Best LCD TV Reviews

This transitional review of the Asus Transformer Pad TF300 is based on the transcendental wisdom of our transatlantc sister site CNET.com's Eric Franklin, who awarded it 3.5 stars. We're champing at the bit to transcribe our own tra(i)ns of thought -- okay, that's taken it too far -- when we get hold of our own Pad.

Eric's opinions have been summarised below and mixed with our own impressions from our hands-on preview of the Pad in early March. It will hit Currys and PC World early May, so expect a full UK review soon. The three-and-a-half-star score is taken from the US -- we'll transpose
our updated rating depending on whether our reviewer is feeling all
benign-Autobot or evil-Decepticon, when they grapple with this shape-shifting slab. 

The Asus Transformer Prime was one of Andrew Hoyle's favourite tablets of 2011, offering an excellent screen and a searingly fast quad-core processor. The Transformer Pad TF300 offers the same chip, a similar screen and that all-important keyboard dock -- for £100 less than the Prime's £500 asking price.

Design and build

If you're at all familiar with the Transformer Prime then the TF300 won't hold too many surprises. It's a 10-inch slate that clips into a keyboard dock to become, essentially, a high-powered Android netbook.

The TF300 isn't intended to be quite as premium as the Prime -- or indeed the more recent Infinity 700 -- so there are a few cutbacks in the design. The tablet itself is around 10mm thick, which isn't as svelte as other tablets on the market, and it's more hefty than the 8.5mm of the Infinity.

Whether you'll ever notice the extra millimetre and a half is debatable, but those of you who crave the slimmest, most sleek gadgets on the market would be better served by the Prime or the Infinity.

The TF300 also dispenses with the metal back casing. Instead, it offers a plastic shell. It's less elegant than the metal backs, but it still looks pretty nice. The plastic is firm and offers very little flex when poked, making it feel very secure against the odd knock and bump. It's also been given the same brushed finish as its metal cousins but it's a much rougher texture, which can make it feel a little scratchy.

One advantage of the plastic back is that you get a greater choice of colours. The TF300 comes in white, red and black, all of which Andrew found in his hands-on to look rather snazzy. I'd have no qualms at all about pulling one of these out in a stylish bar.

The right side of the back houses a 1.5-inch speaker grille slit in place of the basic speaker holes on the Prime. The speakers produced fuller, louder sound than the Prime. Even at maximum volume, there was little distortion and no tinniness.

You get the same slots as featured on the Prime, including a micro-HDMI input, a microSD slot, and a volume rocker that sticks out more than on the Prime. A power/sleep button protrudes from the top edge.

The micro-HDMI port allows you to connect the tablet to an HDTV or monitor and play full-screen Android games using Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game pads, as well as supported wireless game pads through the use of an USB dongle. However, the USB dongle requires a full USB port, which requires the keyboard to be docked.

While the micro-HDMI cable on the US review model easily plugged into the TF300, moving the tablet around, even a little, dropped the signal to the monitor.

The TF300 comes in either 16GB or 32GB storage sizes and has Bluetooth, a gyroscope, an accelerometer and GPS.

Keyboard dock

Screen

The Prime had a Super IPS+ (that's marketing jargon for 'really, really bright') display that was almost dazzling enough to burn your retinas out. Alas, the useful Super IPS+ (okay, I'll spell it out, 'In-Plane Switching') mode, which brightened the Prime's screen for easier sunlight reading, has been abandoned on the TF300 for a regular IPS display.

Aside from having lower brightness than the Prime, the quality of the display is on a par, with wide viewing angles, a satisfying contrast ratio, and no visible color tint problems. Don't expect iPad levels of clarity or Galaxy Tab 7.7 black level depth, but it's still excellent compared with most tablets.

The display feels more responsive than the Prime's when swiping through screens, nearly reaching iPad levels of sensitivity.

Software

The TF300 is running on Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), which is the latest version of Google's Android operating system. It's designed to provide a unified experience on both tablets and smart phones. The original Prime shipped with Android 3.2 Honeycomb, but can now be updated to ICS.

Visually, there's very little difference between Honeycomb and ICS. You still get the multiple home screens to swipe through and plonk down live widgets and apps and there's the same list of apps in the menus. It's an attractive interface and one that's rather easy to get to grips with. Android is still playing catch-up with Apple's iOS when it comes to app support though.

The US version features a File Manager that accesses the TF300's root directory, for easy and organised access to your files. MyNet lets you stream content to DLNA-enabled devices on your network, and MyLibrary is an e-reader for reading and purchasing new books. SuperNote lets you write notes with your fingers and you can draw graphs and take pictures or video right from the interface.

A few apps randomly locked up, but nothing a quick app force-stop command couldn't fix.

Performance

Apps like the Marvel comics app are beginning to take advantage of the Tegra 3's extra horsepower by offering smoother transitions between panels in digital comics. While not quite matching the iPad's smoothness, with some judder evident, it outperforms the Prime.

The Pad's web speeds in the default browser were a few seconds slower than the iPad when visiting identical sites, but again it beat the Prime.

Using the Riptide GP games performance benchmark, the Pad's frame rates matched the Prime, approaching 60fps. The frame rate feels lower than the iPad, however, and after playing the game on the iPad's high-resolution retina screen, it was difficult to go back to the Pad's lower 1,280x800 pixels.

Using the Speedtest app to benchmark download speeds, the Pad was consistently quicker (by about 5Mbps) than the Prime and was only about 3Mbps behind the iPad.

The Pad's battery lasted over the course of about two days, matching the Prime's battery life. Asus claims 10 hours with the standalone battery and 15 hours with the keyboard dock attached.

You can pick whether you want the Tegra 3 CPU to operate in normal,
balanced or power-saving modes. In the former, the CPU runs at full
speed. Balanced mode and power-saving mode curtail the CPU
speed to save on battery life -- a useful feature that was also in place
on the Prime.

Camera

Conclusion