Asus Transformer Pad Prime vs Infinity head to head review
We compare the new Infinity tablet with the older Prime, to see what buyers get for the extra £100
The Asus Transformer Pad Prime tablet made a big splash when it launched into the UK market at the start of this year, quickly earning a reputation as the best Android tablet available.
Since then, Asus has released its follow up model, the Infinity. The Infinity retails for £100 more than the Prime, despite at first glance looking almost identical. This has lead many to wonder, is it worth the extra cash?
Design and build
To a casual observer the Prime and Infinity must look very similar indeed, featuring dockable keyboard attachments, a brushed metal finish and almost identical 10.1in displays.
Visually, the only factor separating the Infinity from the Prime is its slightly darker casing, and very slight weight and thickness increase; the Prime weighs 586g and is 8.3mm thick while the Infinity is 598g and 8.5mm thick.
This means that the Infinity does feel slightly heavier when held, but not so much so that it feels cumbersome against the Prime.
The fact that Asus hasn't chosen to radically change its design for the Infinity is unsurprising, as the two both feel incredibly well built.
As well as giving the tablets a suitably high end feel, we found during testing that the metal casing of both devices is there for more than pure visual allure, making them tough as nails and more than capable of dealing with the odd bump and scrape.
Winner: Tie
They're both pretty much identical design-wise
Display
The Prime features a 10.1in Super IPS+ display with a 1280x800 resolution, while the Infinity packs a 10.1in Full HD 1080p, 1920x1200, Super IPS+ screen that boasts 224 pixels per inch.
Comparing the two found we found that the Infinity's screen really did feel like a step up, coming close to matching the stunning retina display featured on Apple's new iPad.
With the same Super IPS+ technology that let the Prime overshadow the iPad 2 in January, we were impressed with Infinity's display performance. We found that its high brightness levels allowed it function surprisingly well outdoors, even in bright sunshine.
The screen 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.
Winner: The Infinity
The screen is the best seen on any Android tablet, ever
Asus Transformer Pad Prime vs Infinity head to head review
We compare the new Infinity tablet with the older Prime, to see what buyers get for the extra £100
Operating system
The Prime initially shipped with Android 3.2 Honeycomb, though it has since been upgraded to come preloaded with Google's more recent Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, the same version pre-installed on the Infinity.
There's still no official word on when Google's latest Jelly Bean Android version will be available for either tablet, but the use of ICS is no bad thing.
Despite being over a year old, this platform is still impressive, offering users five customisable home screens and a host of customisation features, including the ability to place apps into shortcuts and folders.
On both tablets, we were 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.
Looking to the future, both tablets more than meet the required technical specifications for a Jelly Bean update, meaning that software-wise there really isn't much to separate the two.
Winner: Tie
They both pack the same software
Performance
The Prime broke new ground when it launched, becoming the first tablet to feature a quad-core processor.
While the Prime runs an Nvidia 1.3GHz Tegra 3 quad-core processor backed by 1GB of RAM, the newer Infinity features a slightly beefed up specification, with a 1.6GHz version of the chip, but still 1GB of RAM.
Comparing the two, we really didn't find much difference between the Prime and Infinity when it came to normal tasks.
Both tablets load webpages, even across multiple tabs, within a matter of seconds and stream high definition video seamlessly.
The only point we noticed a slight difference in the two tablets performance was when running demanding games from the custom Tegra Zone and Steam stores. While the Prime generally ran the games with zero to no trouble, it did occasionally stutter.
Winner: The Infinity
The Infinity is slightly more powerful than the Prime, but not hugely so
Asus Transformer Pad Prime vs Infinity head to head review
We compare the new Infinity tablet with the older Prime, to see what buyers get for the extra £100
Camera
The Prime and Infinity both feature 8MP rear-facing cameras. Testing them we were really impressed with how well they work, with photos coming out crisp and with excellent colour balance, even when taken in awkward low-light conditions.
Taken using the Infinity
Of the two, we perceived that the Infinity's rear facing camera is slightly better This is because Asus has increased the Infinity camera's aperture rating from F/2.4 to F/2.2. The increase means that photos taken on the Infinity are generally of better quality than those on the Prime.
Taken using the Prime
The only other factor separating the Infinity from the Prime is that it packs a slightly upgraded 2MP front facing camera. The Prime by comparison features a still reasonable 1.2MP forward camera.
While we wouldn't recommend using either camera for taking actual photos, we did notice a difference in quality when taking video calls on Skype and Google Hangouts, with the Infinity offering recipients a clearer image than the Prime.
Winner: The Infinity
The upgraded front facing camera and aperture rating make the Infinity better at both photos and video call quality
Battery and storage
Asus has updated the storage on the Infinity, but the Prime retains a longer battery life.
The Transformer Prime and Infinity are both available in 32GB and 64GB versions, each of which is also bundled with 8GB of free Asus WebStorage. Both devices' storage space can be added to via a microSD slot in the tablet itself, while the keyboard dock is capable of taking full sized SD Card slots.
Both the Prime and the Infinity have quite reasonable battery lives considering their power-hungry components, but the Prime come out slightly better. Asus lists the Prime as having a battery life of 12 hours when used as a stand-alone tablet, and 18 hours with dock.
The Infinity by comparison is listed as having 10 hours battery as a tablet and 16 hours with dock. Neither tablet lives up to these claims when their screen brightness is set to full or Wi-Fi is used heavily.
However, with the screen brightness set on auto we found the Prime and Infinity's battery lives were still pretty good. In our experience, we found the Infinity usually lasted around eight hours with moderate use in tablet mode. This included watching a few TV shows on Netflix and the occasional web search and Facebook check. Docked, we found the unit lasted for around 13 hours of regular use.
Used in a similar fashion, we often got a few more hours out of the Prime, which typically lasted to around the 10 to 11 hour mark in tablet mode. When docked, the Prime was capable of lasting between 15 to 16 hours with moderate use.
Winner: The Prime
The Infinity doesn't match the Prime's battery life
Overall Winner: The Infinity
Compared head-to-head with the Prime we have to say we think the Infinity is worth the extra £100. The tablet comes with a host of upgrades including a slightly faster processor, crisper screen, improved front and rear facing cameras and double the amount of storage.
While none of the additions are ground breaking and the Infinity hasn't had the same impact on the market the Prime did, we honestly believe it is the best Android tablet currently available.
To those that can justify the extra cost, we would wholeheartedly recommend the Infinity over the Prime.