Android tablet vendors continue to manufacture new tablets in an attempt to gain a little from a market that is dominated by Apple’s iPad. Asus has been one such manufacturer which has been producing quality tablets over the last two years. Let’s see what the new Transformer Pad Infinity TF700 has to offer:
Design
The Transformer Pad TF700 looks an exact replica of its predecessor, the Transformer Prime. It has the same number of ports with slight adjustments in their placement. For example, the volume rocker has been shifted to the top right from its left edge position in the Prime. Prime users upgrading to this tablet might face a few problems in adapting. The TF700 is a tad thicker than the Prime. The inner components are enclosed by an almost complete aluminium unibody design. Almost because there is a little plastic enclosing which ensures better reception of GPS signals. This was one of the issues in the Prime. The top side of this tablet encompasses a 2MP front camera. The 8MP LED supported camera is placed on the back and the microphone pin hole has been placed on the left. The TF700 also encompasses a dock, which is compatible with the Prime as well.
Software
The TF700 comes pre installed ICS i.e. Android 4.0.3. App support is one of the major areas where this tablet loses out, since few apps are optimized for the TF700’s high resolution 1920×1200 pixel display. Google needs to woo in developers if it hopes to compete against high quality iOS apps. The TF700 provides 8GB of online storage space through the Asus MyCloud. Several pre-installed apps have been included.
The tablet also provides users with remote access to Vibe online music and radio services. The file manager can directly access the root directory thus providing organized access to each file in the drive or expanded memory. SuperNote allows the user to type and write notes manually. App Backup ensures that all installed applications can be stored on a microSD card. There is also the Polaris Office app that replicates the functions of Microsoft Office in many ways.
Hardware and Performance
Nvidia’s Tegra 3 powers the TF700, with a clock speed of 1.7 GHz on single core operation and the same reduces to 1.6 GHz on operation of multiple cores. The TF700 also houses 1GB of DDR3 RAM in comparison to the Prime’s DDR2. The TF700 can support all protocols of Wi-Fi i.e. 802.11 b/g/n. The dock’s extra battery life is designed to deplete before the internal one on the tablet runs out.
To sum up, the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity TF700 is one of the fastest Android tablets and would be a better one if app quality on Android for high resolution tablets improves. It is available at $500 for the 32GB version, and $600 for the 64GB one.
