5 Reasons Why You’d Love the Asus Transformer Prime

By | 15 February, 2012

Asus has always tried to carve a niche of its own. They started off with the netbooks back in 2007 and they’re doing it again in the tablet market by when they introduced the Asus Transformer line.

The Transformer Prime is a second-generation tablet from Asus and the very first one to sport a quad-core processor which is powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 3 chip. To cap it off, Asus was also able to rush the update of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich right out of the box.

This makes the Transformer Prime one of the most unique and sought-after Android tablet, despite the popularity of Apple’s iPad2 and Samsung’s efforts to flood the market with over half a dozen Galaxy Tabs.

After getting one of the early releases of the Transformer Prime and playing with it for about a week now, I am more convinced that it’s one of the tablets to beat this year.

Here are five reasons why you’d love the Asus Transformer Prime:

1) It’s an Android tablet and a netbook in one. One of the most glaring charms of the Transformer Prime is that it comes with a detachable keyboard dock. This allows you to use the tablet for more efficient productivity work. Nothing still beats a physical keyboard when you are writing a really long article.

2) Exceptional battery life. The tablet alone does fine in terms of battery life but once you combine it with the keyboard dock, you’re all set for an almost 18-hours of work without plugging the tablet to a wall socket to recharge. This is great when you’re travelling or on very long flights.

3) Large storage and expansion slots. Not only do you get a 32GB internal storage (for the base model, 64GB for the higher model), you also have the option for another 64GB via the microSD card on the tablet and another option for 64GB more via the standard SD card on the keyboard dock. That’s 150GB of on-board storage there at your disposal so you’re not contrained to store a huge collection of HD movies.

4) Super IPS+ display. While Super AMOLED Plus might be getting a lot of attention lately, Super IPS+ also offers as much in terms of quality, crispness, clarity and brightness on a display screen. This is great even for the outdoors.

5) Ice Cream Sandwich. The Asus Transformer Prime is among the very first few tablets available in the market that runs on Android 4.0. This offers an improved UI, more efficient performance and additional features for the tablet.

I’m not even going to mention how thin, well-designed and gorgeous this tablet is.

Asus Transformer Prime TF201:

  • 10.1″ Super IPS+ display @ 1280×800 pixels
  • Gorilla Glass Display
  • NVidia Tegra 3 1.6 GHz quad-core processor
  • 32GB and 64GB internal storage
  • 1GB DDR2 RAM
  • 1.2MP front-facing camera
  • 8MP autofocus camera with LED flash
  • 3.5mm mic & headphone combo jack
  • micro HDMI port
  • micro SD card slot
  • USB 2.0 port (in dock)
  • SD Card slot (in dock)
  • WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
  • Bluetooth 2.1 w/ EDR
  • up to 18 hours of battery life (w/ dock)

Google Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich

The Transformer Prime is not without any shortcoming. For one, Asus has decided not to include an option for a 3G SIM slot so you’re left WiFi connectivity only. That shouldn’t stop you from getting one of those pocket WiFi for mobile connectivity.

In any case, the Prime definitely offers a lot that not many other tablets can do or match. Besides, it’s got a quad-core Tegra 3 processor that should make the tablet still competitive and up-to-par even after a years time.



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