Best Buy benchmarking fun - Asus Transformer TF700

This may be a little random but I felt like people might be interested. Went through Best Buy today and of course browsed the Android tablets. Both the TF201 and TF300 have the 4.1.1 update installed, and their TF700 had 4.0.3. 30 update. I ran quadrant on all of them and, interestingly, the TF700 had the highest score in the low 4000's (around 4200). The prime and 300 got high to mid 3000s respectively (about 3700 - 3500) which is honestly pretty terrible for a Quad core slab. All of the tablets suffered from ****ty I/O scores, the highest being 1200 on the Infinity. So all our hopes of Asus improving the I/O flaws with their stock OTA are almost certainly dashed. As a final aside, these are just floor models and results will vary from tablet to tablet, but it just seems like the 4.1.1 update is going to be underwhelming for the most part.
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wow, i was hoping JB will fix or at least workaround the I/O issue.. for the quadrant score, i don't believe we can compare both tablets as each is running at a different CPU speed even with JB on the TF300 (1.2 Ghz vs 1.6 Ghz)...

Benchmarks are not always indicative of real-world performance. We all know that the hardware cannot be improved by a firmware update, BUT, things can be done to mask the slow I/O, so the benchmarks aren't so important...
Besides, if you are really concerned with I/O being a bottleneck, you will most likely be installing a custom ROM anyhow, which, as we've already seen (with Zeus) can mask the I/O issues (if it even affects your daily use to begin with).
In my case, it's never been a *real* problem to begin with, as I'm not normally downloading a huge file while doing other things. If I'm going to download a huge file, it certainly wouldn't be from my tablet anyway (I would use a hardwired laptop/PC to download said file). Tablets aren't meant to be used for downloading huge files... yes, it can be done, but it's not something that would be recommended.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2

ka1z0ku said:
This may be a little random but I felt like people might be interested. Went through Best Buy today and of course browsed the Android tablets. Both the TF201 and TF300 have the 4.1.1 update installed, and their TF700 had 4.0.3. 30 update. I ran quadrant on all of them and, interestingly, the TF700 had the highest score in the low 4000's (around 4200). The prime and 300 got high to mid 3000s respectively (about 3700 - 3500) which is honestly pretty terrible for a Quad core slab. All of the tablets suffered from ****ty I/O scores, the highest being 1200 on the Infinity. So all our hopes of Asus improving the I/O flaws with their stock OTA are almost certainly dashed. As a final aside, these are just floor models and results will vary from tablet to tablet, but it just seems like the 4.1.1 update is going to be underwhelming for the most part.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using xda app-developers app
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Multiple discussion and in my opinion no true conclusion.
As jtrosky indicated benchmarks are number. It stresses system and measures the maximum capability. Just to put into simple context. If you are benchmark test believer, my Antutu score without any special tweak or custom rom other than turned off bloatwares and installed browser2ram, I get 13000+ Antutu total benchmark score. One can argue that Antutu total score if reflective of overall real life experience therefore, this tablet performs the best.
Alternative would be just as many are concerned, just pick the worst benchmark score subsection or component and conclude that the reflective of real life performance. This approach is technically not a bad idea as you basically making an assumption of bottleneck, which max out the entire system performance even before rest of the component can show their true power.
However, one flaw for applying this to IO. That the system is not sequential linear operation i.e. IO -> RAM -> Cache -> CPU/GPU -> Cache -> RAM -> IO then next cycle of operation. It is much more complex than this, and if it was truly above, no system can perform well in current days standard because no nand device is faster than the RAM, and no RAM is faster than the Cache. Also, why would desktop with much slower hard drive perform so well? (assuming other components are good).
Just as an example, instead of doing above one at a time and go back to IO, if you do two operations before you write back to IO, then what happens? You didn't really change nand writing speed, but you can potentially double the overall experience. Obviously, in order to do this RAM and Cache must have enough space to allow two operations before writing back, and also RAM and Cache as well as actual CPU/GPU processing has to be more than 2x faster than IO.
In any event, I am just bringing up an example that benchmark especially picking one component that is relatively lower end of processing chain is not the entire reflection of the system performance. You can do several things (in theory) to make overall performance increase.
My understanding of all these concern came up initially because of
1. Frequent Application Not responding
2. System lag/stutter while downloading/installing applications from Google Play
3. System lag/stutter while downloading file over wifi
Based on my experience (I had infinity from the day #1 release in US, and returned it after 4 weeks and now back), I had significant ANR initially which lead me to seek for alternative device. #3 is well demonstrated on Anandtech video. #2 is most of us experience at one point for sure.
However, currently on my stock rom with bloatware turned off browser2ram installed,
#1 is pretty much completely gone. And Prime user's forum have several comments stating significant improvement specifically about ANRs.
#2 is also reportedly improved according to some comment in prime user's forum after JB.
#3 is I have proven with my video on other thread either because of browser2ram or more recent firmware update, it had significantly improved/eliminated what Anandtech showed back in July.
We should be more concerned if IO issue was actually at RAM level because only way to fix it would be Cache but that has such small space to work. However, if we were to believe benchmark, Antutu RAM score on Infinity is better than that of Galaxy Note 10.1
Now I am not saying though ASUS will indeed fix these. Even there may be potential solution, they simply may not do so... So if you are having truly IO related issue, and after JB you don't see the improvement to the degree of your satisfaction, you may have to use custom rom. If you don't have Infinity yet, and considering buy it from place you can return after Jellybean update and use the system on your own for daily use and see if you can notice any issue because there is a chance that you may not even see the problem. So in the end what is that you are trying to fix (if there is still an issue).
The benchmark score? Or what deemed to be IO based issue? I am pretty sure it is latter and ask yourself so what's the IO issue that you have/had? Because to be honest, again I had issues originally but I no longer have any of those. Yes. I can crash my system by downloading 1GB system in background over wifi and try to play Horn, but I can crash my PC when encoding MP4 and try to play high end graphic game. It really depends on what you want to do.

Awesome post housashen!!! IV never had I/o issues and IV downloaded 6 torrents simultaneously and never had an issue browsing at the same time. This is my 4th infinity (returned the others for build issues) and never had I/o issues on any of them.
I think this whole io thing is overblown and I also believe we have by far the best tablet on the market.
Sent from my MB860 using xda premium

jtrosky said:
Benchmarks are not always indicative of real-world performance. We all know that the hardware cannot be improved by a firmware update, BUT, things can be done to mask the slow I/O, so the benchmarks aren't so important...
Besides, if you are really concerned with I/O being a bottleneck, you will most likely be installing a custom ROM anyhow, which, as we've already seen (with Zeus) can mask the I/O issues (if it even affects your daily use to begin with).
In my case, it's never been a *real* problem to begin with, as I'm not normally downloading a huge file while doing other things. If I'm going to download a huge file, it certainly wouldn't be from my tablet anyway (I would use a hardwired laptop/PC to download said file). Tablets aren't meant to be used for downloading huge files... yes, it can be done, but it's not something that would be recommended.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2
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While I agree tabs weren't originally designed for this, I will say many people are using the tab/dock combo more like a net book/laptop now and days. So I can see the desire for these features (large file download). For instance I'm at the airport and realize crap, forgot to put a movie on tab for my flight. So I use my bionic and tether 4g goodness and try to dl a movie for the flight. It takes well over 2 hrs to dl because the I/O limits to about 200k/sec. That is an issue for flash memory. I should honestly just start downloading to my phone and then transfer the file to my tab (light bulb just went on) or remember to do it before I leave.

I would like to call bull right now, first of all let's stop over reaching with this tablet. This tablet is by far the best tablet on the market right now no matter what operating system the tablet carries. Is it perfect? No, it has bugs and there are some defective units out there which is expected from any tech company. Android is trying their best to catch up with how far the hardware has progressed since honeycomb so there will be browser issues and other bugs. Saying that the IO issue will never be resolved is malarkey especially with people saying the Zeus Rom made some serious improvements. I don't expect for an 8 gb file to transfer over in 30 seconds. Not gonna happen on a tablet. Even though they say it houses a quad core only an idiot would expect i5 or i7 or even AMD Phenom performance from a tablet so thin and light. Even so Android is just getting it together with JB concerning getting the OS to match the hardware. I have had a few tablets and by far the TF700 is the best one of them all. I have had apps force close and other bugs but that is to be expected when the hardware is more advanced than the OS. ICS is just not optimized for a tablet with specs like this. Will JB solve all the issues with this tablet? Probably not but I don't expect to have a bug free electronic device to begin with.....its just comes with the territory especially from something so thin and light with so much under the hood. Lets come back to reality and just enjoy the tablet for what it is...a tablet and not the cure all of all electronic devices. I know some will say the tablet costs 499 or even 599 and I believe its worth every penny I spent.....I just don't expect it to perform like a laptop or desktop I expect it to perform like a portable device and we all know portable devices are buggy because they are portable. Those that have this tablet could afford it otherwise we would have gotten a lappy but we didn't we got a tabby. IJS

anaviel said:
I would like to call bull right now, first of all let's stop over reaching with this tablet. This tablet is by far the best tablet on the market right now no matter what operating system the tablet carries. Is it perfect? No, it has bugs and there are some defective units out there which is expected from any tech company. Android is trying their best to catch up with how far the hardware has progressed since honeycomb so there will be browser issues and other bugs. Saying that the IO issue will never be resolved is malarkey especially with people saying the Zeus Rom made some serious improvements. I don't expect for an 8 gb file to transfer over in 30 seconds. Not gonna happen on a tablet. Even though they say it houses a quad core only an idiot would expect i5 or i7 or even AMD Phenom performance from a tablet so thin and light. Even so Android is just getting it together with JB concerning getting the OS to match the hardware. I have had a few tablets and by far the TF700 is the best one of them all. I have had apps force close and other bugs but that is to be expected when the hardware is more advanced than the OS. ICS is just not optimized for a tablet with specs like this. Will JB solve all the issues with this tablet? Probably not but I don't expect to have a bug free electronic device to begin with.....its just comes with the territory especially from something so thin and light with so much under the hood. Lets come back to reality and just enjoy the tablet for what it is...a tablet and not the cure all of all electronic devices. I know some will say the tablet costs 499 or even 599 and I believe its worth every penny I spent.....I just don't expect it to perform like a laptop or desktop I expect it to perform like a portable device and we all know portable devices are buggy because they are portable. Those that have this tablet could afford it otherwise we would have gotten a lappy but we didn't we got a tabby. IJS
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I think my and a lot of people's argument to this would be why is it that phones which come in much smaller packages have better I/O rates and performance. Why can a 7" tablet. Zeus didn't fix the problem it masked it. I'm not saying the I/O issues are a deal breaker for me but using a part that probably costs $.50 more and could drastically improve the tab makes people wonder why they didn't just get better flash memory. Sure it's a great tab, but I don't think people have unrealistic expectations. When the I/O scores (and performance of file transfers etc) is well below even phones released a year ago it means the engineers overlooked something big.And this is why everyone is complaining.

Related

Top hardware but lots of stuttering: do we deserve better?

OK, I bought an Android Tablet. Although the iPads probably are better for the average user, that's not the case for me: I'm a developer, a tweaker. I want to root stuff, to play with widgets, customisations, and so on. That's why I feel more related to Google than to Apple.
So I went for an Android tablet. I did not want a cheap, slow, outdated one like the ones you can buy at the supermarket for no money.
I was going for quality, so I bought an Asus Infinity. The tablet with the fastest hardware you can get. Splendid HD screen. Nice hardware keyboard included. This should be a top buy!
I have the tablet for some days now, and yes, the hardware is quite good. Decent aluminium unibody, although the color is not my style and the shiny metal catches all finger prints. The 1920 x 1200 display is really outstanding. No complaints here.
But where it goes wrong is the software ...
Android ICS, with minor tweaks by Asus, looks ok. But the OS and apps don't run smooth at all...
Apps run slugish or even freeze for seconds. Even keyboard input hangs sometimes. The stock browser and the Google Chrome browser can render basic sites quite well, but more advanced stuff like animations and video is just bad.
I compared with an iPad 1 and the iPad almost always wins involving smoothness of scrolling and interacting with inline video. An iPad 1, more than 2 years old, is faster than the Android tablet with the fastest hardware available on tablets. That's just ... sad. Very disapointing.
Another problem is the fact that no sites are well tested on Android, resulting in quirks that probably are solved on iOS because every decent site developer does test on his iPhone and iPad. But not on the huge number of Android devices out there. And being a developer myself, I know by experience that each device can have its own quirks.
A good example is wrong platform detection, resulting in bad user experience at the best, lack of features, or even no content at all at worst. 'You need to install Flash to run this site' ... Ok, Android can run Flash, but its days are over, as we all know.
So, what's up next?
Shall I make use of the 'cooling down period' and return this tablet? Exchange it for an iPad3? Will Jelly Bean solve some issues? Will these problems be solved by a system update? Will future sites be rendered better when html standards are used more often and Android browsers improve?
That’s a lot of if’s, no?
Apps running slow:
-stock browser
-Chrome
-Dolphin browser: better than the above, but css3 transformations/animations still very bad compared to iOS
-Google plus: scrolling the items is really bad
-Pulse: swiping between pages of an open article is slow and stutters
-Google Earth: slow and even crashes
Apps running ok:
-gmail: smooth
-currents: rather ok, sometimes
-Plume: ok
-Google maps: smooth
I guess, the situation will improve over time. But when will that be? If ever?
Did I expect too much? Am I exaggerating?
Your thoughts please!
My thoughts are that you cannot compare ipad and Android. Everyone keeps saying how smooth is ipad but everyone seems blind to all of the things iPad cannot do and Android (especially the Infinity) does.
I will not make an extensive list but just mentioning browsing the Web, half the websites are gone with iPad: no flash support and even the supposely replacement html5 renders quite poor on iPad. Check the html5rocks slides for instance.
If you are not sensible to that, get an iPad and you will be stuck but happy. Otherwise, open up and discover what Android had to offer.
the change log for jelly bean are out.check them out, that brings quite some news and fixes.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
chevdor said:
My thoughts are that you cannot compare ipad and Android. Everyone keeps saying how smooth is ipad but everyone seems blind to all of the things iPad cannot do and Android (especially the Infinity) does.
I will not make an extensive list but just mentioning browsing the Web, half the websites are gone with iPad: no flash support and even the supposely replacement html5 renders quite poor on iPad. Check the html5rocks slides for instance.
If you are not sensible to that, get an iPad and you will be stuck but happy. Otherwise, open up and discover what Android had to offer.
the change log for jelly bean are out.check them out, that brings quite some news and fixes.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk 2
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Don't get me wrong, I am very aware of the benefits of Android. That's why I bought an Infinity ;-)
But I have a strong feeling that surfing the web is just a better experience on an iPad ... and surfing is a primary task for me and most of us.
Dolphin HD works the best, but still regular freezes of seconds. I guess this should be better with the outstanding hardware of the infinity, no?
Tnx for your response.
Gert Stalpaert said:
I guess, the situation will improve over time. But when will that be? If ever?
Did I expect too much? Am I exaggerating?
Your thoughts please!
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I know this is not the ideal answer regarding a device you just paid top dollar for but: it may have some software issues but it also has highly capable hardware. Thankfully, there will be many great developers paying attention to this device. Either via official updates or through the combined efforts of the community (or both), I expect most of the issues will be worked out. At the very least, the updates Jelly Bean brings address the lagging and stuttering on Android, and this device will most likely get it soon enough. You can rest assured knowing this is one of the best Android 10-inchers out there and with the proper support it can only get better.
I have only had android tablets up to this point.
I have had the Asus Tf101 and 201. I always found something laggy, or apps crash, etc. Even putting custom ROMS on them caused them to have unique issues based off of whatever ROM I put on it. SO I was constantly re flashing to the new ROM, hoping it fixes the issues and doesn't cause additional issues.
I spent more time flashing, than just using them. What fun is that?
So after I heard all the weird Asus Infinity issues, I canceled my Asus order. I ordered an Ipad 3. Should have it thursday of next week.
But I am using the Ipad 1 that is a work tablet, and it just works. No crashes, no weird little issues.
I am sold. I can't believe I hated the Ipads so much.
One negative to the Ipads though, that I will miss. And that are the widgets and live wallpapers. Other than that, Ill kepp my android phone, but the tab will be an Ipad.
acdcking12345 said:
I have only had android tablets up to this point.
I have had the Asus Tf101 and 201. I always found something laggy, or apps crash, etc. Even putting custom ROMS on them caused them to have unique issues based off of whatever ROM I put on it. SO I was constantly re flashing to the new ROM, hoping it fixes the issues and doesn't cause additional issues.
I spent more time flashing, than just using them. What fun is that?
So after I heard all the weird Asus Infinity issues, I canceled my Asus order. I ordered an Ipad 3. Should have it thursday of next week.
But I am using the Ipad 1 that is a work tablet, and it just works. No crashes, no weird little issues.
I am sold. I can't believe I hated the Ipads so much.
One negative to the Ipads though, that I will miss. And that are the widgets and live wallpapers. Other than that, Ill kepp my android phone, but the tab will be an Ipad.
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Click to collapse
I had been considering getting a new iPad rather than waiting for Android to get the tablet basics right; however, the main reason why I haven't is my dislike for Apple's motto of litigation over innovation. So I will give Android tabs another chance and get the Infinity. There will definitely be another *new* iPad and this will certainly not be my last tablet. Hopefully Jelly Bean will improve the whole experience. If it gets it and I love it, then great. Otherwise, I am sure I will be able to sell it for a decent price.
I see what you mean. I figure when you can get a tab with Jelly Bean, I hope that android tabs will work better. I hope so. Android is open source and great things go on with newly developed ROMS.
I just can't handle all of the crap wrong and all of the constant issues having to be fixed. For awhile, Ill use the Ipad 3 and wait until android really kick ass. Unless the new MS Tablet is even better.
Android will never compete with UI experience in comparision to Apple unless they change the underlying system.
Apple gives all power to the UI first which results in a smooth experience. But that will also cost power for background tasks. So while you can smoothly scroll your pages in a PDF suddenly it takes ages to load a page, I have seen it.
Android is balanced. So you might see stuttering while scrolling through PDF's but pages will load a lot faster.
That as an example.
It is up to you what system you prefer.
There is a detailed blog post by some google dev somewhere, couldn't find it, sorry.
Jelly bean will definetly smooth out anything having to do with touch response such as scrolling and pinch zooming. That is if it does what its supposed too.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using xda premium
My suggestion is to go try out a Nexus 7 and see how smooth it is. The Infinity will be very similar to that once it's updated to Jelly Bean.
KilerG said:
My suggestion is to go try out a Nexus 7 and see how smooth it is. The Infinity will be very similar to that once it's updated to Jelly Bean.
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This is only our wishful thinking, not a fact yet.
I don't see iPad outperforming Infinity in real life performance however, apart from lags when copying large amounts of data (I can't seem to notice iPad 2 being better for browsing, tried it with iPad 2 today - and remember that on the Infinity it is 1920x1200; iPad 3 with a somewhat better resolution has been reported to become burning hot btw).
What bothers me is not the issues with Android, but the shortcuts and crappy manufacturing that seems to plague the category. Asus, for example, comes out with innovative stuff but seems to chronically release devices before they're ready. Samsung came out with a solid, if uninspiring, 10 inch tablet last year, but the new one has been getting reviews that say it's inferior to the previous model. The Nexus 7 is finally rolling out, but with reports of sloppy build -- Asus strikes again? The Acer has decent specs on paper but doesn't make the target in terms of real-life operation.
I hate Apple with a fire deep in my belly. But, most of the time (iPhone 4 antenna excepted), when they release a mobile product, it's ready to roll -- functionally and aesthetically. Much higher initially quality than the Android products I've had or shopped.
Seriously, how fooking hard can it be to put together a decent feature set and build it properly?
I see your point. There have been numerous bugs in every single iPhone version however. My friend who was apple-lover has returned 80% of their devices in the recent years - from iPad 2, through MacBook Air to LCD.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using xda app-developers app
It lags due to the weak Tegra 3 GPU not able to run at full 60fps for the 1920x1200p.
Heck it even lags on 1280x800 sometimes. Even with Jelly Bean, it will still have hiccups due to the GPU limitation.
MrPhilo said:
It lags due to the weak Tegra 3 GPU not able to run at full 60fps for the 1920x1200p.
Heck it even lags on 1280x800 sometimes. Even with Jelly Bean, it will still have hiccups due to the GPU limitation.
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You say this, yet the Tegra 3 used in the Nexus 7 isn't as good as the one in the Infinity. The GPU is plenty capable, as it's buttery smooth in Jelly Bean. There is no GPU limitation, it's software at the moment.
So here is my quick background.
I have been a huge fan of tablet. I started out with Windows based tablet back when it was Windows XP that was like 7-8 years ago. Then I moved onto very first android tablet Xoom. Switched to Samsung Galaxy 10.1. Due to specific application only available on Ipad, I had to go with Ipad so I bought iPad 2 and sold Galaxy 10.1, which I still have. I then got Galaxy 10.1 4G Verizon back, which I sold in anticipation of Transformer infinity..
So with that, here is my take on iOS vs. Android.
"Really depends on what you do."
Stability/Fluidity: iOS
It is indeed the fact iPad runs smoother. Though there are some test showed higher stability rate of Android over the iOS, my personal experience goes along with crowd i.e. iOS is more stable. BUT I have not tried ICS (nor New iPad).
Also there is another catch here. iPad is not fail safe. It does still crush and if it crush, it crushes constantly i.e. simply cannot open the file or perform the action.
Multitasking: Android
As someone else suggested earlier in this forum, this is probably due to difference in the underlying focus/design motto between iOS and Android. iOS DOES NOT do real multitasking. I know some say it does, but it's not true for at least the current iOS version and with my iPad 2.
It basically freezes/hibernate the background application. I tried to download files in background several times, or have some application load files into, which usually takes several minutes as it tries to decompress or do whatever it needs to. So after launching these tasks, I go surf web with different browser or application. I go back there is nearly zero progression. There may be minimal multitasking as I have seen progression of downloading file for like 1MB after 10 minutes but this happened more like within the initial few minutes or seconds and since then it had to be frozen in background because I did check this after 2 minutes and still the progression were the same.
Alternatively, needless to say but Android allows you to download files in background but sounds like transformer line suffers from hanging when this happens. I never used torrent on tablet but I remember downloading some files like 100MB+ on web in background while I was using some other application, which usually worked no problem but my foreground application was not demanding.
Applications: Mixed
This is where it really comes down to what you want. Many says Apple store is better, which I agree with games. So if games are your priority, I go with iPAD. It may change in the future, but by the time it changes basically you can buy newer better tablet anyways. So for now for games, go with iPad. But personally, if truly want to play games, I'd rather by portable gaming system like 3DS or PS Vita... But that's just me. Apple store certainly have more selections, and better optimized for iPad. However, many of iPad applications are not free and no real trial. So you have to sort of buy and see.
Whereas, android has tons of applications that are free with ad. This may be one reason why app developers are not making much money on Android market hence avoiding or deprioritizing... who knows. But some applications are simply better on Android. For instance, I use Anki which is perhaps the best cross platform flashcard application. If you want to have the real version of Anki on iPad it costs $20+. You can sort of do a work around with cheaper $5 application but you won't get autosynch of decks, no statistics transfer etc. Whereas on Android.... It's FREE and does autosynch. Other application is ebook reader like epub and pdf. When comparing iPad applications to the Android at least iPad 2 vs. Galaxy 10.1, large files like 300+MB epubs opened much quicker on Galaxy 10.1. Not sure if this is due to pure CPU advantage vs. application difference.
Notifications: Android
Sort of fits into the multitasking but iOS notification is less invasive (using good term), less evident (more of cons for me). When I get new email, Android nicely shows pop up on the corner. In IOS, I generally have no clue until I close my application and check my email. Though notification works with iMessage so may be its just Apple deciding who gets what access to the notification.
File Transfer/Management: Android
Huge downside of Apple. In last 6 months or so, they have added wifi file transfer/synching but this happens only when you have your iPad plugged into outlet.
Individual applications may decide to offer wifi file transfer, but generally slow and its individual application based.
Files are local to each application so very easy to have duplicated files consuming your hard drive space. For instance, if you have a book in iBook, opening it in other EPUB reader you simply have to make a duplicate copy within the other application.
Android is basically simply drag and drop and generally most files can be open from any application anywhere though some does make its own local copy. As far as transfer, AirDroid is such an awesome application.
Jellybean:
The theme of this is amazing. The functionality is not ground breaking but Google finally decides to put emphasis on the UI fluidity. So if it achieves what its intended, I think overall Android simply becomes better ecosystem as it already offers more functionality and flexibility but the major drawback/downside was the UI fluidity. Though as far as application stability, I am not sure if Jellybean is answering that part as I never read anywhere specifically stating such. In any event, ASUS generally so fast in pushing the latest version of Android, I would personally wait until Jelly bean comes out and see if it truly solves the issues. Its definitely a possibility but no gurantee so buying something based on the speculation may not be an optimum unless you got tons of money to spare.
Nexus 7:
Just like Jellybean. This is simple speculation, and probably we should not buy a system based on "what will likely to happen" because there is no guarantee. But I am speculating/hoping when Nexus 7 sells well, which probably does. Developers will have much better support on tablets. Even though Nexus 7 is 7 inch tablet, its resolution is compatible to non-high def android tablet i.e. in theory all the nexus 7 optimized applications will look native on the non-high def android tablet though button layouts may be slightly suboptimal. This is definitely much better than scaling phone app onto the tablet resolution.
I also 'hope' that ASUS gets their act together and resolves the IO issue and lag, or that JB really does the trick. But care should be taken I'm afraid: I'm sure there were many Transformer Primer users who went ahead and purchased 'hoping' the GPS issue was software resolvable; they weren't, it was terminal, and GPS was removed form the official specs. ASUS has a track record.
Lets face it, the camera click issue on 'press to focus' is a hardware design fault (they have not insulated the microphone/s from the focus mechanism). Hard to see how that will ever be solved. It is not an issue that will bother many but what is significant is that it is a sloppy, muppet mistake like the GPS issues on the Transformer Primer that could have been easily avoided - a mistake that camera manufacturers like Casio were making 10 years ago on early digital cameras (I know, I had one). That's just not good enough ASUS.
robhorsefield said:
I also 'hope' that ASUS gets their act together and resolves the IO issue and lag, or that JB really does the trick. But care should be taken I'm afraid: I'm sure there were many Transformer Primer users who went ahead and purchased 'hoping' the GPS issue was software resolvable; they weren't, it was terminal, and GPS was removed form the official specs. ASUS has a track record.
Lets face it, the camera click issue on 'press to focus' is a hardware design fault (they have not insulated the microphone/s from the focus mechanism). Hard to see how that will ever be solved. It is not an issue that will bother many but what is significant is that it is a sloppy, muppet mistake like the GPS issues on the Transformer Primer that could have been easily avoided - a mistake that camera manufacturers like Casio were making 10 years ago on early digital cameras (I know, I had one). That's just not good enough ASUS.
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Good job copying and pasting from your other thread.
The I/O issue isn't hardware related from what I can tell. It really just seems like something that just needs to be resolved in the kernel.
robhorsefield said:
I also 'hope' that ASUS gets their act together and resolves the IO issue and lag, or that JB really does the trick. But care should be taken I'm afraid: I'm sure there were many Transformer Primer users who went ahead and purchased 'hoping' the GPS issue was software resolvable; they weren't, it was terminal, and GPS was removed form the official specs. ASUS has a track record.
Lets face it, the camera click issue on 'press to focus' is a hardware design fault (they have not insulated the microphone/s from the focus mechanism). Hard to see how that will ever be solved. It is not an issue that will bother many but what is significant is that it is a sloppy, muppet mistake like the GPS issues on the Transformer Primer that could have been easily avoided - a mistake that camera manufacturers like Casio were making 10 years ago on early digital cameras (I know, I had one). That's just not good enough ASUS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
ASUS has problems with attention to detail. Failing to notice these issues is completely indicative of poor engineering and lacking quality control. Users have been identifying problems right away. I can deal with minor software discrepancies; those can eventually be solved. However, basic hardware problems like these are alarming. On their own they might seem minor, but compounded (camera, I/O, screen ripples, SD card support, ...) I wonder if ASUS just took a bunch of hardware components, fit them together like a puzzle, and then sat on it for months without testing waiting for release. This device is coming half a year after it was announced. These issues could have been corrected.
KilerG said:
Good job copying and pasting from your other thread.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It wasn't exactly the same. ...same poor design and manufacture problems, so same opinions and comments apply, sorry, fact.
cipherbreak said:
ASUS has problems with attention to detail. Failing to notice these issues is completely indicative of poor engineering and lacking quality control. Users have been identifying problems right away. I can deal with minor software discrepancies; those can eventually be solved. However, basic hardware problems like these are alarming. On their own they might seem minor, but compounded (camera, I/O, screen ripples, SD card support, ...)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Bang on the point, thanks. And compounded also with the Prime GPS debacle.
I doubt Apple will let another Antenna-gate slip out, we'll see.

[Q] Would you buy it again?

Hi guys
Been thinking about buying a tablet for a long time. I have had extensive experience with the motorolla XOOM and a lenovo *forget the name*
Both were just not right.. They could not achieve what I wanted to achieve and the xoom was close but with no USB port to attach camera etc it just isnt right for my use.
I have been using android for a very long time and have thrown many custom roms on my phones etc
I plan to develop some apps, but most importantly I see the device being capable for travelling. Backing up my photos from my camera, taking movies with me for the plane etc.
A must is also the capability to browse Samba shares. I know android file manager apps have improved significantly to improve this.
As such, would you buy the device again? Has it got good developer community support as I am expecting that actual vendor support warranty is a joke like all devices.
Does the stock rom have a lot of crap on it? I currently run CM9 on my phone so i am guesing the answer will be yes. Could this potentially replace the notebook at home with the keyboard dock?
Thanks
if you would have asked me a month ago, i would have said no. But after unlocking, rooting, installing Cleanrom and overclocking, this device is a beast. I had an issue recently that made me want to get rid of it, but i came to find out it was app related. Its a great device. A lot of people have had issues with it, and a lot have it working fantastic. With whats available now, even including the new Google 10, i would recommend this device over everything available.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk HD
timrock said:
if you would have asked me a month ago, i would have said no. But after unlocking, rooting, installing Cleanrom and overclocking, this device is a beast. I had an issue recently that made me want to get rid of it, but i came to find out it was app related. Its a great device. A lot of people have had issues with it, and a lot have it working fantastic. With whats available now, even including the new Google 10, i would recommend this device over everything available.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk HD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Right on!
Took 86 words right from my mouth...
:good:
timrock said:
if you would have asked me a month ago, i would have said no. But after unlocking, rooting, installing Cleanrom and overclocking, this device is a beast. I had an issue recently that made me want to get rid of it, but i came to find out it was app related. Its a great device. A lot of people have had issues with it, and a lot have it working fantastic. With whats available now, even including the new Google 10, i would recommend this device over everything available.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk HD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ditto. I've used it for movies on planes, output to a TV to watch a movie at a friend's house, and instant video review from a GoPro with the SD slot on the keyboard. Have used it to get files into flash drives via the USB as well. The keyboard also makes it perfect for RDP to my server, wherever I might be. I came from a Prime with serious antenna interference that prevented use through one wall at home, and that has not been an issue on my Infinity (though I still get a slight reduction in Wifi throughput while connected to Bluetooth). My biggest gripe until I unlocked was the interface speed, and Cleanrom made it feel like a whole new device; feels like my Galaxy Nexus.
This is my portable computer now; my trusty Thinkpad hasn't been touched since I got my Infinity.
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2
This device is very quick with Clean rom 2.3 and overclocked kernal. Before unlocking I was a little skeptical however once I unlocked the device has been great! If I was you I would go to best buy and buy it, test it out, then if you dont like it then return it before the 30 day warranty. Just keep it locked if you go that route. It doesnt use its full potential that way but atleast you will get a taste of this goodness. Stock Jelly Bean honestly wasnt that bad either just not as quick as Clean rom.
I also think it can replace a netbook maybe not a notebook like higher end notebook or anything. If you do a lot of game playing on a higher end notebook then its not the same however if you just browse the net then this is perfect for you and some.
Hi,
first of all: Sorry for my bad english. I come from germany.
I use this device for university, and i think i wouldn't buy it now, after using it for approx. 3 months. The stock browser is very slow. Even my Galaxy S2 with stock rom was better. Sometimes i don't believe that there's a quad core inside. It feels to slow. Pherhaps i also have to test a custom rom, but i don't want to loose guarantee.
The Infinity combinated with dock is really great to notice something very quickly. First I tried with an iPad in university and this was horrible. I sold it after 3 weeks. The Infinity is defintly better, but not what i expected to become. I hope that further Software Updates will fix this.
I don't want to be only negative: The micro HDMI is great. I used it several times. Also the possibility to plug in an usb - stick, or a micro sd card is very useful. The quality of the display is also very fine. Apps like dolphin browser, tune in radio ... are working very well. The killer feature against Apples iPad is the flash plattform.
If i have to say it in one sentence: It's to slow and has to much bugs for it's high price (in Germany it's 700€ ~ 905$)
No I wouldn't. Even with CleanROM and other tweaks, all sdcard related operations are too slow. App opening and closing animations are not smooth. Project Butter doesn't work, even on official CM10. Battery life is not good. I get max 5 hours of movie watching time. My old Xoom would give me 8-9 hours. In short, I'm not happy with the Infinity and I wish I'd have gone for Galaxy Note 10.1.
I would 100% absolutely buy the TF700 again. It's a great device, especially if you install a custom ROM (CleanROM *highly* recommended) as well as Clemsyn's OC kernel. Stock is not horrible, but CleanROM/Clemsyn combination is simply amazing. Makes the device crazy fast!
Of course, it's not a perfect device (there is no such thing), but it's by far the most versatile (keyboard dock, memory card slots, HDMI-out, etc), best looking (brushed aluminum), best performing, thinnest, lightest 10" Android tablet available right now.
The worst aspect of this tablet is the (lack of) quality control @ Asus. I would not recommend purchasing the tablet via mail order because of this. I would highly recommend that you purchase at Best Buy, so that you can exchange it if needed (in case you have a hardware issue). Best Buy has an excellent return policy.
I'd also recommend that you spend the extra $87 (with coupon) and purchase a 2-year Square Trade Accidental Coverage warranty. This way, even if you accidentally step on the device and break it, you are covered. Or, if you brick it while trying to install custom ROM's or something - you are covered. It gives you complete peace of mind for 2 years (at which point, you'll probably be upgrading again anyway).
Hope that helps you make your decision!
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2
no.
cleanROM + kernals and all that developer goodness is awesome, but ASUS should have gotten their product right before releasing it. build quality issues, crappy I/O, yada yada. that said, the IDEA of a tablet with these specs is awesome, and the potential was great. it's just implementation fail.
curious abt the Nexus 10. the resolution on that thing is ridiculous, wondering how the pixel-pushing is going to fare with that new SoC.
No... It's a lazy and very slow so I don't like it..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDtOqCQ_I4Q&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Sent from Asus infinity tablet
Warranty invalidation for unlocking the bootloader is the only reason I wouldn't recommend it.
Yes I would, CleanRom has transformed this tablet into a beast and I have no regrets. Those kicking themselves for not getting an N10 will always be sore because technology isn't gonna stop improving just so you can feel better about your purchase. The Infinity has become my daily driver for all things related to the internet and gaming on the couch.
Yes I would, absolutely.
Sometimes, I'm thinking about the GNote 10.1, for example when I need to draw a graph on a PDF, but at the end it's very rare that I need it, my keyboard is so usefull : the battery, the keyboard itself, and to keep the tablet in a right angle in the bed, on the desk, during conferences with small places...
I had no issue with mine. Not at all, and I have locked bootloader (for now).
The best would be TF700 1080p screen with GNote 10.1 PLS technology (stylus and pressure), and Samsung multitasking-multiwindows system when it will be smooth.
I knew that it was overpriced and already outdated when I bought it, but I was too curious how it works with the dock, and the dock really makes it much more useful than a tablet alone (I had a TF101 without dock before).
1 GB RAM and the slow internal storage are not adequate for a high end tablet. And the software is very unstable and feels half-baked compared to a Linux or Windows desktop - even the Play store app crashed in the stock ROM (out of memory exception).
Do I regret that I bought it? No, money was not an issue, it is a nice toy and the screen is great. Would I buy it again? No. Let's see what 2013 brings.
aydc said:
No I wouldn't. Even with CleanROM and other tweaks, all sdcard related operations are too slow. App opening and closing animations are not smooth. Project Butter doesn't work, even on official CM10. Battery life is not good. I get max 5 hours of movie watching time. My old Xoom would give me 8-9 hours. In short, I'm not happy with the Infinity and I wish I'd have gone for Galaxy Note 10.1.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You must have a bad one. Mine is super smooth and fast!
So my answer is YES! Knowing what I know now, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. This thing is truly a beast. I never intentionally leave any of my devices stock...custom roms and kernels give you so much more. A Square Deal warranty is pretty cheap and gives great protection, so who cares about voiding the ASUS warranty?
diggeles said:
...
As such, would you buy the device again? Has it got good developer community support as I am expecting that actual vendor support warranty is a joke like all devices.
Does the stock rom have a lot of crap on it? I currently run CM9 on my phone so i am guesing the answer will be yes. Could this potentially replace the notebook at home with the keyboard dock?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, for sure I would.
It has Dev support and just started getting CM10 nightlies. Check out the Dev forum for more.
I think the stock ROM has some pretty useful tools. Splashtop, Asus cloud storage and even a tool for DNLA although MediaHouse is still the best for DNLA. I don't use the magazine, newspaper and book apps that came with it, but I guess they're useful for someone using them. The only real inclusion in the stock ROM that troubles some people is the stuff relating to the Asus Device Tracker, but you can search and read for more about that. I'm not worried about that given I have a SquareTrade warranty. So I'd get coverage regardless.
Yes, it can replace a notebook when you consider Splashtop. And if all you do is view media, read mail, edit a few files, browse the web and play games, yea it's all you need. If you need desktop specific applications, you can use them through Splashtop, WiFi connected desktop/laptop required .
No. You shouldn't have to root your device and install a custom OS to get decent performance out of a tablet. I am ok with it now that I have done these things, but the stock performance is unacceptable. I would definitely go with a different tablet if I had the choice.
If the stock performance had been good and custom OS's made the performance EVEN BETTER that would be ok in my book.
Hi all,
I didn't want to make yet another thread about should i buy blah blah blah.
please don't reply if you have had a sour experience with your unit as i think the reply will not be a genuine one.
I have looked at this tablet in local stores and tried some basic games and they run fine to me.
However i currently have a acer a510 1280x 800 res 1.3 tegra chip.
I have found all games from asphalt 7/6 nova 3 (even though not compatable) to run fine and smooth on my lower performance tegra tab.
My use will be gaming movies and also want the more laptop experience to respond to online questions while on the go.
Reading through the forum i see people complaining about slow fps and slow internal storage.
however the specs of the aussie version of this tab specifies ssd memory?
So my question is how do you perceive slow and this on all tabs or just some peoples. I.e. some one complaining about it being slow would get the same speed benchmark as some one who perceives it as being fine?
Also do you think it is more a optimization issue for games fps or the fact the res is just that much more? I know alot of games still have issues with tegra games and really for such a powerful company and chipset it really should get more attention than it is.
is the 1gb of ram a bottle neck?
I ask this because i have 1gb of ram on the a510 and have not had any specific issues running low on memory however i can see how a higher res "may require more ram" to run smooth.
I agree with many posts that this tablet really should be 1.5gb or 2gb of ram.
I was even surprised to see the upcoming lte model still only has 1gb of ram.
So i'm kind of stuck on if i should buy it or wait for the next gen hopefully mid next year.
Only the sometimes sluggish IO was a surprise, and not that big a deal to me. Otherwise, I knew the weaknesses when I bought it.
If 'the newest thing' is what you want, then yeah, you'll always be unhappy with what you've got. But if what you want is a little more specific and based on practicality, you can get a lot of life out of a good device, and the Infinity is a good device. I've had my TP2 for 3 years next month. I have no plans to upgrade that, and no device currently exists that I'd even consider to be an upgrade. I know what I want.
malos1984 said:
Hi all,
I didn't want to make yet another thread about should i buy blah blah blah.
please don't reply if you have had a sour experience with your unit as i think the reply will not be a genuine one.
I have looked at this tablet in local stores and tried some basic games and they run fine to me.
However i currently have a acer a510 1280x 800 res 1.3 tegra chip.
I have found all games from asphalt 7/6 nova 3 (even though not compatable) to run fine and smooth on my lower performance tegra tab.
My use will be gaming movies and also want the more laptop experience to respond to online questions while on the go.
Reading through the forum i see people complaining about slow fps and slow internal storage.
however the specs of the aussie version of this tab specifies ssd memory?
So my question is how do you perceive slow and this on all tabs or just some peoples. I.e. some one complaining about it being slow would get the same speed benchmark as some one who perceives it as being fine?
Also do you think it is more a optimization issue for games fps or the fact the res is just that much more? I know alot of games still have issues with tegra games and really for such a powerful company and chipset it really should get more attention than it is.
is the 1gb of ram a bottle neck?
I ask this because i have 1gb of ram on the a510 and have not had any specific issues running low on memory however i can see how a higher res "may require more ram" to run smooth.
I agree with many posts that this tablet really should be 1.5gb or 2gb of ram.
I was even surprised to see the upcoming lte model still only has 1gb of ram.
So i'm kind of stuck on if i should buy it or wait for the next gen hopefully mid next year.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
IMO I don't think this tablet would be the best for gaming until...when or if the Android game app market catches up to the hardware.
My wife plays the low end common games on this tab no troubles there.
I used to play Max Payne and Need for speed, those haven't been running too well lately for me.
The Tegra3 games are problematic for some and there isn't a large selection at this time.
Viewing movies in HD is fine for me...can't speak for others however.
Bottom line:
As the tablet stands now, I wouldn't invest the money to game on the Infinity if your Acer plays the intense games to your liking.
Best of luck with the tablet search.
jim

Asus' opinion on the I/O issue?

I think most people on this forum have come to love the Infinity for it's display and versatility, only to be disgruntled by lag and unresponsiveness of the UI, and freezing of applications.
Where the first impression was that the cause of this was an underpowered Tegra 3 (for the HD resolution) or RAM that was not speedy enough the cause now seems to narrow down on slow storage memory.
This becomes apparent with the data2sd modification for those that have dared to unlock the Infinity's bootloader thus voiding warranty and in the possession of a fast (class 10) microsd card to put the data partition on.
The above mentioned problems disappear and the Tegra 3 plus the RAM seem more than adequate for the task. So a relatively cheap component in the tablet (I bought a 64 GB class 10 / UHS-1 card for 55 euro's) is causing a significant deterioration in user experience.
To illustrate: When performing a I/O intensive operation such as downloading a torrent with a program such as aTorrent the tablet more or less freezes in normal operation. With data2sd you can happily continue to use it with only a minor impact on responsiveness.
Also heavy applications such as Linux under Android suddenly become much more usable.
So, this makes me wonder, is ASUS aware of this issue, and do people notice changes or less problems on the most recent versions of the tablet (referring to the serial numbers)? I think it's kind of sad that such a landmark device as the Infinity suffers from such a problem only related to a relatively cheap component in the tablet.
rikc said:
I think most people on this forum have come to love the Infinity for it's display and versatility, only to be disgruntled by lag and unresponsiveness of the UI, and freezing of applications.
Where the first impression was that the cause of this was an underpowered Tegra 3 (for the HD resolution) or RAM that was not speedy enough the cause now seems to narrow down on slow storage memory.
This becomes apparent with the data2sd modification for those that have dared to unlock the Infinity's bootloader thus voiding warranty and in the possession of a fast (class 10) microsd card to put the data partition on.
The above mentioned problems disappear and the Tegra 3 plus the RAM seem more than adequate for the task. So a relatively cheap component in the tablet (I bought a 64 GB class 10 / UHS-1 card for 55 euro's) is causing a significant deterioration in user experience.
To illustrate: When performing a I/O intensive operation such as downloading a torrent with a program such as aTorrent the tablet more or less freezes in normal operation. With data2sd you can happily continue to use it with only a minor impact on responsiveness.
Also heavy applications such as Linux under Android suddenly become much more usable.
So, this makes me wonder, is ASUS aware of this issue, and do people notice changes or less problems on the most recent versions of the tablet (referring to the serial numbers)? I think it's kind of sad that such a landmark device as the Infinity suffers from such a problem only related to a relatively cheap component in the tablet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't have a lagging, unresponsive Infinity. I'm still stock but rooted and have no complaints about this tablet. Also, I'd guess that ASUS' opinion would be that there is no I/O problem only users pushing the tablet beyond its reasonable limits.
BTrack said:
I don't have a lagging, unresponsive Infinity. I'm still stock but rooted and have no complaints about this tablet. Also, I'd guess that ASUS' opinion would be that there is no I/O problem only users pushing the tablet beyond its reasonable limits.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, interesting because you state in your signature that you have a C90 revision. I run a C70 version myself.
rikc said:
So, this makes me wonder, is ASUS aware of this issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
They moved to a different solution in the N7.
"Some manufacturers seem to do a better job of picking their storage solution, and the Kingston eMMC in the Nexus 7 is faster than the Hynix e-NAND ASUS has used in previous tablets. Neither is perfect however. There's a tangible impact on simple multitasking if you're downloading a lot of files or installing apps in the background. Even operations in memory are quite negatively affected by background IO. Take a look at how SunSpider performance is hurt by a background file download."
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6073/the-google-nexus-7-review/6​
I once complained to ASUS about this issue and compared it to the experience on my Galaxy SII.
There response was:
Thank you for your email.
We will forward your feedback to our R&D, but we cannot garantee that we can fix speed 1 on 1. Both products are build up in a different way.
We will continuesly update the android system to keep performance on a good level.
We hope to have informed you enough.
gybema said:
I once complained to ASUS about this issue and compared it to the experience on my Galaxy SII.
There response was:
Thank you for your email.
We will forward your feedback to our R&D, but we cannot garantee that we can fix speed 1 on 1. Both products are build up in a different way.
We will continuesly update the android system to keep performance on a good level.
We hope to have informed you enough.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, I also own a SGS2. It (albeit OC'd) felt so smooth compared to the stock Infinity. And I also ran Androbench on it. Although I don't have the results remembered I do know they were approximately 2-3 times higher than my Infinity. This is what makes the difference and make Samsung's SGS2 feel so smooth.
rikc said:
Yes, I also own a SGS2. It (albeit OC'd) felt so smooth compared to the stock Infinity. And I also ran Androbench on it. Although I don't have the results remembered I do know they were approximately 2-3 times higher than my Infinity. This is what makes the difference and make Samsung's SGS2 feel so smooth.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do not believe in benchmarks, as often enough they do not even approximate user experience. A clear case for my argument is that, for example on CleanROM, the benchmark scores actually did not exactly skyrocket (they hardly improved to any degree of significance across the board), but the user experience is miles ahead of that of a stock ASUS TF700. I have seen the same happen on my SGS2, where in the past benchmark scores were artificially improved by disabling fsync without notification (That is risky and irresponsible decision making on part of a developer, but that's another matter. ) -- creating a situation in which a fair comparison can hardly be made.
Especially on multicore devices, the benchmark suites tend to falter...
MartyHulskemper said:
Especially on multicore devices, the benchmark suites tend to falter...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tweaking SQLite and moving the data partition to a class 10 SD card kind of disprove your point because by bypassing or circumventing the NAND issue what's reflected in the IO benchmark scores between stock and tweaked pretty much reflect what people experience. And something like AndroBench is as basic a test as exists and its only function is measuring reads and writes to storage. Using it, my Teg3 device performs better than my Exynos device and the IO scores it reports jive with the IO differences reported by Quadrant. In non-IO tests I agree with you that some benchmarks don't leverage additional cores well but simple single-threaded IO tests shouldn't be impacted by the processor as the reads/writes are the lowest common denominator even on the fastest device. Compared to PCs, all Android devices have slow IO because of the NAND and eMMC storage solutions they use. The biggest difference between Android devices are those that have dedicated IO controllers. Exynos 4/5 and the S4 series all include a dedicated IO controller on the chip. HTC provides a dedicated IO controller on their Teg3 devices. That’s why the LTE TF700 below scores so high on the Quadrant memory and IO tests using Asus' NAND solution compared to the Wi-Fi TF700. So at least for IO what the benchmarks are reflecting represent actual performance.
To illustrate: When performing a I/O intensive operation such as downloading a torrent with a program such as aTorrent the tablet more or less freezes in normal operation. With data2sd you can happily continue to use it with only a minor impact on responsiveness.
-What exactly are you downloading from torrents on a tablet? You will get better performance doing that activity on a computer hooked up to ethernet. Granted these things are getting stronger, I don't think we should expect these devices to replace regular computers. They are more convenient for sure but they won't have the same processing power, expandability, or overall same user experience.
What are you expecting from your tablet? What is your purpose for buying it other than the cool factor of having a tablet? What you may want may not realistically be possible on any tablet currently. Go with Apple if you want something smoother. For what this device is intended for works. If the hang ups of the device are that annoying to you then sell it and get something else. You will only frustrate yourself by keeping it and festering over I/O.
fsured said:
What you may want may not realistically be possible on any tablet currently.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's already been discussed (a lot) and part of what caused everyone here to come up with non-standard IO solutions. Either data2SD or browser2RAM allow the TF700 to function like other tablets because they bypass the stock NAND solution Asus uses. Android itself is capable of running multiple processes concurently.
TF700
Note 10.1
Oh I understand that Android is capable of doing much more and use browser2ram myself. Just not phrasing my question or thought right. I'm wondering what people are wanting to do with the tablet beyond it being a portable internet and multimedia device. Are they purposely doing so much with the tablet at once that it will lag? I'm constantly downloading 2-3 mp4 video files (range between 70-350mb each) while on a busy work wifi signal and browsed the web at the same time. Sure it runs a bit slower but it operates and I know it will be back to normal when the downloads finish. If I'm needing to download large files I'm going log into my pc with splashtop, set it download, and transfer it when I get home. It doesn't make sense to weigh down the tablet with large file downloads that can take hours to do. Especially when people know it can slow their tablet down and leave them feeling bummed with the device.
I don't mean to point the poster out and I apologize for that. On reading the post again I see they are using torrent download as example and asking about Asus response to I/O. I think it would be hard to think of Asus not knowing of the I/O problems and how disgruntled people are over it. There are many reviewers who have found the issue and probably countless owners who have brought it to their attention.
For people not willing to venture into modding their device then they may need to accept it will have this issue as is or find a different device. Cut your losses so you are not looking for lag and other problems instead of having fun with the device. Perhaps an Ultrabook will be better equipped to handle what they want. I enjoy the tablet so much more once I came to accept my unit has some light bleed. I festered over returning it for about 2 weeks. Then I stopped and thought of the vast improvement over my Prime this is. I could have ended up with a device having worse screen bleed or other issues. But key thing is I enjoy the tablet so much more once I got that hardware flaw out of my head. I don't actively look for the bleeding anymore.
@fsured,
Yes I used d/l-ing a torrent as an I/O heavy example. Or running Linux on Android because indeed because when doing those kind of things that most people don't do every day the issue really becomes really apparent... sort of like stress testing.
And... again my telephone is able to do that stuff instead of locking up like my stock C70 Infinity did... to put it into real world terms (I've read the comment about the limited use of benchmarks earlier in this thread).
And to answer your question/remark about how you (should) use your tablet? I leave my work laptop at work since I have it use it about 95% of the time with the keyboard dock and often with an external mouse. I do minor productivity stuff on it (some keeping track of expenses with the Officesuite HD spreadsheet app), a lot of internet browsing (first with browser2ram and now the freezes are also gone) with flash sideloaded. A lot of studying using repligo pdf reader, a lot of chatting with the Lilypad floating chat app while i'm web surfing or so, d/l-ing stuff, doing basic photo editing using photo mate professional and doing banking stuff with an app from my bank. Also I always use desktop sites (changed uastring).
So no, maybe I'm not a typical user, just like you and explore the boundaries of what people do with tablets like this. Yet that makes me see that the tablet with a dock is a very promissing form factor... and I'm not complaining about the Tegra 3's processing power especially no that the internal storage bottleneck has been circumvented.
My serial number is C60KAS082... does this mean I have C60 revision?
I bought this tab to replace my original galaxy 10.1. In some respects it's a great tablet and in others it completely sucks!!! I use my tabby for surfing, you tube, email, and internet fun. I read the Engadget review of the nexus 10 where they said that the tf700 tab was probably a better device. Based on that review I bought the tf700. I wish I would never had read that review! I had no idea that this tab had problems until I started using it. I have never seen a wait message in a browser, never. This tab does it all the time! If you're reading this, DON'T BUY A TF700!!!!!!!!!! I got mine at a good price from craigslist so I'm stuck with it. I like rooting, modding and the like, but not to recover basic functionality. Asus you suck!
Ologn said:
My serial number is C60KAS082... does this mean I have C60 revision?
I bought this tab to replace my original galaxy 10.1. In some respects it's a great tablet and in others it completely sucks!!! I use my tabby for surfing, you tube, email, and internet fun. I read the Engadget review of the nexus 10 where they said that the tf700 tab was probably a better device. Based on that review I bought the tf700. I wish I would never had read that review! I had no idea that this tab had problems until I started using it. I have never seen a wait message in a browser, never. This tab does it all the time! If you're reading this, DON'T BUY A TF700!!!!!!!!!! I got mine at a good price from craigslist so I'm stuck with it. I like rooting, modding and the like, but not to recover basic functionality. Asus you suck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This attitude is one I can never understand. Why punish yourself with lesser performance, just because the performance should have been better out of the box? You bought the tab used at a good price, so get with the program! Unlock (if not already) and start modding. You have some very good choices and I promise that you will be very happy with your results.
@Olagn... what okantomi says
The I/O is a major oversight... but the Infinity is otherwise great and can be made so with data2sd
And I created this topic wondering if Asus has an opinion (do they read posts here) and if newer revisions have faster storage memory to fix this
rikc said:
@Olagn... what okantomi says
The I/O is a major oversight... but the Infinity is otherwise great and can be made so with data2sd
And I created this topic wondering if Asus has an opinion (do they read posts here) and if newer revisions have faster storage memory to fix this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Newer versions do not fix this issue, infact Asus's Windows RT tablet also uses slow internal memory.
yumms said:
Newer versions do not fix this issue, infact Asus's Windows RT tablet also uses slow internal memory.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you have the equivalent of freezes and FC's under Win RT...
ASUS is testing brand loyalty the hard way it seems.
I was able to use uTorrent to download pRon on my Infinity and still use other applications with lag on stock Android 4.1, no modifications.
I think ASUS should give us a official solution for his TF700 I/O Bottleneck, becouse this tablet really freezes a lot in stock-unlocked. Maybe an official unlock that doesn't void warranty. Or an official data to SD software.
So yes, I love the fact that we can unlock, root, flash etc with tf700 but, what about the warranty? I don't want to lose it before 2 years (my warranty), ASUS don't allow me to find a solution by myself becouse it means lose of warranty, and also the device doesnt work as expected. And I don't have a "hardware warranty", if I unlock I lose it.
My day by day with a TF700 is surfing web and play local file mp3 music with Google Music app in background... just loading a page like this forum can mean browse freeze. I tried Chorme, Dolphin, StockBrowser.. sometimes it freezes 10-20 seconds every page load an also it makes the music freeze too... I have the impression of a "not tested device" I bought it NEW for 590€ aprox. a month ago.
So thanks god, someone creates an illegal (for ASUS) software solution so we can wait 2 years of warranty end and then apply it.
Thanks ASUS.
I just can't understand how ASUS, with all their millions of $$$ R&D budget, ended up producing a tablet that, quite frankly, has some serious flaws out of the box...
...but then you get developers such as Scrosler, with CleanRom, & Clemsyn, with his kernal mods, who have totally transformed the Infinity into the device we all hoped it could be.
It baffles me - what sort of effort do ASUS actually put into their devices with their crappy build quality, and unoptimised software!?

[Q] Interested in tf700 but concerned about some issues

Hi there i have been searching info on this forum for years now, this is my first post.
I have been doing extensive research regarding what tablet suits my needs.
I am a film designer and need a tablet with a good quality screen that can run 1080p
video's without a problem. Preferably a 10.1 inch display, and android based of course.
On paper the tf700t meets all of these requirements, the screen is superb, color
range is very good and though a reflective screen, its very very bright. Only two
other tablets come to mind that come a little close, the kindle fire hd 8.9 ,
and the nexus 10.
Now quality control with asus tablets has been reported to be mediocre at best.
Obviously when someone has a problem they go complain on the forums so that might
explain the number of threads regarding the screen issues, where the screen stops functioning
due to the glass becoming loose. Now this wouldn't be an issue if i lived in USA with some warranty
with the tablet. But I am ordering this to Aruba, which doesn't fall under the warranty.
How many defective tablets are there %-wise. I am not ordering a tablet of 450$ and risk
a high chance of failure in the weeks to come.
extra questions:
-Kindle fire HD 8.9 can be rooted and a cyogenmod10 is on the way, would this be a safer choice for me?
-The nexus 10 comes with problems itself, are there many issues with the device?
Thank you for your time and sorry if i didn't comply with the rules since this is my first time posting,
tm
teun3sixty said:
Hi there i have been searching info on this forum for years now, this is my first post.
I have been doing extensive research regarding what tablet suits my needs.
I am a film designer and need a tablet with a good quality screen that can run 1080p
video's without a problem. Preferably a 10.1 inch display, and android based of course.
On paper the tf700t meets all of these requirements, the screen is superb, color
range is very good and though a reflective screen, its very very bright. Only two
other tablets come to mind that come a little close, the kindle fire hd 8.9 ,
and the nexus 10.
Now quality control with asus tablets has been reported to be mediocre at best.
Obviously when someone has a problem they go complain on the forums so that might
explain the number of threads regarding the screen issues, where the screen stops functioning
due to the glass becoming loose. Now this wouldn't be an issue if i lived in USA with some warranty
with the tablet. But I am ordering this to Aruba, which doesn't fall under the warranty.
How many defective tablets are there %-wise. I am not ordering a tablet of 450$ and risk
a high chance of failure in the weeks to come.
extra questions:
-Kindle fire HD 8.9 can be rooted and a cyogenmod10 is on the way, would this be a safer choice for me?
-The nexus 10 comes with problems itself, are there many issues with the device?
Thank you for your time and sorry if i didn't comply with the rules since this is my first time posting,
tm
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-TF700T-B...iewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
Have no Issues like this!!!!!! (Read this PLZ)
As far as I know stock TF700 related ROMs are laggy and require a custom Over clocked kernel such as Clemsyn which is rubbish and even with this performance is sluggish. But here is a way to get rid of the lag once and for all. Unlock and root the TF700. Then install Cyanogenmod 10.1 latest build and then when you boot into it set the IO as CFQ permenantly and then use Seeder with the settings on aggressive and the IO extend option unticked but all the rest of the options ticked. Also use lightning browser or Browser2RAM which enhances the stock Android browsers performance.
After that enjoy a super fast transformer like never before. Don't use any other rom . My transformer got nearly 150000 on Antutu which is really good and I got nearly 5500 on Quadrant with it on performance mode (I didn't use the custom CM10.1 customs kernel or any other one just the stock CM10.1 kernel). My transformer in balanced seems to be on par with an iPad 2, 3 and better than a normal Asus transformer Prime or TF300 and I have over 40 applications with several games with 1+GB data. The IO problem is still there as it is hardware based although with this their is nearly no lag for the first time. Beautiful TF700 CyanogenMod developers. I read the commit log and checked the code many gerrit optimisations for the IO and Armv7 cores. Enjoy!!!!! Wohoo Project Butter!!!!!
Continue Cyanogenmod providing better support than Asus. One reason to jailbreak (Root) is because of this.
coolmsb said:
As far as I know stock TF700 related ROMs are laggy and require a custom Over clocked kernel such as Clemsyn which is rubbish and even with this performance is sluggish. But here is a way to get rid of the lag once and for all. Unlock and root the TF700. Then install Cyanogenmod 10.1 latest build and then when you boot into it set the IO as CFQ permenantly and then use Seeder with the settings on aggressive and the IO extend option unticked but all the rest of the options ticked. Also use lightning browser or Browser2RAM which enhances the stock Android browsers performance.
After that enjoy a super fast transformer like never before. Don't use any other rom . My transformer got nearly 150000 on Antutu which is really good and I got nearly 5500 on Quadrant with it on performance mode (I didn't use the custom CM10.1 customs kernel or any other one just the stock CM10.1 kernel). My transformer in balanced seems to be on par with an iPad 2, 3 and better than a normal Asus transformer Prime or TF300 and I have over 40 applications with several games with 1+GB data. The IO problem is still there as it is hardware based although with this their is nearly no lag for the first time. Beautiful TF700 CyanogenMod developers. I read the commit log and checked the code many gerrit optimisations for the IO and Armv7 cores. Enjoy!!!!! Wohoo Project Butter!!!!!
Continue Cyanogenmod providing better support than Asus. One reason to jailbreak (Root) is because of this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Absolute bobbins. But unlocking and flashing a custom rom is a must yes. Stock or CM based will give you a better experience.
coolmsb said:
As far as I know stock TF700 related ROMs are laggy and require a custom Over clocked kernel such as Clemsyn which is rubbish and even with this performance is sluggish. But here is a way to get rid of the lag once and for all. Unlock and root the TF700. Then install Cyanogenmod 10.1 latest build and then when you boot into it set the IO as CFQ permenantly and then use Seeder with the settings on aggressive and the IO extend option unticked but all the rest of the options ticked. Also use lightning browser or Browser2RAM which enhances the stock Android browsers performance.
After that enjoy a super fast transformer like never before. Don't use any other rom . My transformer got nearly 150000 on Antutu which is really good and I got nearly 5500 on Quadrant with it on performance mode (I didn't use the custom CM10.1 customs kernel or any other one just the stock CM10.1 kernel). My transformer in balanced seems to be on par with an iPad 2, 3 and better than a normal Asus transformer Prime or TF300 and I have over 40 applications with several games with 1+GB data. The IO problem is still there as it is hardware based although with this their is nearly no lag for the first time. Beautiful TF700 CyanogenMod developers. I read the commit log and checked the code many gerrit optimisations for the IO and Armv7 cores. Enjoy!!!!! Wohoo Project Butter!!!!!
Continue Cyanogenmod providing better support than Asus. One reason to jailbreak (Root) is because of this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your assessment is a bit harsh and untrue in my opinion.
ROM\Kernel development isn't a competition it's developers working very hard for the good of other android users.
Your use of the term "jailbreak" I find odd...to me it shows what you don't know about android and custom ROMs.
Thats OK said:
Your assessment is a bit harsh and untrue in my opinion.
ROM\Kernel development isn't a competition it's developers working very hard for the good of other android users.
Your use of the term "jailbreak" I find odd...to me it shows what you don't know about android and custom ROMs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I happen to agree that coolmsb's reply is utter nonsense and shows a lack of (practical) experience with the ROMs referenced whatsoever. With CROMI, I do not have more lag than with other system under normal usage scenarios. When transferring large files, yes, there may still be hiccups here and there (although data2sd minimizes that phenomenon), but then you'd have to take into account that that phenomenon is hardware-based and thus cannot be solved by flashing any ROM whatsoever.
TL;DR -- @coolmsb: Your opinion seems to stink.
---------- Post added at 01:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:07 AM ----------
teun3sixty said:
Hi there i have been searching info on this forum for years now, this is my first post.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Welkom!
I have been doing extensive research regarding what tablet suits my needs.
I am a film designer and need a tablet with a good quality screen that can run 1080p
video's without a problem. Preferably a 10.1 inch display, and android based of course.
On paper the tf700t meets all of these requirements, the screen is superb, color
range is very good and though a reflective screen, its very very bright. Only two
other tablets come to mind that come a little close, the kindle fire hd 8.9 ,
and the nexus 10.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mmmh...
Now quality control with asus tablets has been reported to be mediocre at best.
Obviously when someone has a problem they go complain on the forums so that might
explain the number of threads regarding the screen issues, where the screen stops functioning
due to the glass becoming loose. Now this wouldn't be an issue if i lived in USA with some warranty
with the tablet. But I am ordering this to Aruba, which doesn't fall under the warranty.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You rightfully reference the phenomenon (the word of today, sorry!) of online negative bias, and it is undoubtedly at work here as well. The vast majority of owners must be happily trudging on with their 700s, and most are no 'tweakers'. The screen coming loose can be fixed with a slight warming with a hairdryer, melting the glue and pressing the screen onto the body, for example. I do feel that some "issues" have cropped up in here that actually need some (unrealistic) searching for in order to spot them, anyway ("When I press very hard above the headphone jack, it creaks!" --- who in Hell is going to put that kind of pressure on whatever electronic object in his surroundings anytime soon??!
Unless you weigh cow, or trucks, for a living, then I'll admit defeat there.
How many defective tablets are there %-wise. I am not ordering a tablet of 450$ and risk
a high chance of failure in the weeks to come.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No one knows and it is because of the bias issue you referenced earlier yourself: we can poll the people that have defective units (which there always will be, mind you), but a lot of the opposite camp's people are just out there doing fun things.
extra questions:
-Kindle fire HD 8.9 can be rooted and a cyogenmod10 is on the way, would this be a safer choice for me?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have never looked at the KHD, sorry. Can't comment, therefore.
-The nexus 10 comes with problems itself, are there many issues with the device?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you take a look at the N10 forum, you'll see more people displeased than in here. It does seem to have a rather fair share of quality control issues itself... no to mention the availability being crap, too!
Thank you for your time and sorry if i didn't comply with the rules since this is my first time posting,
tm
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You posted an actual question in the Q&A forum --which is a nice change of seasons from many first-time posters -- so I'd say you're off to a good start!

Is it still worth buying this tablet?

Hello everyone.
I am considering buying this tablet, as the price for the TF300TG dropped in my country to the level acceptable by me, but I am a bit worried. This tablet is one year old, yet it seems to be still quite popular. I would like to know its performance, as Antutu results show like ~10k which is quite low these days, on the other hand youtube tests show real racing 3 running quite smoothly.
Is it still worth buying?
I need a tablet mainly for hd movies and web browsing, 3G is a must. I might play some games, but this is not the main goal. I am also considering Lenovo S6000 (but the MTK actually sucks) and PIPO M9 Pro.
I will be grateful for any feedback, suggestions and opinions.
Regards.
Dandry said:
Hello everyone.
I am considering buying this tablet, as the price for the TF300TG dropped in my country to the level acceptable by me, but I am a bit worried. This tablet is one year old, yet it seems to be still quite popular. I would like to know its performance, as Antutu results show like ~10k which is quite low these days, on the other hand youtube tests show real racing 3 running quite smoothly.
Is it still worth buying?
I need a tablet mainly for hd movies and web browsing, 3G is a must. I might play some games, but this is not the main goal. I am also considering Lenovo S6000 (but the MTK actually sucks) and PIPO M9 Pro.
I will be grateful for any feedback, suggestions and opinions.
Regards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i love my tf300 and would buy it again in a heart beat, although there are some new toshiba tablets that look nice
Dandry said:
Hello everyone.
I am considering buying this tablet, as the price for the TF300TG dropped in my country to the level acceptable by me, but I am a bit worried. This tablet is one year old, yet it seems to be still quite popular. I would like to know its performance, as Antutu results show like ~10k which is quite low these days, on the other hand youtube tests show real racing 3 running quite smoothly.
Is it still worth buying?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you want an android tablet + keyboard option there's nothing else as cheap around afaik.
if you arent intrested in the keyboard it loses a lot of appeal.
robgee789 said:
i love my tf300 and would buy it again in a heart beat, although there are some new toshiba tablets that look nice
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1. I love my tf300t. No issues out if it at all. Tom Tom is awesome on it unlike my prime (tf201). The screen is absolutely clear even in sunlight. I primarily use mine outdoors as a huge gps
Sent from my SGH-T889 using xda app-developers app
Yes, its still a great device especially if you grab the keyboard. I use mine everyday and haven't found a newer one that's been tempting enough to buy.I say go for it... and then root it and drop a great rom in it
Yes, i love my tf300t its the best tablet i have ever had
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using xda app-developers app
I own the TF300T and (depending on the price) I 'd say it's still a great tablet for web browsing and watching movies.
Some remarks:
- Tablet feels generally fast/smooth, unless you're installing/updating applications or during heavy access of the internal storage. Then the device becomes very slow during these occasions (it's the known I/O issue with the ASUS tablets).
- The tablet screen is not very usable in bright sunny day outdoors, as someone claimed the opposite above. Even at full brightness, I need to find shade to be able to see the screen.
- The speaker is loud, but the placement is not ideal and that hurts/changes the sound depending on how you're holding or placing the tablet. For movies, you need to be careful not to cover the speaker with your fingers. If you want clear stereo sound, it's best to use headphones.
- Screen quality is pretty decent with comfortable viewing angles.
- I can play tons of fun games with no problems at all. However: I do not like/try the heavy 3D games out there. The few I did try long time ago (e.g. dead trigger), the speed was very good. But I generally prefer the simple(r) games.
hope this helps
I've been using my Asus Transformer TF300T (WiFi only) since August 2012 and I am satisfied with it.
At its price range, there is no tablet with a hard-wired keyboard dock (not bluetooth keyboard) that can match it. You should also check out the pricing of its more high-end brethren, the Transformer Infinity TF700KG (3G) and TF700KL (LTE). These Infinity models use a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960 Dual-Core processor (1.5GHz) instead of the usual Quad-core Tegra3 in order to fit in the Mobile Broadband radio. The processor may be a downgrade but the screen is upgraded to a Super IPS+ 1920x1200 display. Since you don't plan to play games to much on it, the brighter display would be a nice trade for the less powerful processor.
Some notes if you are getting a TF300:
1. The tablet experiences a weird battery drain bug (especially when connected to the keyboard dock). Unlike an iPad, which you can leave on sleep mode for weeks or months with minimal battery drain, the TF300 will be out of juice within 3 days if you do not plug it in... Turning off all radios still doesn't improve this too much...
2. The charger is very proprietary. Unlike typical Android tablets, the device-side connector is proprietary (looks like an Apple or Samsung 30-pin connector, but is not compatible with either). This part is understandable since this connector also serves as the docking connector to the keyboard dock. The more annoying thing is that the charger is not a normal 5V (10W) USB charger but is a special 15V charger that uses a USB port... Asus fiddled with the wiring so that a normal USB cable plugged into the charger produces only 5V so as not to accidentally fry your other devices, but their proprietary cable produces the correct 15V to charge the TF300. Plugging the TF300 to a regular 10W 5V USB charger will only charge the device if it is turned completely off. And it will take quite a long time to charge...
3. If you will buy the TF300 for the keyboard dock, then you would probably bring it around docked (otherwise, what would be the point of getting the keyboard dock?). You will have a hard time finding a nice, slim case that would fit on the tablet and still allow it to be docked. AFAIK, there is no case that just fits over the tablet portion of the TF300 while still allowing it to be docked and undocked from the keyboard dock. There are folio-type cases that cover the two halves of the tablet when docked but they are not form-fitted to the TF300 and are held in place by elastic bands (ugly...)...
If the keyboard dock is not a necessity and you can live with a smaller tablet, you may want to consider the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 (8" tablet with 3G and S-Pen)...
Hope this helps you decide.
Best Regards!
^_^
Having my TF since around 3 months now, I have to revert my former prediction I would not buy it again, or recommend it right now:
Don't get me wrong, it is a great combination of a tablet and a somewhat capable notebook but:
- the CPU is too weak and once the Tegra 4 hits it will be outdated
- always runs at around 40 - 50 % of RAM already used by simple firing up the Tablet
- the screen is not good enough for longer sessions (had to experience that for myself first but it is true)
and the biggest reason for waiting:
Asus announced a new version of the Infinity coming up soon, the baby offers:
- 300 PPI
- 2560 x 1600 resolution
- Tegra 4
- 2 GB of ram (which will soon be the new standard)
So if you can wait a few month and don't mind paying a bit more you will probably end up with the best tablet on the market.
Hope that helped
- the CPU is too weak and once the Tegra 4 hits it will be outdated
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's fast enoughimho, the main bottleneck is the storage I/O. And of course it will be outdated once the new version comes out, that's the meaning of the word outdated....
- always runs at around 40 - 50 % of RAM already used by simple firing up the Tablet
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a good thing because free RAM is useless RAM. Most of the system is loaded into RAM which means the slow storage I/O is much less of a problem. And even with the whole system loaded, you have ~60% free for demanding applications.
- the screen is not good enough for longer sessions (had to experience that for myself first but it is true)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why? Is it too bright? Is the refresh rate wrong? Because it looks fine to me and I watch movies on it.
If anything I think it's main weaknesses are the speaker, poor standby times since the update to 4.2 and the large bezel.
frankgreimes said:
- the CPU is too weak and once the Tegra 4 hits it will be outdated
- always runs at around 40 - 50 % of RAM already used by simple firing up the Tablet
- the screen is not good enough for longer sessions (had to experience that for myself first but it is true)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Regarding the CPU:
Personally, I think Nvidia over-sold the capabilities of the Tegra processors. They over-hyped the performance of the Tegra 2 but actually delivered that expected performance when the Tegra 3 was released, then again with Tegra 3 (where its over-hyped performance would only be delivered by the Tegra 4)...
I know this from personal experience since I bought a Motorola Atrix 4G (yes, people like me actually exist! ) for its Tegra 2 processor on Aug 2011 (Asia version) only to find out that its H.264 HW acceleration is limited to simple profile only... (its direct competitor then, the Samsung Galaxy S3, had better H.264 HW acceleration support...)
Tegra-accelerated games (THD) were few and far between and graphics performance was not as impressive as promised.
Then I bought the Asus Transformer TF300T (Aug 2012) with the Tegra 3 processor and thought: "Finally, the H.264 HW acceleration will be fixed and gaming performance would improve..." Well, the H.264 HW acceleration was fixed, but gaming performance remained "meh"...
A lot of popular games (mostly from GameLoft) don't even recognize the device and several workarounds needed to be done to get the games to play. When finally games officially supporting the tablet were released (like Dungeon Hunter 4 and Asphalt 7), I find out the games don't perform fluidly or stutters in the middle of gameplay (Asphalt 7) or are simply unplayable due to the low framerate (DH4)... Then I see my friends playing these same games flawlessly on a Samsung Galaxy Note (1st-gen)...
After some updates for the games and lots of tweaks to free up memory (RAM), I finally am able to play Asphalt 7 with a smooth framerate during the actual race (no more stuttering) but the menus are still not as smooth. I also am able to at least play DH4 (on medium detail settings)...
Which brings me to the RAM issue...
The TF300T came with a lot of gunk that I didn't and had no plan of using. I can't uninstall them without potentially breaking OTA updates. So after discovering that freeing up RAM would allow certain games like the above GameLoft games and other large games (SoulCraft, SpellStorm, etc) to run better, I looked around the forums (mostly this forum) to find utilities like App Quarantine - requires root - (to prevent applications/services from being started at boot and ever after) as well as Greenify - requires root - (to force applications you actually to be hibernated so that they don't "wake up" and "phone home" every so often and not release their RAM and CPU resources) and Auto Memory Manager (to tweak the OOM/out-of-memory settings of Android so that the OS will do a cleanup of empty processes and kill other less important processes when the free memory drops below a certain threshold)...
Regarding the Display:
The screen is not as bright as other tablets, but I knew that going in and obviously it was a trade-off to lower the cost of the unit. It is still usable, as long as you are indoors and do not have a bright light source behind you...
As I replied to Dandry's original post, for his application (general tablet use), the TF300TG (3G version) would still be a match to his needs as long as the price is reasonable (meaning lower than it's original price) and the hardware-docked-keyboard-w/-battery-pack feature is compelling for you...
Cheers!
^_^
Even better with the Official Cyanogen 4.3 Nightlies
I had mine for over 1 yr now, rooted a couple of months ago and now have the new Official Cyanogen 4.3 Nightlies rom installed. Runs great.
I have 2 of them and have no regrets
Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
bcombel said:
I have 2 of them and have no regrets
Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk 4 Beta
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Both of my kids have each their tft300 and sharing one keyboard
Since one year now and nothing negative to say...
Go for it
Sent from my HTC EVO 3D X515m using xda app-developers app
Citruspers said:
It's fast enoughimho, the main bottleneck is the storage I/O. And of course it will be outdated once the new version comes out, that's the meaning of the word outdated....
This is a good thing because free RAM is useless RAM. Most of the system is loaded into RAM which means the slow storage I/O is much less of a problem. And even with the whole system loaded, you have ~60% free for demanding applications.
Why? Is it too bright? Is the refresh rate wrong? Because it looks fine to me and I watch movies on it.
If anything I think it's main weaknesses are the speaker, poor standby times since the update to 4.2 and the large bezel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know about yours, but mine started to have ghostclicks and if I press the black border it acts touch sensitive. Sometimes the tablet runs as smooth as it gets other times I hate to work with it, kind of strange.
The RAM thing really depends how you are looking at it, free RAM should be reserved for tasks that need it, if you are constantly running on 50 % of the full RAM = less ram for the more important stuff. Believe me I have tried to remove all the startup blunder but some apps aren't just going away, i.e E-Mail clients although I am using K-9.
For basic things the screen is good enough, but when it comes down to PDF reading and looking at some more complex websites you can really tell the difference in terms of text-quality. I have seen tablet with 200 ppi + and black actually looked like black not just more grey.
Grifter thanks for your lenghty and great review and recommending some apps I really hope they are going to fix my startup problem because it gets annoying.
Disclaiming: The tablet itself is for sure not bad and the docked keyboard is a great pleasure but right now we are 2 months away from the next Infinity which will offer a lot more for for only + $ 150 so personally speaking I would wait and see this 300 ppi Tegra 4 baby in action before buying one right now. chances are it's going to fix all the previous problems the Transformer-series has had.
But if your looking for a great budget tablet you can't go wrong with the TF 300.
I've been dealing with lots of lag and my friends and dad's Nexus 10 is much smoother. Having the choice again for $100 more, I would have bought the Nexus. Keep in mind I'm on the stock rom and rooted. Can't unlock because of the rma'd issue. Hoping it's smoother with a custom ROM, which I imagine it will be, after the upgrade
Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Tapatalk HD
TF300T hardware is not bad given the price. You can have a Samsung for better performance if you can afford to fork out more, evidently. My main grudge is the way they treat customers after the purchase. Witness petition after petition that went unanswered. If they don't care about customers, then we simply shouldn't spend money on their products, especially on one that's so prone to bricking as this model - and not always due to users' fault as they're so fond of clamoring. If they deliberately refuse to release the Key so as to drum up service, there's even more reason to stay away.
Unfortunately, corporate moral standards have been set so low in the last two or three decades, consumers can only get them to listen by hurting their bottom line. As the adage goes, evil will flourish where decent people stand idly by. A few years ago, China banked on low prices to gain market shares. Then they understood that without improving the quality of products and services, they will fall out of the race. We should remind Asus of that principle. In this business, being # 3 is a kiss of death. I can see Ipads battling Samsung Notes. Who ever heard of TF this and that competing against anything of substance? God help them, as I don't care to.
Update on the screen quality:
I gave it another chance by taking the tablet with me outdoors (in the shade, in a bright summer day). The screen is barely usable outdoors, period. At full brightness, it's barely visible. And the glass reflects the fingerprints a lot. At some cases I could hardly tell if the screen, beneath the fingerprints, was on or off. (I am not sure if a screen protector would solve this last issue)
graphdarnell said:
In this business, being # 3 is a kiss of death. I can see Ipads battling Samsung Notes. Who ever heard of TF this and that competing against anything of substance? God help them, as I don't care to.
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Be reminded that the transformer line were the first mainstream tablets which had an additional detachable keyboard. That was an ASUS innovation and only now do we see similar hybrid/convertible devices from other manufacturers. Also, ASUS competes very well both with Apple and Samsung, simply because they are behind the Google Nexus devices.
TF300T Was a great workhorse for me for 14 months, I also have a TF700 which I no longer use(IO performance issues and overall slow performance due a 1080p screen resolution with a very slow Tegra SoC) and can finally can let those two go.
The TF300T is still great, specially for watching HD movies(720p only), with the docking option you can have up to 128Gb of storage. 720p videos run great, even 1080p videos run great on my 65"LED tv thru HDMI adapter as long as you disable the video on the TF300T and OC to 1.6 Ghz(Performance Mode), GPS works great, WIFI is decent enough and the multitouch feature on the touchpad was really useful. 8 Megapixel camera(rear)with AF still takes great pics specially if you use the right software and you can even make HD video recording.
My only big complain is regarding the browsing department, I tried everything you can imagine with no success, installed every single ROM, tried every single browser with no luck at all. I heard there's an IO performance issue with Asus TF300T and TF700 tablets.
My wife gave me a Nexus 7 32GB 2013 for my birthday, what an amazing machine for browsing internet content, this is amazingly fast, fast , fast. I just ordered a nexus 10 32Gb which will make my life easier and replace my TF700. I will no longer have the flexibility for the storage as I have with the transformers but who can complain if these new units can perform without glitches,lagging or slowdowns specially browsing internet and playing 1080p videos smoothly.
There is no blame to Asus or the transformer line, maybe just for the I/O issues, I had a TF101 as well(tegra 2). Tegra 3 SoC is the one to blame for. Such a poor SoC with so much publicity that was always under-performing, from the very beginning. It's time to upgrade for me. my 2 cents here.
jrsalda said:
TF300T Was a great workhorse for me for 14 months, I also have a TF700 which I no longer use(IO performance issues and overall slow performance due a 1080p screen resolution with a very slow Tegra SoC) and can finally can let those two go.
The TF300T is still great, specially for watching HD movies(720p only), with the docking option you can have up to 128Gb of storage. 720p videos run great, even 1080p videos run great on my 65"LED tv thru HDMI adapter as long as you disable the video on the TF300T and OC to 1.6 Ghz(Performance Mode), GPS works great, WIFI is decent enough and the multitouch feature on the touchpad was really useful. 8 Megapixel camera(rear)with AF still takes great pics specially if you use the right software and you can even make HD video recording.
My only big complain is regarding the browsing department, I tried everything you can imagine with no success, installed every single ROM, tried every single browser with no luck at all. I heard there's an IO performance issue with Asus TF300T and TF700 tablets.
My wife gave me a Nexus 7 32GB 2013 for my birthday, what an amazing machine for browsing internet content, this is amazingly fast, fast , fast. I just ordered a nexus 10 32Gb which will make my life easier and replace my TF700. I will no longer have the flexibility for the storage as I have with the transformers but who can complain if these new units can perform without glitches,lagging or slowdowns specially browsing internet and playing 1080p videos smoothly.
There is no blame to Asus or the transformer line, maybe just for the I/O issues, I had a TF101 as well(tegra 2). Tegra 3 SoC is the one to blame for. Such a poor SoC with so much publicity that was always under-performing, from the very beginning. It's time to upgrade for me. my 2 cents here.
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Finally managed to make my TF300T run smooth enough at 1.3Ghz(including browsing) with Latest Hydro 8 Rom(JB 4.2.1) and Greenify, App Quarantine and AutoMemory Manager Apps and latest Browse to Ram apK. I'm going to keep my TF300T and start experimenting with my upcoming Nexus 10. However My TF700 definitely goes to craigslist or ebay.

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