing, spreadsheets etc.
I also recently flew to China. On a budget airline that had no personal entertainment options, for over 10 hours. I watched several hours of TV shows during the flight. When I landed I still had more than 50% battery remaining. I stayed in several hotels with no Wifi. They had free internet over Ethernet only. A $6 USB-Ethernet adapter later and I was away. Moreover I was able to load photos from my camera directly onto the tablet through the full sized SD card slot and show them to clients/friends/family on the larger tablet screen.
At night I just left the keyboard dock in my luggage and just carried the tablet around. Visited a cafe or a bar, read a novel, surf on free WiFi. No recharging needed because during the day I had depleted the keyboard battery and not the tablet battery.
There are many reasons one would choose this form factor. I love it.
I would go so far as to say that my TF101 is a pretty good Android tablet that can double as a pretty good Android netbook. Seriously, I do love my transformer . The screen is a bit hard to use as a touchpad while docked, but not really that tough to use, unless you have CTS. The keyboard, for me, more than makes up for the awkwardness of the keyboard. Oh, and if you REALLY need a pad, you just, you know, take it out of the dock. If this one improves on the TF101, so much the better in my book.
In which universe does "higher resolution than any of the current HD standards" equate to "barely HD"?
And a GPS dongle because the one that is built in is broken....
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Free-ASUS-Transformer-Prime-GPS-dongles-available-now_id29205
Did you read TFA? That was one of the things I specifically looked for them to address.
The Infinity's metal skin is similar to that of the Transformer Prime, whose shell was notorious for hampering GPS and Wi-Fi performance. See that little strip along the Infinity's top edge? That's a plastic piece designed to get along with wireless signals. Looks like it works, too; our Infinity's GPS picked up multiple satellites almost instantly, and it was connected to ten within seconds.
I thought we were comparing tablets, or netbooks/ultrabooks with a touch screen interface.
While interesting, what you linked to does not seem to have a touchscreen interface listed in the specs. HP only seems to offer a single touchscreen product for almost 3 times as much when you search their site.
I'm particularly interested in the touchscreen for some mobile employee use cases that we have. The Latitude XT tablet is the cheapest that I can find starting at $750. Without the dock, this new Transformer Prime is $499, considerably less than $750. That's an Android OS, but I have been looking into HTML5 to capture touch screen input.
"It's an actual accessory designed specifically for this particular tablet, not some 3rd party attachment designed to try and fill a void. "
Right because an accessory designed for the iPad is not designed specifically for the iPad....
It's actually the other way around really. The tablet is designed for the accessory, whereas an ipad is not. So the accessory then works quite a bit better with the tablet because the tablet was designed to use it.
The iPad 3 backlight is very bright. I doubt you could make a brighter display without having a negative affect.
Congratulations. You've just admitted you've never been outside.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
and don't forget the hours of extra battery life :)
This is the sig that says NI (again)
There are three important differences here, somewhat related.
First is that the dock has battery cells inside - enough so to almost double the total battery life. It also charges the tablet when it's docked, rather than running it directly, so you can, for example, use the tablet alone for several hours, then use it for another hour docked, and then undock it and have its battery charged almost to full again.
Second is that the way the tablet attaches to the dock is a hinge that secures it tight and itself requires effort to rotate - strong enough to hold the tablet in place vertically or at an angle. In short, just like your typical laptop hinge. Which means that it does not require any support other than any surface you can conveniently put the dock itself on - such as your laps. Which allows it to be used exactly like a laptop, with convenient typing without having any deck or other flat hard surface on the right level.
Third is that the dock has not just the keyboard in it, but also a trackpad. You might ask why you'd want one on a touchscreen device - well, for one, it's very handy if you're doing something that involves a lot of text input and only occasional tap - such as editing a text document - because swiping the finger on the trackpad is much faster than getting your hand off the keyboard and tapping on the screen every time. The other reason is that it allows you to do things that are clumsy to do with touchscreen, but are much better with improved precision of the trackpad. Again, text editing is better like that, but also RDP/VNC, and many games, especially if you also run DOSBox.
Frankly, I'm more interested in the upcoming Win8 Intel version (Transformer Book). Especially the Core i5 ones with 13" and 14" screens... this would actually make it a very nice laptop that could completely replace the need to lug the real one around. And, of course, you could always dual-boot whatever on it - even Android.
You have asked this question in other threads, and you have already got a dozen replies explaining it in detail.
None of the docks for iPad - not the Apple ones, and not third-party ones - let you convert iPad into true laptop form factor. All of them require a hard flat surface to rest the dock on, or else you can juggle the top-heavy thing on your laps and pray that it doesn't tilt hard enough to fall tablet first.
There's exactly one company that tried making a dock that would have all the same exact features as Transformer for an iPad - it's called CruxLOADED, and it has been "in development" for over a year now, so you can't actually buy it. There's also Brydge which is almost there, but it doesn't have a trackpad (and even if it did, iOS doesn't know how to use it properly - which is also likely why CruxLOADED hasn't been released).
Oops, you're right on both counts. First, I meant to say 28% more pixels and 7% more pixels. Second, yes, the aspect ratio of my anus is definitely different than the iPad.
Cheers. :)
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
I have one of the new Logitech Ultra thin keyboards. This is pretty slick and looks as though it was designed for use with the iPad. It uses the magnets like the dock connect to hold it in place. It's stable on a lap or bed or sofa. It's much easier to hold than the iPad on it's own. When folded up it looks like the silver back of the iPad over the front.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00835UQK8/ref=asc_df_B00835UQK88477193?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&tag=googlecouk06-21&linkCode=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B00835UQK8
It's not quite a dock, but it certainly seems well designed. Apple couldn't have done a much better job if they'd designed it themselves along with the iPad.
Jason
There are three transformer models already; the original transformer (which I have), the prime which replaced it with better specs (tegra 3 vs tegra 2, better camera, more storage), and the transformer pad which is the cheaper version of the prime with a plastic case rather than aluminium. I think they all use virtually the same keyboard dock, though they're available in different colours to match the finish of the tablet.
Given the prime infinity is basically a prime with much higher res screen, it's not hard to speculate what using the prime infinity will be like.
Personally, I much prefer my original gen transformer to the ipad 2 we have in the office now it's running ICS. Adding the dock makes it a real netbook - ideal for holding in one hand and typing with the other, and plugging in standard usb-serial adapters for configuring old switches over serial with. And then I take the dock away, and it's a tablet for taking meeting notes with.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
The prime's dock is different from the transformer original. It's thinner and lighter, though according to reviews this does come at the expense of feeling flimsier.
The form factor is perfect, the price seems about right, but they offer no mobile connectivity. This is a deal breaker is I want it precisely for browsing during the commute as a tablet, with the added flexibility of the keyboard and extra battery everywhere else.
Unfortunately ASUS has been reluctant to offer 3G connectivity in all the Transformer line, first announcing that it wouldn't be a 3G version and later offering it delayed after several months. Come on guys, the high-end line should come with 3G from the beginning.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
"HD" for TVs is 1920 pixels wide and 1080 tall. This asus is 1920x1200. This means that it can just barely play HD footage, with not additional pixels.
So that extra 1920x120 space contains no pixels at all?
... the aspect ratio of my anus is definitely different than the iPad.
Cheers. :)
Yeah, don't go sticking any square pegs into that round hole.
Great! So on an iPad all HD video has to be scaled up to a different resolution resulting in a loss of perceivable sharpness, whereas on this Asus it can be displayed at a perfect 1:1 pixel correspondence.
I know which I'd prefer.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.