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My laptop, a Dell Studio 15, is getting rather ancient. Its good features:
Its bad features:
I am remembering when I got my first laptop in 1999. I got good use out of desktop machines and was worried that I might not use the laptop, but it turned out to be very useful and I never went back. Presently (2013) tablets have gone viral and a lot of people get a lot of use from them, and I'm wondering if I could be one of them. Thus I am inclining toward trying out a tablet.
Requirements: It's not likely that I will get everything I want.
Excellent screen. 1200x750px or 1200x800px minimum. 1920x1080px or 1920x1200px preferred. A PixelQi transflective screen would be rated highly; so would flight capability of pigs.
Physical size: the bigger screen, the better. 10.4in = 26.5cm is currently the typical size for a tablet. The 7in (18cm) tablets are not useful. A 11.5in (29cm) screen has been seen. The smaller size is going to be a step backward for me and I will want mitigating support in the OS.
Weight/mass: The current laptop is 5.5lb / 2.5kg.
Good physical keyboard. For the tablet I don't have confidence in on-screen solutions, although I would like to explore them. The problem with on-screen keyboards is that they take too much space and they are not as agile as the physical keyboard.
CPU: I wish there were a benchmark so I could compare CPUs before purchase. We're not locked to Intel. I'm sure an AMD "Fusion Zacate" would have enough CPU power. With the other requirements, I'm not going to get the CPU power I have in the old machine.
Graphical acceleration and video card: Intel graphics and ATI Radeon are the devils I know. I don't do things that require heavy graphics, like gaming.
Which operating system?
Android is almost certainly the OS I'm going to be stuck with. Specific Android requirements:
Battery life: The old Xena can run about 3 hours at 30 watts. Ideal would be to be able to run off batteries for the whole day. The old Xena has a 9-cell battery with at least 3 of them in an extension below the floor. I won't buy one of those again. The new machine should be convenient to use on line power.
Other features:
Let's think about how I use my current laptop. Right now I have these windows, which is less intense than usual:
Android's normal MO is to have one app at a time, full screen. Changing to the Android OS should be a big adjustment for me.
10 best tablet PCs in the world today By John McCann, 2013-05-03.
He gives a short discussion of 10 products, then reveals his Apple fanboy nature by picking… the iPad Mini for first place. Anyway, the main interest here is as a starting place for comparisons. His ranking:
The Asus Transformer Infinity jumps out at me because it has a physical
keyboard, referred to as a dock
, sold separately. The Microsoft Surface
also has this arrangement and we were favorably impressed with Ben's Surface.
Very few or no other tablets have the physical keyboard. I'm sure that I would
not be happy with the on-screen QWERTY keyboard for tasks that I do a lot such
as writing text (like this web page) and like shell access to remote hosts.
Other people I've talked to agree with this judgment. A more space-efficient
input method would be nice, but none is available on the Android Market (Google
Play) and I can't commit to develop one before buying the new machine.
Therefore I'm fixating on the Transformer Infinity very early in the
selection process.
Vendor's hype about the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity:
Awesome Display: 1920x1200px; technology: super IPS+ with Gorilla Glass
Graphics: nVidia Tegra (CyanogenMod says nVidia GeForce ULP)
Sound: Sonic Master with large resonance chambers etc etc.
Most important spec: 8.5mm thick
Battery: 14hr on dock playing 720p video, 60nit screen, headphones.
Memory: 32Gb or 64Gb internal; micro SD card slot; includes (?) USB drive (?)
Cameras: rear 8Mpx with LED flash and auto focus; 2Mpx front. Large aperture (f/2.2 from other sources)
OS: Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" (other sources say OTA update to 4.1 "Jelly Bean" has come out.)
Keyboard: home, end, PgUp, PgDn require a shift key. (Update: the Fn key is adjacent to these keys and jimc finds it easy to use.)
Features and ports:
comboaudio jack (means 4 wire with mic input, per other source)
Available colors: Amethyst Gray or Champagne Gold.
Jimc says: I'm familiar with
actual amethyst crystals and amethyst gray
is an oxymoron. And it
looks unappealing in the photos. I got the Champagne Gold. It could
possibly be considered to have a gold tint in the surface layer, but it is
basically the natural color of the metal, which is not identified in the
product hype. Definitely the wrong color for aluminum; magnesium can't
withstand sweat; and that leaves titanium.
Dock features:
Keyboard width: 254mm (compared to 305mm for Xena) Where Xena has a column of keys for PgUp etc, the Asus doesn't; you need to use Fn+arrow keys. The width on Xena of the keys present on the Asus is 288mm so Asus keys are 88% the size of Xena's; vendor hype says 92%.
Charger and PC/USB connects through the same kind of 40 pin connector.
Multi-touch pad.
One USB-2.0 port
SD card slot, (full size), can take other formats beyond SD.
The dock has a 19.5 Whr battery in addition to the tablet's battery (another source says 22 Whr).
Technical Specifications:
CPU: The versions with a phone modem use the Qualcomm MSM 8260A "Snapdragon" S4 "Krait" dual core 1.5GHz (identical to what's in the Galaxy S3). Non-phone versions (our case) use the nVidia Tegra 3 T33 @1.6GHz quad core, and the CyanogenMod tf700t image is for that CPU.
GPU: Not in the spec sheet but identified elsewhere as nVidia GeForce ULP.
Memory: RAM 1Gb; internal flash 32Gb or 64Gb; MicroSD card slot; nobody ever says the addressing limit but 64Gb is likely. They also don't say how fast the flash memory is, but jimc's experience is that it's about half the speed as what you get on the Samsung Galaxy S III.
Net: 802.11 bgn; Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP codec; has GPS
Display: 10.1in (25.6cm) diagonal, 1920x1200px (16x9 aspect ratio), Super IPS+ technology, 600nit max brightness. IPS = In Plane Switching; + refers to extra high brightness. Multi touch capacitive sensor.
Front Camera: 2Mpx
Rear Camera: 8Mpx auto focus, LED flash, f/2.2 lens, can record at 1080p.
Multimedia:
Battery: On tablet: 25Whr (9.5hrs life); on dock: 19.5Whr; sum 44.5Whr (14hrs life). Power draw: about 3.2W (play 720p video, 100nit screen, WiFi active; another quote says 60nit screen). Battery is not field replaceable and probably is not available except at depot repair.
Misc Sensors: Ambient light, accelerometer, magnetometer (compass), gyroscope
USB Connectivity: They don't say much, but imply that you have to use the 40-pin connector from the undocked tablet. From other sources: you can also use the dock's type A connector, or the 40-pin connector on the dock.
Pricing on Amazon:
IPS = In Plane Switching. Wider viewing angles and lets through more light. One reviewer mentioned playing a movie in noon sun; "turned on IPS+ and it worked perfectly." This reviewer's report of battery life jibes with what's on the spec sheet. He says the SanDisk Ultra 64Gb micro SDXC card works in this machine; apparently some products don't work. Note, exFAT format.
Another reviewer: Side buttons are not too sensitive, avoiding accidental activation. Good signal strength for WiFi. Internal speaker emits to the rear, so sound is muffled if it sits on a table.
3rd reviewer: After 8 months of experience, he claims its RAM is slow and Asus' skin screws up the UI and everything is so slow. I'm not going to take this one seriously.
Reviewer mentions that some apps can't handle high resolution and won't run.
Several reviewers say you need to root it and put a modded image on it to make it run decently (i.e. not slow).
Reviewer mentions putting CyanogenMod-10.1 on it. (Stock image is a slug.) He says the bootloader is not locked. (See below; the CyanogenMod instructions imply that it is locked but the Asus support site gives you an unlocker.) Make sure to buy a spare 40-pin connector in case you lose or break it.
Reviewer likes the Polaris Office app that comes with it: Microsoft Word, Excel, Power Point.
Consensus of reviews: Some people hate it because it is slow, blamed on the stock image's (or the user's?) bloatware and skin effects. People fix this issue by putting on a modded image. The rest love it. Only one actual manufacturing defect mentioned, a sticky "T" key. A lot of people say it needs more RAM; they're conditioned by Windows conventional "wisdom".
ASUS Transformer Infinity TF700 Mobile Dock - Amethyst Gray. $148, sold by Hot Deal and fulfilled by Amazon (prime eligible). Other non-prime vendors' prices are lower, e.g. $128 + $8 shipping from Computer Brain. The dock has one USB-2.0 port and a SD card slot, among other things. Mfgr's hype page on Amazon says dock's battery is 22Whr (not 19.5Whr). Weight (of dock): 1.19lb = 539g; both together: 1137g = 2.5lb There is a new version called the TF500 Mobile Dock, forward compatible with future products but otherwise identical with the TF700 dock.
Reviewer Steven Weigand (2012-08-10) says: Look for part number TF700T-DOCK-GR, ignore box hype and FCC registration referring to TF201 which is for Transformer Prime but works with Infinity (and $50 cheaper). He says more:
MoKo 360 Degree Rotatory Detachable Cover Case with Stand for Asus eee Transformer Pad Infinity TF700 / TF700T Android Tablet, Black $21, sold by BCStore, fulfilled by Amazon. Fake leather. It has ridges so the display will stand up. Works with or without the dock. Easy to rotate the tablet to portrait, upside down… Includes back handle in portrait. Reviewers love it.
Official ASUS Transformer Series Power Adapter, $31.25, sold by BuySPRY and fulfilled by Amazon. Special charger (puts out 15 volts!), the charger has a type A host connnector that the cable plugs into. But the cable is only about 1 meter long. Anyway, we'd better get one of these in case the one provided with the machine breaks. One reviewer said the provided one broke after 2 years.
How well does the Transformer Infinity meet my requirements?
The screen has more than enough pixels.
This is a 10.1in = 26.4cm tablet, a big step down in size from my current machine. But big tablets are not available. It's slightly larger than a standard iPad.
Weight/mass: half the current laptop. This is reasonable.
Physical keyboard: it has one, unlike most tablets. I will find out the hard way if it is satisfactory. Because the keyboard is detachable I can use the machine either as a tablet or as a laptop.
CPU: This class of CPU has plenty of throughput and likely will do the jobs I need. But weather models and physics simulations are not going to happen. No virtual machines either.
Graphical acceleration and video card: The nVidia graphics should be plenty for doing tablet things.
Which operating system? Android (CyanogenMod). The big problem here is that the window manager is intended for one app at a time, full screen. The Transformer Infinity does have an unlockable bootloader and a CyanogenMod image. I need to be very sure that this image is for the nVidia Tegra chipset. (Confirmed.)
Battery life: 14 hours (with dock) is excellent. However, the battery is not swappable (as it is on a normal cellphone, i.e. not iPhone). I should do some research to find out if replacement batteries can or should be ordered in advance and stored in the refrigerator.
When on the dock, can it charge through the USB port? Or do you have to use the dumb 40 pin connector? Instruction manual says that it can charge through the 40-pin connector (the dock's connector, if the tablet is docked). The dock cannot accept power through the type A USB port. Charging is faster with the provided charger which can negotiate and send 1.2A 15V versus typically 1A 5V from a generic wall wart and less than that from a PC.
Other features:
CyanogenMod stats (number of installations where the user has turned on reporting):
| 10.1.0-RC5 | 54267 | Latest version |
| Nightly-10.1 | 711,684 | Likely multiple counted |
| d2vzw + d2att | 78,066 | Galaxy S3 |
| tf700t | <31,800 | The rarest device reported |
| total installs | 5,465,008 | Reported alive last 90 days |
| Last 24 hours | 15,866 |
Asus Transformer Pad Infinity product page
From the how to install
page:
Terms for Amazon computer returns: Within 30 days you can get a full refund for: dead on arrival (they will test themselves, 15% penalty if not dead), arrived damaged, or in unopened boxes.
Order estimate:
| ASUS TF700T-B1-GR 10.1-Inch Tablet (Champagne) (32Gb) | $438 |
| Same (64Gb) (didn't get) | ($566) |
| ASUS Transformer Infinity TF700T Mobile Dock (Champagne) | $129 |
| MoKo 360 Degree Rotatory Detachable Cover Case | $21 |
| ASUS 10/18W Power Adapter for Transformer Series Tablets | $31 |
| Item total | $619 |
| Shipping | Free (Amazon Prime) |
| Tax ($64 if entirely in California) | $39 |
| California environmental fee | $3 |
| Order Total | $661.62 |
| Order Number | 102-8488722-9025019 |
| Promised delivery | 2013-06-18 |
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