Where to buy tf300

The screen feels more responsive than the Prime's when swiping through screens, nearly reaching iPad levels of sensitivity. Apps load quickly only a hair more slowly than on the Prime and menus pop up in a snap. Also, there's still that great, smooth Tegra 3-induced, frames-per-second screen transition effect when closing apps or swiping through apps and widgets. Thankfully, apps like the Marvel comics app are beginning to take advantage of Tegra 3's extra horsepower by offering smoother transitions between panels in digital comics.

Not quite iPad-smooth, as there's still some judder, but smoother than when the Prime debuted. The TF's Web speeds in the default browser were a few seconds slower than the iPad's when travelling to the same sites; but still a couple seconds quicker than the Prime, on average. Also, when quickly swiping down long Web pages, there was no visible clipping. Thanks to its hardware scalability, I used Riptide GP as a games performance benchmark.

The TF's frame rates were just about identical with the Prime's approaching 60fps, with the Tegra-exclusive screen water splashes in tow. The frame rate feels lower than the iPad's, however, and after playing the game on the iPad's high-resolution screen, it was difficult to go back to the TF's "low" 1,x pixels, as much as I love water splashes. I tested the TF's theoretical download speed using the Speedtest app, with the tablet less than 5 feet away from our closed network test router.

The TF delivered performance consistently faster by about 5Mbps than the Prime and was only about 3Mbps behind the iPad. When I ran the same test through a couple of walls, about 30 or so feet away from the router, the iPad's lead increased to about 6Mbps and the TF's lead over the Prime decreased to 4Mbps.

As a real-world test, I downloaded Angry Birds Space , delivering the following results. These results are an average of three iterations; all of the three iterations per tablet were within 5 percent of each other. The TF is using the exact same wireless hardware as the Prime, so it's possible that its new plastic casing helps improve Wi-Fi performance over the Prime. Speaking of which, GPS performance is much improved over the Prime as satellite connections are much easier to find, although signals didn't get to impressively high levels.

The 8-megapixel back camera, however, seems to have improved over the Prime's. While I miss the LED flash, what I get in return is a camera that takes noticeably higher detailed shots. The TF is running a different version of the camera firmware, though, so hopefully some of these improvements will make their way to the Prime, since the hardware is, by all accounts, identical.

Also, image stabilization is lacking compared with the iPad's when performing even slow, methodical pans. It's not terrible by any means; the iPad just delivers smoother moving pictures. I was able to play both p and p movie files from outside sources smoothly on the TF with no problems. The TF's speakers produced fuller, louder sound than the Prime's and even at maximum volume I noticed nary a distortion and no tinniness.

Now, you won't be replacing your home-theater-in-a-box with a TF anytime soon, but for a tablet, it delivers pretty soundly I'll um, I'll just let myself out.

I did experience a few random app lockups, but nothing consistent and nothing a quick app force-stop command couldn't fix. Also, once when I connected to the dock, the screen displayed some weird graphical anomalies.

The app shortcuts began to pulsate and the edge of the screen started to "tear. The TF's battery lasted over the course of about two days, matching the Prime's battery life over the same period, with each tablet performing largely the same tasks.

Asus claims 10 hours with the standalone battery and 15 hours with the keyboard dock attached. More tablet testing results can be found here. The chart below reflects the results for the TF's battery life in hours with the mobile keyboard dock.

You also lose the rear camera flashlight and its screen isn't as bright. You do get roughly the same overall speed as the Prime with slightly faster Wi-Fi performance, a better rear camera, and an actual GPS feature that Asus can openly tout on its specs sheet.

The TF doesn't lose much compared with the Prime and actually gains in a couple areas. Still, if Android is your thing, the TF's price makes it the current best value for a full-Android tablet on the market. Eric Franklin. The tablet's design isn't as thin, sturdy, or sexy as the Transformer Prime's and feels a bit hollow in comparison. The screen isn't outside-friendly, like the Prime's.

Though it isn't as thin or as sturdy, the Asus Transformer Pad TF delivers Prime levels of performance at a more affordable price. The Prime on the left is still the thin king. The TF middle is even thicker than the "now with slightly more girth" new iPad right. The TF's keyboard dock works pretty much like every other Transformer's, giving you the option to leave touch-screen typing in the stone age. Or, the future, I guess. Thanks to its plastic body, the TF had no trouble accessing GPS satellites when outside in my testing.

Score Breakdown Design 7 Features 8 Performance 8. See full specs See all prices. Tablets Asus Samsung Galaxy. Even the benchmark scores hint at that: though the TF takes the gold medal in SunSpider and Vellamo, it wins by a much narrower margin than it does in other categories.

Rest assured that if you settle for that median performance mode you won't be taking much of a performance hit, if any. Our graphics scores between the balanced and performance modes were similar across the board, which means there's not that much incentive to switch to the maximum settings, especially if balanced mode holds the promise of longer battery life. In our standard rundown test, we managed eight and a half hours of video playback before the tablet finally gave out.

Altogether, that's not as impressive a showing as the Transformer Prime, whose 25Wh battery lasted plus hours in the same test -- and that's despite the fact that the Prime has the overhead of a brighter display. Admittedly, of course, our video playback test is taxing, not least because we fix the brightness at 50 percent. With less intense use read: more idle time we eked out closer to 12 hours, and that even included some video playback. This time around, the dock, too, has a smaller battery than what you'll get with the Prime We've yet to complete a test with the full dock, but rest assured we're on it.

We'll update this review once we get a final score. Update: And the results are in! With the help of the keyboard docking station, the TF's battery life stretched to 12 hours and four minutes. Some things don't change. This Transformer, like every other we've reviewed, works with a keyboard dock that doubles as an extended battery, adding an extra five hours of runtime, in this case.

The dock is also home two full-size ports -- a USB 2. For better and worse, the engineering here hasn't really changed, so if you already own a first-gen Transformer and are wondering if you should upgrade, you can probably get away with skimming this section. For newcomers, though, we'll say this: the keys are serviceable, but we don't recommend buying the tablet and dock and expecting them to add up to a laptop replacement.

The keys have a flimsy, precarious feel to them, and are at the disadvantage of having been shrunk to accommodate a inch screen. We've also found that the speed of word entry is limited by the tablet, so even though your hands might fly across the keyboard, you'll still notice a slight delay as letters start to appear onscreen.

In terms of the typing experience, then, we'd recommend this about as much as we would a netbook: it's enormously handy for pecking out URLs, web searches and short messages, but we wouldn't suggest composing your page term paper or even 4,word review on it. The truth is, though, even a netbook probably has a sturdier keyboard panel than this -- not to mention, sounder ergonomics. ASUS hasn't done anything to remedy the off-kilter weight distribution, so when the tablet is docked it can still tilt backwards if you're not careful this is especially true if you're working with it in your lap.

For what it's worth, the tablet fits into the dock with a reassuring click and the combined setup feels quite durable, even if the underside of the dock is prone to surface scratches. Ironically, though, we enjoy the dock's small, multitouch trackpad more than the touchpads on a lot of the laptops we test.

Paging up and down or side to side is a no-fuss affair, and the buttons are tactile, if a bit noisy. The pad isn't quite spacious enough for pinch-to-zoom, however, and indeed the trackpad doesn't support it; you'll have to double click to zoom in, or just reach up and perform that gesture on the screen. Once you get over the feeling that you're "supposed" to use the trackpad for scrolling and zooming, it can actually be quite liberating to mix keyboard, mouse and touchscreen input, depending on what's convenient.

For first-time buyers, there's no reason to consider a dock other than this one, the one that was fine-tuned to fit the TF's particular dimensions. ASUS has an answer ready for you, and we're afraid it's not what you want to hear: the TF is not backward compatible with the original dock or USB cable. It should go without saying that the new dock isn't percent simpatico with the Prime or OG Transformer either, since the TF dock was designed specifically to cradle the Update: It turns out Photoshop Express and Temple Run won't come pre-loaded on the TF when it hits shelves after all; those apps were just installed on units issued to reviewers.

In addition to industrial design, another key way in which the TF takes after the Prime is in image quality. Even so, this makes for a welcome improvement over the 5-megapixel camera included on last year's model. And though megapixels aren't everything, it also has the potential to trump the 3-megapixel shooter on the Galaxy Tab 2 For better and worse, the camera performs similarly to the one on the Prime.

Here, too, you can tap to focus, and the camera does an admirable though not necessarily quick job of honing in on the detail of your choice. We did take some issue with the color rendering: some shades look undersaturated see those apples in our gallery above , while other shades got lost in translation.

Some red begonias, for instance, were actually magenta, if our resulting pictures are to be believed. On the bright side, the flash-less camera holds its own in dim but not necessarily dark settings. This generation of the Transformer also records p video at 30 fps. Fortunately, we experienced none of the dropped frames that we did when we first tested the original: the quality here is relatively light on motion blur, and the audio capture is intelligent enough to catch subtler sounds off camera, like passerby's conversation.

Watch the compilation below, for example: you can hear a stranger off-camera expressing amusement or horror? Side note: why can't all manufacturers charge just a small premium for doubling the internal storage? Of course, we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves. We're assuming you're choosing this particular tablet. And in case you couldn't tell, we'd heartily agree with your decision if you did, though for anyone who's been holding out for a not-too-expensive Android 4.

The beautiful thing for anyone shopping right now is that there seems to be an uptick in reasonably priced inch tablets. We're thinking of the Galaxy Tab 2 If an iPad's your speed, then, you're probably not seriously considering an Android tablet and likewise, not all shoppers want to be wed to Apple's ecosystem. Anyhow, for those of you who prefer Android, you've got at least three solid options at the ready.

And the truth is, we've enjoyed our time with all of them, though the TF offers faster performance and longer battery life than either of these two contenders, both of which make do with last year's dual-core Tegra 2 SoC. It's biggest saving grace, though, might be that its battery life is rated for 12 hours, which, if accurate, would trump almost everything else in its size and price range. Though we're not normally inclined to make a recommendation based purely on benchmarks, it seems obvious that the TF's quad-core chip provides a real advantage in terms of gaming, longevity and overall speed.

Factor in the decent camera, slightly more polished design, clean Android experience, nice app selection and the useful dock, and you've once again got yourself a good deal. Though the TF's price is fairly low, there thankfully isn't that big of a catch. Aside from the fact that the battery life isn't quite as epic as the Prime's, our most serious complaint has little to do with ASUS, and more with Android: even with a state-of-the-art chip running the latest version of the OS, the tablet occasionally hiccups when launching apps and resizing web pages.

There's no reason for a product with such strong tech credentials to stumble over the mundane stuff. Still, the tablet is eminently usable, and ultimately a pleasure to live with.

Moreover, the performance is a clear improvement over what you'll get from similarly priced inch tabs, many of which run on last year's dual-core Tegra 2 chip. Sign up.