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Asus Transformer Pad Infinity
Subsystem Checkout

Jim Carter, 2013-06-15

When the new tablet was received, I checked out these features. Initially I used the ASUS image of Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich. Later I installed CyanogenMod-10.1-rc5 based on Android-4.2 Super Jelly Bean. This is beta level. The first column, labelled Stock, gives the out of the box experience with very little hacking; the next one is for CyanogenMod-10.1.

In summary, every one of the features that the tablet is supposed to have, performed with no hassle out of the box. (You need to install a player app to play streaming audio from outside sources.)

Details of some of the checkout tests and other miscellaneous items may be found on the Checkout Details page.

Legend

Box Worked out of the box, or after a clean installation of CyanogenMod.
Conf It needed editing a configuration file or running a setup GUI.
Add-On Needed additional or patched software: download it; follow instructions to compile and/or install it; it works.
Fiddle As with Add-On, but it required some workarounds in the procedure, which might seem minor to an experienced user but which might prevent a newbie from making it work.
Hack So you call yourself a guru? This one will challenge your skills. But this guru eventually got it working.
Fail I wasn't able to get this one to work, at least so far.
N.T. Not tested.

Checklist of Features

Item Stock CM-10.1
Check dimensions and mass Box Box
 
  • Mass of tablet: 610 grams
  • Mass of keyboard (dock): 526 grams
  • Both together: 1136 grams
  • Mass of case: 328 grams
  • All three together: 1464 grams
  • Bounding box (tablet only): 263 x 180 x 9.0 mm
  • Thickness when docked, counting dock hinge: 21 mm
  • Density of tablet based on bounding box: 1.43 g/cc. It will sink like a stone.
Does it charge OK? Box Box
  How long to charge? 14% to 86% (72%) took ? minutes (almost 2 hours); 86% to 97% (11%) took ? minutes; estimated 0 to 100% time is about ? hours, which is typical for a polymer LiIon battery. 80% to 100% typically takes 1 hour. This was using the USB charger that comes with the tablet, which can negotiate 15 volts 1.2 amps and therefore charges the machine faster than a generic 5 volt 1 amp charger.
Does it boot at all? Box Hack
 Yes. On first booting the stock image you have to go through the usual setup procedure, described here for CyanogenMod but the stock setup wizard is almost the same. procedure. The procedure to install CyanogenMod is of course rather more extensive and fraught with peril. But after careful research, I was able to get it right on the first try, so the tablet booted into CyanogenMod-10.1.
Startup times Box Box
 
  • Initial boot of stock image: about 30 secs
  • Booting (not initial boot): 40 secs (stock image)
    You have to hold down the power button for 1 sec to make it boot.
  • Initial boot: 60 secs (CyanogenMod)
  • Wake up: 1 sec (or less)
  • Go to sleep: 1 sec (or less)
  • Power off: 17 sec
Display Box Box
 
  • Dimensions: 216 x 136 mm, 255 mm diagonal. Aspect ratio: 16x10.
  • Resolution: 1920x1128 px
  • Readability in sunlight: Adequate even to 107000 lux. Similar in outdoor shade (9000 lux).
  • Color rendition in artificial light: Excellent in all directions even to 80 degrees.
  • How many dead pixels? None that I can see, using the Antutu test program.
  • GPU is nVidia GeForce ULP according to the CyanogenMod product page.
Ambient Light Sensor Box Box
 

It works, and influences the display brightness if turned on. On the front north display margin there are two holes symmetrically placed. The one to the west is the light sensor. See here for ambient light sensor details. Dynamic range is 107000 lux (direct sunlight) to 1 lux (dark closet).

Memory Box Box
 
  • RAM: /proc/meminfo reports 991960Kb (0.99e9 bytes). This means 1Gb with video RAM somewhere separate.
  • Internal flash: 32Gb. Of this, 27.2Gb is allotted to /data on /dev/block/mmcblk0p8. Of this, /data/media/0 is the underlying storage for your internal SD card. /sdcard and /storage/sdcard0 are links to a FUSE mount that downgraded the native ext4 filesystem to emulate VFAT. The tablet can also be purchased with 64Gb of internal flash (about $100 more). Since they don't give you GNU parted and since the SD card is not removeable, the details of the other partitions are hard to discover.
  • SD card slot: Works; the card is provided by the user. Addressing limit is 64Gb (see below about EXFAT). The card is mounted on /mnt/fuse/microsd and there is a FUSE mount, downgrading my ext4 filesystem to VFAT, mounted on /storage/sdcard1.
  • Filesystem formats per /proc/filesystems on CM-10:
    • Real formats: ext2 ext3 ext4 vfat
    • Virtual formats: nfs nfs4 cifs fuse fuseblk
    • Formats in CM-9 but not CM-10: iso9660
    • Formats in CM10 but not CM-10.1: ecryptfs
    • Hopeless formats: exfat: the proprietary license means that open source software will never be able to read it.
  • One negative item I've noticed is that internal flash is slow. The I/O benchmark reads at 2.14e6 bytes/sec, and when I download music files they are stored at 6.58e5 bytes/sec, compared to 2.55e6 bytes/sec on the Samsung Galaxy SIII (likely limited by network speed).
Processor (details tested on CM-10.1) Box Box
 
  • Detection of quad cores: /proc/cpuinfo shows four processors. 1993.93 bogomips each.
  • Speed test on jimc's simple benchmark, units are kbytes/sec:
    Host SHA512 * Cores I/O Test Composite Rounded
    AMD E-350 7156 14312 6330 7637 8000
    TF700T 13080 52320 2136 12513 13000
    AMD 2650e 18840 18840 8652 13746 14000
    i7-3517UE 95919 191838 10678 65288 65000
    This would be a respectable CPU speed for a low-end desktop machine. However, I/O is not exactly swift, particularly considering it's flash memory. This is reading the internal flash.
  • Time to do sha512sum on 5e8 bytes (the second time so it comes from RAM): 10.1 sec, very respectable.
  • Are quad cores used? Yes, 4 copies of sha512sum finish in about 35% longer than one; however, the test includes cat and dd processes which compete for the CPU.
Wi-fi Box Box
 
  • How to find the MAC address: Settings - About Device - Status - 4th item from bottom.
  • What modulation revision? 802.11 b-g-n according to box logo. N is tested and works fine; it's assumed that B and G are also OK.
  • Does it connect to our access point? Yes.
  • Data rate: 2.12e7 bit/sec = 2.66e6 byte/sec. The theoretical maximum for 802.11n, never achieved, is 5.4e7 bit/sec.
Bluetooth Box Box
 

Hardwarewise, Bluetooth worked out of the box on both the stock image and CyanogenMod. Pairing worked the first time, following standard procedures for the devices. Partners tested: Motorola HT-820 headphones, ThinkOutside keyboard, another Android device. Follow the link for the procedure to pair devices and how to do OBEX push.

Audio digital signal processor (DSP) N.T. N.T.
 

It's hard to prove that the principal audio codecs (Vorbis, MP3) are running on the DSP.

Play streaming audio Box Box
 
  • Internal speaker: Works. Sound quality playing music is pretty bad, but considering the space available for the speaker you can't expect much.
  • 3.5mm phone jack: Works.
  • Bluetooth A2DP: Works. But see the link for complaints about sound quality.
  • Volume switches: Working.
  • Switching during playback between sound sinks is successful. It is not instantaneous but is fairly prompt.

Outcome of various audio sources and formats (on CM-10.1); URLs of the nonlocal sources were attempted by the browser, except as noted.

  • Android Browser, Icecast MP3 performed by Apollo: works.
  • Android Browser, Icecast MP3 performed by DeaDBeeF: works.
  • Android Browser, Icecast MP3 performed by ES Media Player: works.
  • Android Browser, Icecast OGG performed by Apollo: browser tries to download (the stream?), times out, passes the nonexistent payload to Apollo, which gives an error message and exits.
  • Android Browser, M3U of MP3 performed by Apollo: plays nothing.
  • Android Browser, M3U of MP3 performed by DeaDBeeF: plays the last track (??)
  • Firefox, Icecast MP3, performed successfully by internal player.
  • Firefox, Icecast OGG, does something for about 60 secs that does not result in playable content; gives an error message.
  • Firefox, M3U of OGG or MP3, passed to Apollo or DeaDBeeF, which list the tracks from the M3U file but cannot play them.
HDMI N.T. N.T.
  The device has a micro-HDMI output port, but it needs an adapter to normal size HDMI, that I didn't get.
GPS Box Box
 
  • Does it work? Yes.
  • Claimed position accuracy: 4 meters, with 8 to 12 satellites and the phone not moving.
  • The first time it was used, it took about 8 minutes to find the satellites.
  • 10 minutes later, it took 10 seconds to find 8 satellites and a good position.
  • 12 hours later, it had 7 satellites and a good position in 4 seconds flat.
  • Speed to re-acquire satellites: (see above). Sometimes it has to download the ephemeris, taking 30 secs. The version on HTC Dream with CyanogenMod-6.2 based on Froyo could take as long as 15 minutes to deliver the first fix. I'll bet that it would not deliver a result unless both the ephemeris (30 secs) and almanac (13 mins) were up to date, whereas either the module firmware or the more recent Android driver is willing to do the best it can, immediately, with outdated tables.
Magnetometer (compass) Box Box
 It's hard to get calibration data for the magnetometer, but all three axes do function. +X is east, +Y is north, +Z is to the front, and the indicated side of the device has to be facing terrestrial magnetic north for the axis to read a positive value. Remember that magnetic north is underground in the northern hemisphere, quite a lot even in Los Angeles (32 degrees north).

The magnetometer is at the northeast corner about 25% from each edge. Iron objects, like a screwdriver or masonry reinforcement of course will affect the readings.

Coordinates: North is the long edge with the cameras. East edge has one small microphone hole. West edge has the phone jack, HDMI and card slot. South has the docking connector.

Accelerometer Box Box
 On the Terran surface the reported magnitude of acceleration is between 9.7 and 10.1 m/s2; correct value is 9.8. When I turn the device 180 degrees, the X axis shows a zero offset of 0.2 m/s2; e.g. north up shows 9.75, south up shows -10.15, half the sum is 0.2 m/s2. This is adequate performance for a consumer-grade accelerometer.

The axis sensors are reasonably aligned with the chassis. As seen by the Phone Tester app, +Y is north, i.e. in landscape orientation with the dock connector at the bottom, Y will be about plus 9.8 m/s2. +X is west (west edge down gives plus), and +Z is rear (display up gives plus).

Notification LED Box Box
  The indicator LED is in the northwest corner. Some of these need to be turned on in the settings. In CyanogenMod-10 you can adjust the color and brightness of the battery notifications.
  Battery charging Green Yellow
  Battery full (when charging; starts at 90%) Off Green
  Battery very low (15% or below) Red flash Red flash
  Boot and Shutdown Blue pulse Off
  SMS or similar message waiting Blue flash Blue flash
Rear camera with flash (need to do a lot more testing) Box Box
Rear camera works? Box Box
Subjective image quality: Looks like blurred, from hand motion?
Auto focus: Works effectively. Box Box
Resolution
Flash: Testing in a dark closet. Default is no flash; you need to turn it on; auto-flash didn't flash in the dark closet. Once this was done, it turned on the lamp in flashlight mode, auto-focused, and then fired the flash. Picture came out good. Same behavior for CyanogenMod's camera app. Box Box
Color rendition
Low light performance: Good enough for barcode scanning at 16 lux.
Video capture
Front camera (needs more testing) Box Box
 Tested with ipwebcam, which obtained and transmitted the image normally.
Front camera works? Box Box
Resolution
Color rendition
Video capture or video chat: Testing with IP Webcam. Box Box
Battery life N.T. Good
  The vendor's tech specs report that the tablet's battery has 25 watt-hours, plus 19.5 Whr on the dock (another source claims 22 Whr), for a total of 44.5 Whr. By comparison, the Samsung Galaxy SIII (which has exemplary battery life) has 6.7 Whr. It's hard to do a fair test of battery life since it depends so much on the workload. Subjective impressions are that the tablet uses relatively little power, and the battery has plenty of capacity for whatever I'm doing. One negative aspect is that the battery is not field replaceable.
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