Asus Transformer Pad Infinity TF700

[covfam]

Originally Posted by Edward M. Grant

I believe the 300 has the same size screen as the Prime, and the text is pretty good; I've read several novels on it so far. A higher resolution would be an improvement, but I'm not sure whether it would be a $100-200 improvement.

actually its screen is the same resolution but it doesnt have the same uper IPS extra bright feature, and it doesnt have the gorrila glass, but we have the dock and we love our tf300!

[ghostyjack]

Originally Posted by covfam

actually its screen is the same resolution but it doesnt have the same uper IPS extra bright feature, and it doesnt have the gorrila glass, but we have the dock and we love our tf300!

I think you'll find that they are refering to the TF700T that has a resolution of 1920x1200, not 1280x800.

There was originally anounced a model with the the lower res screen, but I haven't heard anything about it since the anouncement.

[Marseille]

After a great deal of time waiting for a really well rounded, competitively priced 7" tab, I gave up and bought an infinity. It's not exactly what I wanted, and it's certainly not what I wanted to pay, but it does come the closest to my overall needs and wants of anything out there.

I'm also pretty happy with Asus, giver of useful utilities (instead of bloatware) as well as some much appreciated support. I think I'm going to be pretty happy with this long term.

[=X=]

Sweet! That's a nice tablet I'm curious to know how crisp the font is for reading

[VaporPunk]

Originally Posted by David Marseilles

After a great deal of time waiting for a really well rounded, competitively priced 7" tab, I gave up and bought an infinity. It's not exactly what I wanted, and it's certainly not what I wanted to pay, but it does come the closest to my overall needs and wants of anything out there.

I'm also pretty happy with Asus, giver of useful utilities (instead of bloatware) as well as some much appreciated support. I think I'm going to be pretty happy with this long term.

Asus has been excellent with their support for my "old" Transformer. I would have absolutely no qualms buying another Asus tab in the future. I've been eying the new google (Asus) tab, but lacking a micro SD port makes it a non-option.

[Marseille]

Originally Posted by =X=

Sweet! That's a nice tablet I'm curious to know how crisp the font is for reading

I'm quite happy with it. The pixel density is actually slightly lower than on my wvga phone, circa 2009, at 225ppi vs 260ppi, but that doesn't bother me for a couple of reasons. One, higher isn't better ad infinitum, the benefit plateaus at a point. The Nook Tablet's 160ish ppi was uncomfortable for me. This is quite comfortable. Two, one tends to hold a tablet of this size at a different distance than a phone of that size, even Apple's overkill retina 'formula' takes that into account. If you really want to see a pixel, you can push it up to your eye and see one, but at normal viewing distance, I see only crisp text.

@VP, when I got to some transformer forums, it seemed like everyone (Actual owners) was ragging on Asus something fierce for every little thing (this is the sort of thing that cracks me up when people say Android fans are as loyal as Apple fans -- no, they are completely different breeds). Then I notice my first issue, typing lag, and Asus has a firmware update fixing it a couple of days later. Color me impressed. Thank goodness there is no carrier filter for updates to go through too.

[rkw]

I have the tf300t and find it a very cpable device. I was considering the TF700 but a few issues related to running Android have me forced to wait until the Win8 Pro tablets come out early in 2013.

Despite those issues my nifty tf300 is fantastically capable. Love the keyboard dock which allows me to use it for actual work. I am underwhelmed with the status quo of Android devices when it comes to color(s), access to color correction settings--especially gamma--but I can still do 90% of all my admin work, email, web browsing and what have you.

I forget the model number for the Asus Win8 devices but I will be one of those waiting to see what we get from them. Do be aware that the quality control of the tf300 was, well, less than optimal. Mine is fine though it has a couple kinda odd smudges on the display which are only visible when I clean the screen. Others report various issues. I some are valid and others make me raise an eyebrow.

One really useful site for me was: http://www.transformerforums.com
Nice folks there and fairly decent info on all the Asus Transformers.

Enjoy whatever Transformer y choose. I do not believe any are bad. I saw some really nice deals on both the tf101 as well as the tf201 in recent weeks. You really are not giving up much and if you can get a tf201 refurb for $200 (yes, I saw a deal for the 32gb version for just 200-bones!) I say for the $325 or so it would cost with a dock it would be hard to pass on even with the Wifi and GPS issues.

Be aware though if you need good control over display settings, in general, Android is not great. You won't get control afforded you on Windows box. Hopefully Win8 Pro addresses that area which I need.

[ilovejedd]

Received my Transformer Infinity. While I haven't had a chance to really play with it, I've got a couple of first impressions.

The more rectangular shape of the tablet makes it a bit more difficult to balance compared to the iPad. Granted, I prefer 4:3 aspect ratio for my workstation monitors so I'm biased towards the iPad in terms of form factor. The brushed aluminum back looks very pretty but impractical. It's very smooth and combined with the Infinty's weight, it feels like I might drop the thing. Wish Asus had gone for a similar finish as the Nexus 7's back instead. Now I'm going to have to find a case that doesn't interfere with the dock instead of just using a Neoprene sleeve when on standby as I was originally planning.

Text on the Infinity looks very clear. I don't notice much difference between the Infinity and the iPad in terms of resolution. I dislike the ASUS onscreen keyboard (prefer ICS stock) but that's easy enough to remedy and will be a non-issue once I receive my dock. I've found the Infinity to be no worse than the iPad in terms of responsiveness although I think the Nexus 7 with Jellybean seems a tad smoother particularly when it comes to transitions. One really annoying thing I've found on the Infinity is the built in microSD slot doesn't want to work with my SanDisk 64GB Class 10 microSDXC card. The Prime and TF300 reportedly work just fine with the card so I'm hoping Asus issues a fix. On the upside, my SanDisk 32GB Class 4 microSDHC card works just fine. Battery life appears to be pretty decent once I tweaked Android settings to disable wi-fi during sleep.

Overall, I think I might like the iPad better (mostly because of form factor and since Chrome is now available for iOS) but the expandable storage on the Transformer Infinity more than makes up for the cons (even if it is limited to 32GB microSDHC cards at the moment).

With portability and weight as factors, the Nexus 7 is probably my favorite tablet. The 1280x800 resolution is large enough for most tasks. It just sucks that it doesn't have a microSD card slot.

[Marseille]

I definitely agree about the backing, and in general the desire to make things pretty that most mobile tech makers are obsessed with. Form should follow function. Asus actually packs a microfiber cloth in with the infinity, so they know well their shiny surface is higher maintenance than a more matte, rubbery surface would be. I've heard it also picks up scratches fairly easy, though I haven't seen any myself.

I'd also just as soon not have the pretty uninterrupted glass plane on the front in lieu of useful features like front-facing speakers. This is done for appearance sake as rear facing speakers dramatically degrade audio quality and volume. Again, Asus appears to be aware of the muffled nature of a rear speaker (how could they not be?), as they placed the speaker right where your right hand would hold the device, apparently aware that people tend to cup their hands around the speaker to redirect sound forward. Such low tech solutions for such a sophisticated device drive me a little batty.

But on this front at least, I'd be hard pressed to direct your attention to any manufacturer that doesn't handicap function for form just as often as Asus did. I certainly wouldn't give props to Apple -- whose biggest innovation in the field has been the creation of an obsession with how devices look, how thin and how shiny they are.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by David Marseilles

But on this front at least, I'd be hard pressed to direct your attention to any manufacturer that doesn't handicap function for form just as often as Asus did. I certainly wouldn't give props to Apple -- whose biggest innovation in the field has been the creation of an obsession with how devices look, how thin and how shiny they are.

I greatly dislike the back surface of my iOS devices, too. Had to get cases for all of them because the back is just too smooth and slippery. I really like the chassis of the Nook Color. Very comfy to hold although it could stand to lose some weight. I also like the dimpled back on the Nexus 7 as it makes the device easy to grip. The Sony PRS-350 (the entire PRS-x50 line, really) is a marriage of form and function. Non-glossy finish, aluminum frame, clean lines, built-in slot for stylus, rubbery back finish - it really is a nice combination of durability, ergonomics and style and the PRS-T1 seems like a major downgrade despite the specs upgrade.

I'm actually curious how the budget-minded TF300 would compare in this regard. With the plastic backing, I think it might fare better than the TF700 in terms of grip. Unfortunately, I'm not willing to sacrifice the 1920x1200 resolution display on the TF700 given that's the reason I opted for it in the first place (the higher res is much better for reading comics and letter-sized PDF).

[Marseille]

A second benefit of the Nook Color/Tablet setup is the inset screen (as opposed to flush). Someone did a drop test between the kindle fire (with gorilla glass) and the Nook Tablet (without). The Nook Tablet's screen survived unscathed, the fire's busted. Easier to hold in the first place, less likely to die in a fall if it slips.

Like you, pixel density was pretty big concern of mine, so after a week or so of reading off the Nook Tablet's screen (160ish ppi), I sent it back, initially to wait for the Nexus 7 (213ish ppi) back before it lost the sd slot and hdmi port, and finally I got this (224ish ppi). Anything over 200ppi is probably fine for me, but I definitely don't want to read off another 160ppi screen.

[jackastor]

Originally Posted by Cdesja5

Might be a little less expensive in the US... Also, if I remember correctly there is no sales tax in Nevada, in Canada we generally have a 12-13% sales tax.

Yes we do but as most visitors know they can request that back, as they are not residents of Canada... At least the gst portion. You just have to pick the forms up or download them.

Most airports will have the forms available in the customs area.

Regards

Jack

[jangumb]

I don't understand how high-end tablets aren't all coming with NFC support by now. I'd love to take advantage of Android Beam on my Prime, and would consider upgrading if they added it in to the Infinity. There seems to be more issues with this tablet as I've read from http://www.squidoo.com/asus-tf700t

[Marseille]

I have serious doubts about how long nfc survives. I would be surprised if BT4+ makes it irrelevant -- unfortunately, that's probably up to Apple. Sadly, the tf700 doesn't have bt4 either. But there are no tablets without compromise in this market.