Background: I have been waiting for this Tablet/hybrid for nearly a year now. I was going to buy the Prime but heard they were bringing the Infinity out and instantly wanted the HD Screen. I have had the tablet for a few days no and love it even though it has a few imperfections.
Screen:
There has to be no doubt that the screen is beautiful. Web pages look stunning, pictures taken by decent cameras (DSLR’s) are gorgeous. I haven’t managed to load any full HD Videos on there but Youtube HD videos look really really good. I was very annoyed and disappointed when I got the tablet out of the box and turned in on though. There is some slight Screen Bleading (when the device is on and showing a dark or black screen, you can see a white haze.) This is only visible in dark lighting and I never notice it now using the tablet day to day (note: this is a known problem). Like other reviews I haven’t compared the screen against an iPad 3 but have looked at one in the past and I can’t really see much difference. The Infinity is much better when the IPS+ is on(it is so bright is hurts your eyes in low light) and make the tablet usable in bright light. Reading in the Dark on the lowest light setting is bearable but it’s better to have a light on in the back ground to not damage your eyes. At the moment the internet and video’s are not optimised for over 1080p quality so at this moment in time, there isn’t much use for the iPad screen. Also, 16:9 is much much better for watching movies, you get to see a lot more video and less letter boxing. Note: The iPad screen has a higher resolution because the screen is smaller. The infinity would be the same resolution if the infinity had a 9.7 inch screen.
Processor and Battery:
I got the Jelly Bean update as soon as I turned it on so I was over the moon and using Google Now straight away. Brilliant but the voice detection was a bit sporadic and didn’t search the right things even though I was in a silent room (maybe a update is needed). The processor is stunningly fast. However, there is a bit of lag now and again. This maybe due to the fact the processor is switching from it’s eco 5th core to all for Cores. The more you work with it, the quicker it gets. It loves multi-tasking. There also is a bit of lag when rotating the screen on homepages, but I do have widgets like Gmail, Youtube, Books and Weather. iPad doesn’t have that to content with because it’s boring. Gaming, and watching videos are so smooth it’s is almost unbelievable that heavy games like Dead Trigger can run so smooth on something that isn’t a Xbox or PS3. The battery life is brilliant I have been on it each evening and it won’t drop below 50% before the end of the night (a good 6 hours). I’ll update the review a few weeks down the line.
Connectivity:
Every time I use this Tablet, I ask myself ‘Why would anyone buy a iPad’. Yes the ipad is £50 less for the same size storage. But that extra £50 gets you a brilliant keyboard. with a SD card and USB slots. I pulled the SD Card out of my DSLR and put it straight into the dock (when connected to the tablet), not having to put the onto the computer then transfer them to a device. Also, I have transferred loads of Videos/Pictures/PDF’s on to the tablet by using a USB stick and the brilliant File Manager App (no plugging it into Itunes and waiting for it to sync everything). The extra £50 gives you the ability to expand the memory as well. If in a year time you have filled the 64GB, just go buy a 32GB Micro SD card for a £20 and your sorted (I have heard rumors on forums of a 64GB mircro SD being supported. So for a total of an extra £70 you can have a 96GB tablet. Finally, there is a micro HDMI which I have not tried yet and will update once I have tested it as another review has experienced problems.
I think you can tell, I love Android but this has justified my claim that the iPad is wasted with the lack of connectivity and dominated by Apple wanting to control everything (through itunes).
I was shocked by the lack of compatibly apps and apps that aren’t optimized for tablets. This should improve with more tablets with Higher res screens being produced. However, the iPad wins that section by a long long way.
A few brilliant apps are: BBC News, TED (not the Movie), IMDB, Sketchbook Pro, Netflix, Chrome (comes Pre-intalled), All the Google Apps work and look brilliant.
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I bought this to drag myself kicking and screaming into the 2010’s – I haven’t owned a tablet previously, and although I work in computing I’ve never managed to get to grips properly with mobile phones, so my Android phone hadn’t led to a whole lot of experience with Android. I was therefore pleasantly surprised with almost everything about this tablet. It was far easier to get it up and running than any PC I’ve ever owned, and it’s generally been pretty easy to work it out myself without having to resort to something terrible like actually reading an instruction manual. The main thing I love about it is that HOW you use it is extremely flexible and pretty optional. There’s cloud storage, which you can use, or not – being from a computing background, I’m naturally paranoid, so all my data is on SD cards or memory sticks, which is fine too as there’s a card slot on the docking keyboard, as well as a full sized USB port, and a micro-SD slot on the tablet. It comes with a fair few apps installed, but, since it’s an Android tablet, if you’d prefer different apps then there are a world of them available. The pre-installed proprietary app for note-taking is so, so impressive, combining the extremely responsive touch-screen with the functionality of a word processing app and even allowing you to pop pictures taken with the pretty decent onboard camera into it. I wish I’d had something like that when I was a student! I’ve had it a month now and am still learning (a process slowed by the fact that I spent the first fortnight of ownership playing Angry Birds almost exclusively!) but I absolutely love it. So, the answer to the big question – how does it compare to the iPad? Like most people, I was torn when trying to decide what to get. To i or not to i, that is the question. My sister went the i-route, and there’s no doubt that an i-pad is a beautiful thing. When you look at just the tablet portion of the TF700, they are visually very similar. They weigh similar amounts (the Asus is actually marginally lighter) and are similar sizes. I think that this particular Asus tablet is equally user-friendly to an iPad – I gather that not all Android tablets have been able to compete with Apple in that respect. The battery life for the iPad seems to be a bit longer than for the TF700 tablet only, but with the keyboard dock providing extra battery, the Asus package goes for longer overall without charging. The only slight reservation I have is the weight. It fits in my shoulder bag nicely, but with the weight of all the other stuff I carry around as well, if I’m carrying the tablet AND keyboard then after a while it’s still too darn heavy. The tablet on its own is no problem as it’s pretty light, so I’d like to see Asus find a way to reduce the weight of the keyboard portion (without losing the very handy extra battery life that it provides) by the next version. An ipad with a lightweight wireless keyboard would weigh less but not provide the battery or (famously) any way of connecting USB devices to it. Overall, though, the argument was always between having Apple’s beautiful hardware and fluid use but having to put up with only using Apple apps, versus other manufacturer’s less beautiful construction and user interface but having access to any app that has ever been conceived of, including thousands of free ones. I chose this tablet because I thought it sounded like I could have the best of both worlds, and I’m not disappointed.
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This review is from: Asus Transformer TF700 10.1-inch Tablet with Keyboard Dock (Gold) (nVIDIA Tegra 3 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM, 64GB eMMC, WLAN, BT, Front Webcam, Rear Webcam, Android 4.0 ICS) (Personal Computers)
I wanted a lightweight netbook/tablet that i could take when travelling, was lightweight, which I could use as an e-reader as well as able to write documents on that I could send as e-mail attachments and use to view and then transfer photos from my camera to memory sticks as i tend to take a lot of photos and film when away. I had tried the Prime, but returned it because its wi-fi connectivity was very poor and it was important for me that I would be able to connect with any possible source anywhere. I did not want the newer cheaper transformer as I also needed to be able to use it in daylight and the TF700 promised a screen that could be read in daylight.
I have given this 4 rather than 5 stars for 2 reasons. The first is that I am a bit disappointed that the screen is not as easy to read in daylight as hoped.It has a very glossy and reflective screen which is readable, but not very comfortable. The other reason is that it has a programme called Polaris which is meant to be compatible with Word. Instead of sending postcards I like to write about my experiences and send them as an attachment to friends. It did work quite well except that it seems to have no spell-check and it lost its formatting in the process and words were split between lines making it difficult to read. There may be a solution to that and I would be grateful if anyone can tell me what it is or suggest another programme I could use.
Apart from those two gripes, i think it is an amazingly versatile tablet. I like the keyboard, which is comfortable to use and has a USB port unlike other tablets. I love the fact that I can carry it around without the keyboard and it is then as light and flexible as the best of other tablets on the market. So over-all very pleased.
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Fantastic but not perfect (4.5),
Background: I have been waiting for this Tablet/hybrid for nearly a year now. I was going to buy the Prime but heard they were bringing the Infinity out and instantly wanted the HD Screen. I have had the tablet for a few days no and love it even though it has a few imperfections.
Screen:
There has to be no doubt that the screen is beautiful. Web pages look stunning, pictures taken by decent cameras (DSLR’s) are gorgeous. I haven’t managed to load any full HD Videos on there but Youtube HD videos look really really good. I was very annoyed and disappointed when I got the tablet out of the box and turned in on though. There is some slight Screen Bleading (when the device is on and showing a dark or black screen, you can see a white haze.) This is only visible in dark lighting and I never notice it now using the tablet day to day (note: this is a known problem). Like other reviews I haven’t compared the screen against an iPad 3 but have looked at one in the past and I can’t really see much difference. The Infinity is much better when the IPS+ is on(it is so bright is hurts your eyes in low light) and make the tablet usable in bright light. Reading in the Dark on the lowest light setting is bearable but it’s better to have a light on in the back ground to not damage your eyes. At the moment the internet and video’s are not optimised for over 1080p quality so at this moment in time, there isn’t much use for the iPad screen. Also, 16:9 is much much better for watching movies, you get to see a lot more video and less letter boxing. Note: The iPad screen has a higher resolution because the screen is smaller. The infinity would be the same resolution if the infinity had a 9.7 inch screen.
Processor and Battery:
I got the Jelly Bean update as soon as I turned it on so I was over the moon and using Google Now straight away. Brilliant but the voice detection was a bit sporadic and didn’t search the right things even though I was in a silent room (maybe a update is needed).
The processor is stunningly fast. However, there is a bit of lag now and again. This maybe due to the fact the processor is switching from it’s eco 5th core to all for Cores. The more you work with it, the quicker it gets. It loves multi-tasking. There also is a bit of lag when rotating the screen on homepages, but I do have widgets like Gmail, Youtube, Books and Weather. iPad doesn’t have that to content with because it’s boring. Gaming, and watching videos are so smooth it’s is almost unbelievable that heavy games like Dead Trigger can run so smooth on something that isn’t a Xbox or PS3.
The battery life is brilliant I have been on it each evening and it won’t drop below 50% before the end of the night (a good 6 hours). I’ll update the review a few weeks down the line.
Connectivity:
Every time I use this Tablet, I ask myself ‘Why would anyone buy a iPad’. Yes the ipad is £50 less for the same size storage. But that extra £50 gets you a brilliant keyboard. with a SD card and USB slots. I pulled the SD Card out of my DSLR and put it straight into the dock (when connected to the tablet), not having to put the onto the computer then transfer them to a device. Also, I have transferred loads of Videos/Pictures/PDF’s on to the tablet by using a USB stick and the brilliant File Manager App (no plugging it into Itunes and waiting for it to sync everything). The extra £50 gives you the ability to expand the memory as well. If in a year time you have filled the 64GB, just go buy a 32GB Micro SD card for a £20 and your sorted (I have heard rumors on forums of a 64GB mircro SD being supported. So for a total of an extra £70 you can have a 96GB tablet.
Finally, there is a micro HDMI which I have not tried yet and will update once I have tested it as another review has experienced problems.
I think you can tell, I love Android but this has justified my claim that the iPad is wasted with the lack of connectivity and dominated by Apple wanting to control everything (through itunes).
I was shocked by the lack of compatibly apps and apps that aren’t optimized for tablets. This should improve with more tablets with Higher res screens being produced. However, the iPad wins that section by a long long way.
A few brilliant apps are: BBC News, TED (not the Movie), IMDB, Sketchbook Pro, Netflix, Chrome (comes Pre-intalled), All the Google Apps work and look brilliant.
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|Better than I thought,
I bought this to drag myself kicking and screaming into the 2010’s – I haven’t owned a tablet previously, and although I work in computing I’ve never managed to get to grips properly with mobile phones, so my Android phone hadn’t led to a whole lot of experience with Android. I was therefore pleasantly surprised with almost everything about this tablet. It was far easier to get it up and running than any PC I’ve ever owned, and it’s generally been pretty easy to work it out myself without having to resort to something terrible like actually reading an instruction manual. The main thing I love about it is that HOW you use it is extremely flexible and pretty optional. There’s cloud storage, which you can use, or not – being from a computing background, I’m naturally paranoid, so all my data is on SD cards or memory sticks, which is fine too as there’s a card slot on the docking keyboard, as well as a full sized USB port, and a micro-SD slot on the tablet. It comes with a fair few apps installed, but, since it’s an Android tablet, if you’d prefer different apps then there are a world of them available. The pre-installed proprietary app for note-taking is so, so impressive, combining the extremely responsive touch-screen with the functionality of a word processing app and even allowing you to pop pictures taken with the pretty decent onboard camera into it. I wish I’d had something like that when I was a student! I’ve had it a month now and am still learning (a process slowed by the fact that I spent the first fortnight of ownership playing Angry Birds almost exclusively!) but I absolutely love it.
So, the answer to the big question – how does it compare to the iPad? Like most people, I was torn when trying to decide what to get. To i or not to i, that is the question. My sister went the i-route, and there’s no doubt that an i-pad is a beautiful thing. When you look at just the tablet portion of the TF700, they are visually very similar. They weigh similar amounts (the Asus is actually marginally lighter) and are similar sizes. I think that this particular Asus tablet is equally user-friendly to an iPad – I gather that not all Android tablets have been able to compete with Apple in that respect. The battery life for the iPad seems to be a bit longer than for the TF700 tablet only, but with the keyboard dock providing extra battery, the Asus package goes for longer overall without charging. The only slight reservation I have is the weight. It fits in my shoulder bag nicely, but with the weight of all the other stuff I carry around as well, if I’m carrying the tablet AND keyboard then after a while it’s still too darn heavy. The tablet on its own is no problem as it’s pretty light, so I’d like to see Asus find a way to reduce the weight of the keyboard portion (without losing the very handy extra battery life that it provides) by the next version. An ipad with a lightweight wireless keyboard would weigh less but not provide the battery or (famously) any way of connecting USB devices to it. Overall, though, the argument was always between having Apple’s beautiful hardware and fluid use but having to put up with only using Apple apps, versus other manufacturer’s less beautiful construction and user interface but having access to any app that has ever been conceived of, including thousands of free ones. I chose this tablet because I thought it sounded like I could have the best of both worlds, and I’m not disappointed.
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|A useful and versatile tablet,
I wanted a lightweight netbook/tablet that i could take when travelling, was lightweight, which I could use as an e-reader as well as able to write documents on that I could send as e-mail attachments and use to view and then transfer photos from my camera to memory sticks as i tend to take a lot of photos and film when away. I had tried the Prime, but returned it because its wi-fi connectivity was very poor and it was important for me that I would be able to connect with any possible source anywhere. I did not want the newer cheaper transformer as I also needed to be able to use it in daylight and the TF700 promised a screen that could be read in daylight.
I have given this 4 rather than 5 stars for 2 reasons. The first is that I am a bit disappointed that the screen is not as easy to read in daylight as hoped.It has a very glossy and reflective screen which is readable, but not very comfortable. The other reason is that it has a programme called Polaris which is meant to be compatible with Word. Instead of sending postcards I like to write about my experiences and send them as an attachment to friends. It did work quite well except that it seems to have no spell-check and it lost its formatting in the process and words were split between lines making it difficult to read. There may be a solution to that and I would be grateful if anyone can tell me what it is or suggest another programme I could use.
Apart from those two gripes, i think it is an amazingly versatile tablet. I like the keyboard, which is comfortable to use and has a USB port unlike other tablets. I love the fact that I can carry it around without the keyboard and it is then as light and flexible as the best of other tablets on the market. So over-all very pleased.
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