Asus Transformer Pad Infinity review

Best high end Android tablet on the market, but with a premium price tag

The follow up to Asus's flawless Transformer Prime tablet, the Infinity has some pretty big shoes to fill. Retailing at a hefty £600 the Infinity breaks away from Asus's strategy with the Nexus 7, taking Apple's new iPad tablet head on for the top spot in the high end tablet market.

Design and build
The Infinity's tablet section's dimensions are incredibly similar to Apple's iPad, with the tablet packing a 10.1in screen and measuring in at 263x181x8.5mm. Being only 0.2mm thicker than the Transformer Prime, the only striking difference we noticed between the Infinity and its predecessor, is that the tablet's front facing edges are not flat. Instead the Infinity's edges have a slight transitional step between its metal outer case and Gorilla Glass front.

While not a major problem, it did make the device feel slightly uncomfortable in hand with the step occasionally sticking awkwardly into our palm when using the Infinity one handed.

Another slight issue we have is that the Infinity is fairly heavy when docked, with the tablet and dock combined breaking past the 800g mark. When removed the device weighs a more modest 598g, meaning it is still reasonably satchel-friendly and can still be used on the go without breaking your back.

These small qualms are easily forgotten when faced with the Infinity's tremendous build quality. The Infinity looks and feels sumptuous, featuring a brushed metal finish on both the tablet and docking station parts. As well as giving the tablet a suitably high end feel, having managed to accidentally drop the tablet on a tiled kitchen floor, we found that the Infinity's metal casing is there for more than pure visual allure, with the device surviving the trauma without so much as a scratch.The Infinity's impressive build quality carries over to its docking station. The keyboard and trackpad were both reactive and pleasant to use. The only problem we found with the dock is that with the tablet section inserted it's incredibly top heavy. Resting the combined Infinity on your lap, the device will regularly topple backwards if not held down.

In terms of ports, the Infinity is fairly miserly stocked, packing MicrosSD, Micro USB and headphone inputs on its tablet section, and USB and SD card slots on its dock. While we were a little disappointed at the lack of an HDMI input, we found the USB port made it easy to quickly transfer files from a dedicated PC.

Asus Transformer Pad Infinity review

Best high end Android tablet on the market, but with a premium price tag

Display
Like the Prime, the Infinity's screen is one of its biggest selling points. The Infinity features a 10.1in Full HD 1080p, 1920x1200, Super IPS+ screen that boasts 224 pixels per inch.

Featuring the same Super IPS+ technology previously seen on the Prime, testing the Infinity we were astounded at how well it performed, with its high brightness levels letting it function surprisingly well outdoors, even in bright sunshine.

The Infinity screen's viewing angles are also incredible. When set at full brightness with IPS+ switched on, we'd rank it as one of the best screens currently on the market.

Performance
The Infinity features a powerful Tegra 3 1.6GHz quad-core processor that's backed up by 1GB of RAM. We found that navigating the Infinity is a wonderful experience, with it easily dealing with even the most power hungry of tasks.

Playing games downloaded from the Steam and Tegra Zone stores we experienced zero lag and never suffered any serious glitches or frame rate issues. Surfing the web was equally smooth, with the Chrome browser sleekly loading web pages in a matter of seconds and easily coping when streaming videos in multiple tabs.

Operating system and software The Infinity comes pre-loaded with Google's Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, not the new 4.1 Jelly Bean version seen on its cheaper Nexus 7 sibling.

We're a little disappointed at the absence of Jelly Bean, with its appearance on the Nexus 7 making us feel a little cheated, a fact compounded by the fact that the Infinity retails at over three times the new Nexus' price.

The absence of Jelly Bean certainly isn't a deal breaker however, with ICS itself still proving a redoubtable operating system despite being over a year old. The OS offers users five customisable home screens and a host of organisational and custom features. These include the ability to place apps into shortcuts and folders and access to Google's Chrome web browser.

In general we're pleased to see that Asus has kept changes to the operating system to a minimum, only adding a handful of applications. One of the most useful additions is the inclusion of Polaris Office, which adds document and spreadsheet features to the tablet. Asus has also added its own MyCloud storage service, MyLibrary for eBooks and MyNet services to the Infinity.

Asus Transformer Pad Infinity review

Best high end Android tablet on the market, but with a premium price tag

Camera
The Infinity's rear facing camera features an 8MP sensor and a lens with an f/2.2 aperture that's backed up by a 2MP front-facing unit.

We're surprised at how well the Infinity's 8MP rear-facing camera works, with photos regularly coming out crisp and with excellent colour balance, even when taken in awkward low-light conditions. The only time we noticed any problems with the camera was when taking photos outside in sunlit conditions, where photos taken can look slightly washed out.

Taken using the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity

Another problem we experienced using the tablet's camera is the fact that the app's interface really isn't suited to a device as big as the Infinity. The UI is incredibly similar to the one seen on ICS-powered Android smartphones.

While taking photos is fine, with the on-screen shutter key sitting on the far right hand side of the UI, adjusting options on the fly is far more difficult. The shortcut keys are seemingly littered in random places across the screen. The fragmented interface makes adjusting the settings fairly time consuming and means more often than not you'll miss your perfect shot when taking unposed photos using the Infinity.

The Infinity can shoot video up to 1080p and testing it, while we at times saw footage suffer the same wash out issues we saw taking photos outside, in general it looks great. We were particularly impressed by the Infinity's autofocus feature, with it detecting changes in distance and adjusting itself in a matter of milliseconds, meaning videos always remain focused and clear.

Battery and storage
The Asus Infinity boasts a massive 64GB of on-board storage that can be added to via the tablet section's microSD and dock's full sized SD card slots.

The Infinity's battery life is both endearing and enduring. Asus claims the tablet section will last around 9.5 hours as a standalone unit and 14 hours when docked.

In our experience, we found the tablet by itself usually lasted around eight hours with moderate use. This included watching a few TV shows on Netflix and the occasional web search and Facebook check. Docked, we found the unit lasted around 13 hours of regular use.

Overall
Overall, we're really impressed with the Infinity, with it being by far the best Android tablet currently on market. Offering a crisp beautiful display, dock complete with Qwerty keyboard, masses of storage and insanely fast performance. The only real problems we have with the Infinity are the absence of Jelly Bean and its price.

Retailing for £600, while we love the Infinity we really can't say it offers the best value for money. Costing almost £300 more than the most basic iPad model, we expected the Infinity to offer cutting-edge innovations and feature the most up-to-date components and software, which given the absence of Jelly Bean, it doesn't. Still, for those with the cash to burn looking for a tablet that isn't the iPad, the Infinity really is the best option out there.