[Head-To-Head] ASUS Transformer Prime Vs. Acer Iconia Tab A510

Last week, I threw the Acer A510 and the ASUS TF300 in the ring together for a head-to-head battle. After claiming the A510 as the victor, several readers wanted to know how it compares to the Transformer Prime (referred to as the TF201 from here on out). Since you probably already know what a head-to-head is all about, let's just get right to it.

First off, let's look at the hardware specs of each:

10.1-inch 1280x800 TFT display10.1-inch 1280x800 Super IPS+ display1.4GHz (single-core)/1.3GHz (multi-core) quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor1.4GHz (single-core)/1.3GHz (multi-core) quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 processor8MP f/2.4 rear and 1.2MP front3.5mm headphone, microSD, microHDMI, and microUSB3.5mm headphone, microSD, microHDMI, and ASUS proprietaryAndroid 4.0.3 with minor ASUS tweaks6.9" x 10.2" x 0.43", 1.54 lbs.7.1" x 10.4" x 0.33", 1.29 lbs.When it comes to any portable device, one of the first things that stands out is the display. Is it vibrant? How is the color reproduction? What about viewing angles? For many, the answers to these questions can be what makes the decision to buy a specific tablet.

 

The Acer A510's TFT display is just that: a TFT display. That doesn't make it bad, but it's not what I would call fantastic, either. The colors are slightly washed out, blacks aren't as dark as they could be, and whites/light grays have a slight blue tint. Still, the viewing angles are good, and the brightness isn't bad all. In a nutshell, it's definitely not the worst display I've ever seen, but it's not the best, either.

On the other hand, the ASUS TF201's Super IPS+ display is crazy good. The colors are vibrant, and blacks are black; whites/light grays, however, are a bit on the dull side. The viewing angles are also excellent - colors looks just as vivid at 45-70 degrees as they do dead on, regardless of which way you turn the device. And, being a Super IPS+ panel, it's insanely bright - 600 nits, to be exact. When in Super IPS+ mode at maximum brightness, the A510 can't hold a candle to the TF201 in terms of brightness. In standard IPS mode, however, the two are comparable.

Winner: TF201

As noted above, the TF201's processor is clocked 100MHz faster than the A510's, in both single-core and multi-core mode. How does this translate into real world performance? Not much different, actually.

Update: The TF201 and A510 actually run at the same clock speed (1.4GHz single-core; 1.3GHz multi-core), there was just a bit of miscommunication that made me think otherwise.

We went ahead and threw some synthetic benchmarks at each tablets, so here's a quick look at those.

The ASUS TF201 was in "performance mode" for all benchmark tests. 

Left: Acer A510; Right: ASUS TF201

 

Left: Acer A510; Right: ASUS TF201

 

Left: Acer A510; Right: ASUS TF201

By request, I ran a few benches that test the internal storage speed. The results are below; the first set is is the Databse I/O and SD Card I/O (which, in this case, is the internal storage of each) from AnTuTu. The second set of images is from an SD card benching app called AndroBench.

 

 

Left: Acer A510; Right: ASUS TF201

During the read/write speed tests, there was a lot of inconsistency in the TF201's results. On some occasions, it was very fast, but on others, it slowed to a crawl. The A510, on the other hand, produced similar results with each test.

As you can see, the TF201 smokes the A510 in most of the benchmarks. However, as we all know, benchmarks aren't everything.

In fact, when it comes to real-world use, the A510 out-performs the TF201 at nearly every task. For example, I fired up the Play Store on both devices, navigated to a game (Farm Invasion USA) and hit the install button at the exact same time. Both devices downloaded the file and started the installation process at the same time, and that's where the main difference came into play: the A510 finished installing the app a full 20 seconds before the TF201. Similarly, when launching Play Music at the exact same time, the A510 had the app loaded and ready to use at least five seconds before the TF201. This happens in nearly ever scenario I can think of.

Of course, that's not to say the TF201 is slow by any means, just that the A510 does things more efficiently, despite being at a disadvantage on paper. Since the benchmarks show the TF201 is capable of being a powerhouse, though, I'm going to give these devices a tie on performance.

Winner: Tie

This is probably the most difficult portion of the comparison, as both tablets feel incredibly well-made. There is no give in either, the buttons have very little play about them, and the materials, while different, are bot quite nice (for the most part).

 

Left: A closer look at the texture back of the A510; Right: A few of the scratches on the TF201

However, there are definitely some things to take into consideration when looking at these two devices. Firstly, the TF201 is made entirely of aluminum, so it not only feels incredibly high-end, but it has the look to fit. That class isn't without its downfalls, though. As you may know, Aluminum is a soft metal, so it's incredibly lightweight, yet sturdy. The downside to that, though, is that it scratches extremely easily. The back of my TF201 is covered in tiny scratches, most of which I have no clue how got there. When held in the right light, you can see every one of them, which is exceedingly annoying. Not only that, but it stays quite cold to the touch all the time; not a huge deal, but not ideal, either.

The back of the A510, however, is made of a very nice feeling textured plastic. It's also worth noting that, due to its plastic back, the A510 gets quite a bit warmer thank the TF201 during processor-intensive tasks. It's definitely not hot enough to cause any physical harm, but you'll know when the tablet is working hard. Still, even though it doesn't scream high-end like the TF201 does, the lack of scratching and cold feel is worth the tradeoff to me.

Winner: A510

 

Left: A510; Right: TF201

Both devices have the standard ports: 3.55mm headphone jack, microSD, and microHDMI. They also have the standard wireless connections: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, etc. However, the A510 charges over a microUSB port, whereas the TF201 has a proprietary port. What does that really mean, in terms of functionality, though? It means you can attach the A510 to the computer with the same cable you use on your phone (I keep a microUSB cable plugged into my PC all the time); it also means that, with the right AC adapter, can you travel with one cable for both phone and tablet, instead of needing separate cables for each. Should this be the deciding factor on which tablet you buy? Definitely not, but it's still nice to know.

The A510 also comes with a USB host adapter cable that plugs into the microUSB port so you can use things like external hard drives, mice, game controllers, keyboards, and more with the tablet. In order to do the same thing with the TF201, you need the keyboard dock, which is an extra $100-150. Of course, the dock also brings a full-size SD card slot, an internal battery that boosts the TF201's battery life rather substantially, and a very useful keyboard/touchpad. This A510 doesn't have a comparable accessory, so the TF201 does stand alone in that regard.

In terms of connectivity, the A510 definitely has broader range of Wi-Fi coverage, thanks to its plastic back. Similarly, the GPS works flawlessly right out of the box. The TF201's GPS and Wi-Fi issues are no secret, and even though ASUS has offered a free fix for GPS, there are just too many things stacked against the TF201 in this section.

Winner: A510

Since the TF201 has three varying modes of performance - power saving, balanced, and performance - it also has varying levels of battery life, depending on which mode you're in. With balanced mode, you'll get about 7(ish) hours of battery life with moderate use (browsing, email, social networking, light gaming) and 5.5-6 hours or so of heavy use. In Performance mode, you can expect those times to be about an hour or so less; adversely, you can probably get close to 9 hours of light usage with power-saving mode on, and 7.5-8 hours of heavier usage. Of course, this is with the display in IPS mode; if you're spending a significant amount of time with Super IPS+ enabled, then you expect drastically shorter battery life. As mentioned earlier, the keyboard dock also has a built-in battery, which will boost the overall life of the TF201 by around 3-4 hours, depending on use.

When it comes to battery life, the A510 is a beast. It packs a 9800mAh battery, which should keep you going for about 10 hours of moderate use. Of course, if you plan on playing Tegra 3 games for hours on end, you'll need to hit the charger more often, but should still get around 7 hours or so on a single charge. It's hard to beat that, but given the TF201's varying performance modes, I'm going to have to call this one a tie.

Winner: Tie

 

When it comes to tablets, thin is in. The more features that a manufacturer can pack into a rail-thin frame, the more people will love it. And if they can make it lightweight, too, it'll definitely strike the heart of many.

Since this section is about as cut-and-dry as it gets, I'll just say it: the TF201 is lighter and thinner, so it takes the crown here.

Winner: TF201

 

Left: A510; Right: TF201

I almost didn't include this section, but decided that that the six people out there who actually use the camera on their tablet might appreciate it. Honestly, neither one of these tablets take very good pictures: the A510's camera oversaturates images to the point of ridiculousness, and the TF201's camera produces overly washed out images. If you can combine the two, the result might be almost decent.

Winner: Tie

I'm not going to call on overall winner here, because I don't think it's fair to name one "better" than the other. Much like with smartphones, the way each individual uses their tablet constitutes which one is the "best" one for them, and both of these tablets are absolutely fantastic devices.

If you're looking for a laptop replacement, then the TF201 and its keyboard dock is definitely a winning combination; however, it's just as easy to pair a Bluetooth keyboard to the A510, but it won't give you the added battery life, full size USB port, or SD card slot that the TF201's dock does.

With all that said, I've chosen the A510 as my daily driver. It feels great, has powerhouse performance, and the battery easily gets me through a couple of days of use. Paired with a Bluetooth keyboard, this device provides exactly what I'm looking for out of a tablet.

Dark Meadow preview and a chance to win a Transformer Prime!

Early this week I got a message from NVIDIA asking me to review their next flagship game for TegraZone. I’m a huge gaming fan, so I jumped at the opportunity to check out their latest title. To my surprise, I got an early copy of Dark Meadow: The Pact from Phosphor Game Studio. Read on for the full details and a chance to win an ASUS Transformer Prime.

I was asked to do a full review of Dark Meadow, but I’ve only had the game for 24 hours so consider this more of a preview. Having said that, Dark Meadow has started off as the best Android game I have ever played.

Dark Meadow begins when you wake up in an abandoned hospital. Very little details about the story are provided at the start, and the chronicle slowly unfolds as you begin to explore and pick up clues. I don’t want to give away the adventure, but you soon realize that you are trapped in a nightmare and you must escape the hospital to wake up.

Gameplay is a mix of exploring, mystery, and combat that features swipe gestures. Players are rewarded for closely examining every detail as they collect coins to upgrade their weapons and find clues that tell the story.

When a battle occurs, players start with a cross bow for long-range combat and switch to a sword as melee attacks as the enemy draws near. If you face an enemy and lose all your life, you awaken in the maternity ward of the hospital.

Check out the video above for a more detailed walkthrough of the game. As an experiment, I recorded my preview video using the Tegra 3-powered HTC One X, which is one of the devices that can play this game. For some reason the video abruptly cuts off, but I thought it was a good cliffhanger that would lead you to wanting more.

Overall, Dark Meadow has been a joy to play and I can’t find any faults with it yet. It has the potential to score a perfect review when I’m finished playing it. I joked in the video that Dark Meadow is like a good book that you don’t want to put down, and now I’m finding myself wanting to go play more after I get this post up.

Initially, Dark Meadow: The Pact for Android is exclusive to Tegra 3 devices. The game was previously released on iOS, but Phosphor Games has made a number of improvements for the Tegra version.

Dark Meadow Tegra 3 Enhancements include:

Dynamic particles – All the scenes come alive, with rendering power to draw more particle systems.Dynamic foliage- Scenes have foliage that moves and swaysDynamic textures – Extra visual fidelity like animating environmental textures like puddles and drips.More detailed world – More polygons on screen

To celebrate the release of Dark Meadow, NVIDIA and Android and Me are giving away one ASUS Transformer Prime tablet and dock.

How to enter: Join Android and Me and start a discussion about any topic in our Threads. All Thread creators in the next 48 hours will be automatically entered to win. (Learn more about Threads)Who is eligible: This contest is open to residents of the United States and CanadaWinner: Coming soon! We will announce the lucky winner this weekend.

Right now Threads can only be created by users with 100+ points, but we are working to remove that restriction soon so that more people can enter.

[Review] Asus Transformer Pad 300: 85% Of The Premium Tablet Experience For 80% Of The Price

Meet the TF300T, the newest addition to Asus's ever-expanding line of Android tablets. While the model number may suggest that it's the successor to the TF201 - the Transformer Prime - that's not exactly the case. Pick one up and it's immediately clear that this is really the successor to the TF101 (the original Transformer, or TF); it's wrapped in plastic like the 101 (the 201 is aluminum), and the dimensions are a bit more portly, as with the 101.

Perhaps more importantly, the price marks this as a successor to the 101 - and shows that the 300 slots below the 201. At just $400 for the larger 32GB model, the TF300 makes it clear that ASUS is trying to hit every corner of the market (and they're doing a damn fine job, at that). For the same price as the 16GB TF101, you get twice the storage and twice the cores.

Top to bottom: TF300T, TF201 (Transformer Prime), TF101 (Transformer)

That's not to say the 300 is the perfect budget tablet, though. While it does offer a lot of the same hardware and excellent user experience as the Prime in a cheaper package, it makes some concessions to get there. Read on to hear what the 300 does right, what it gets wrong, and where its more expensive brother is better.

 

Expected to ship the week of April 30, 2012.MSRP: $379 for the 16GB model, $399 for the 32GB model, and $149 for the dock.Nvidia Tegra 3 (quad-core) CPUAndroid 4.0.3Available in Royal Blue, Torch Red, and Iceberg White.10.1", 1280x800 display, up to 350nits of brightness8MP rear camera1GB of DDR3 RAM7.11"x10.35"x0.38" (HxWxD), 1.39 lbsASUS UI customizations, preloaded apps8GB free cloud storage for the lifetime of unitLike previous Asus tablets, it feels solid, and build quality seems as good as ever.The price is phenomenal. $379 entry point for a 16GB quad-core 10.1" tablet? Yes please.Smooth and snappy performance all around.Thinner and lighter than the (fairly fat and heavy) TF101 (.38" vs .51", 1.39 lbs. vs 1.49.)Great WiFi performance, and GPS works as it should.ASUS's customizations are fairly minimal and for the most part genuinely complement stock ICS well.Solid battery life.Respectable 8MP camera.It's plastic, and not premium-quality plastic, either. That said, it doesn't feel bad, but it's not the most confidence-inspiring package.Occasional unexplained force closes.Earlier docks (TF101 and TF201) are not "completely" compatible with the TF300. The TF101 USB/charging cable won't work with the TF300, either.As with the Prime, the speaker is on the back.  Which means that everyone who isn't you will be able to attest to the sound quality.Like the TF101 and 201, there's some backlight bleeding.For the third Transformer in a row, it's damn near impossible to type on the dock without bumping the touchpad, thereby causing the cursor to move and click elsewhere. It's almost like being pranked by a 14 year old.

I suppose I'd be remiss in not pointing out a few other issues. The 300 will be offered in 3 colors - blue, red, and white - but the red and white won't be available until June. Also, supplies may be fairly constricted at launch, which is certainly an issue for some people. While these are noteworthy concerns, I don't think it's fair to consider them in a review of the hardware - after all, not being able to buy the tablet in white doesn't mean the user experience is any different.

 

In a sentence: truth be told, the TF300 just might be the best choice for somebody looking to buy an Android tablet on a budget right now. The Prime offers an equally excellent experience, but the slimmer package may not be worth the price premium for many people.

You should buy it if: you're in the market for an Android tablet, but don't want to fork over premium dollars.

  

The original Transformer (which I'm singling out because it was also plastic) felt of quality, but that was partially thanks to the fact that its dimensions and weight made it feel like a brick. The TF300 feels good if a little budgety, with little panel gap and just a bit of give. Still, that bit of give (particularly in the back panel) and an overall plasticky feeling make me question the dropability of the 300, though it feels like it could certainly still take its fair share of bumps and bangs while riding in a road warrior's bag. All told, it's not especially noteworthy in either direction. And despite being plastic, I don't mind the feel (perhaps because I'm accustomed to it by now), so much that I even prefer the feel of the 300 to the (always cold) aluminum-clad Prime.

 

As with the 201 (and as mentioned above), the speaker is once again placed in the most illogical place imaginable: the back. While it does put out respectable sound, you have to cup your hand behind it to really hear it well, something that's not comfortable for more than a few minutes at a time - and something you shouldn't have to do in the first place. That said, it puts out good quality and a ton of volume.

The TF300 is virtually identical to the TF201, with the exception of the upgraded RAM (DDR3 in the 300, DDR2 in the 201) and slightly slower clock speeds in Performance mode. Accordingly, you'd expect pretty similar performance, and you'd be right. The TF300T drove exactly like the more expensive Prime, and since all-around performance is the most substantial metric when reviewing a device, that earns it high marks.

One thing that gives the 300 a leg up over the Prime: battery life. While I find the Prime's battery life to be more than adequate (I only charge it once every 4 or 5 days), the TF300T seems to go just a little longer - to the tune of roughly 9 hours of moderate use. But perhaps more importantly, leaving the 300 docked doesn't seem to drain battery life more than normal, unlike the Prime (my Prime, when docked, will go from 100% charge to totally dead in less than two days, without use).

 

As with the Prime, the TF300 features three different performance modes. In Power Saving mode, if 1-2 cores are active, they'll clock as high as 1 GHz, 3 cores will hit 720MHz, or all 4 will top out at 600MHz. For Balanced mode, all four cores will max out at 1.2GHz, and for Performance mode, 1 core will go up to 1.3GHz while using 2+ cores will bring things back down to 1.2GHz. Personally, I left things in Performance, though I'd imagine the difference between Performance and Balanced is probably virtually nil.

Finally, it's worth noting that I experienced 4-5 force closes during my 5 days with the TF300T. While that's not a lot by any stretch, it's more than I'm accustomed to with other Android devices, so it's worth including in the spirit of full disclosure. Surprisingly, Maps accounted for 3 of those force closes, though after the initial 3 I haven't had an issue.

 

The display on the TF300 is more or less exactly what you'd expect on a $380 10" Android tablet.That is to say, it's not enough to stand out in either direction. While it's not as bright as the Prime's display (350 versus 600 nits), it's bright enough for most viewing situations. The viewing angles aren't noteworthy either - they're good, but nothing special. Colors and black levels once more place the display firmly in the middle of the pack.

Then again, being average isn't necessarily a bad thing. Screens have remained fairly standard in recent Android tablet history, and that's because they're generally tried-and-true. In a nutshell: it's a pretty standard display for a 10" tablet at the ~$400 price point.

Unfortunately, the dock's build quality doesn't quite measure up. The keys feel good and clicky (but still quiet), and at first blush the build quality is good. Apparently that's a false impression, though - after just a few hours of use, the 'T' key went flat. It still works (in fact, I typed about half of this review using the TF300 while docked), but it's noticeable enough that it can throw off your vibe while typing. Much more importantly, it's enough to cause concern about the dock's long-term durability.

 

Around the outside, the dock offers an SD card slot and USB port, as well as the charging port. As mentioned above, the trackpad is more or less useless, because it's virtually impossible to use the keyboard without bumping the trackpad. The result is that you'll be typing an email, bump the trackpad without realizing, and suddenly you're typing 5 lines up - or in a different email. While that alone isn't enough to make the trackpad useless (in fact, I'd say that makes it hyperactively useful), the sole solution is to disable it while typing... which quickly evolves into just leaving it off all the time, since constantly toggling is annoying as all hell.

 

Anyone who's been following Android in even the most peripheral sense probably has a pretty good idea of what to expect with Ice Cream Sandwich, and anyone who read my Prime review should know exactly what to expect with ASUS's custom UI. And the bloatware remains the same, too: Polaris Office, SuperNote, App Backup, App Locker, Asus Sync, Asus Webstorage, MyCloud, MyLibrary, MyNet and Netflix. And, once again, they're all refreshingly useful in their own right.

All told, ASUS's customizations complement the excellent user experience offered by ICS well.

With a starting point of $380 and packing a quad-core Tegra 3 CPU, the TF300T offers a compelling package. It's a lot like a Corvette ZR1: blazing-fast, but swathed in plastic and made with a few compromises to keep it (relatively) cheap. Then again, that's probably an acceptable trade-off for most people - myself included.