The Tablet Arrives

After a few hours playing I wiped the tablet clean, brought it back to its factory configuration and started over. That’s become common with me. It’s tough to know what you need before you know what the tablet does.

“So it’s a toy?” That was Helaine’s comment after some pointed questions about my new tablet. Of course it’s a toy! I already have enough practical stuff.

My Asus Transformer Prime arrived by UPS yesterday evening while I was at work. Unboxing took place about two minutes after I was ‘pajamaed’ up for the night!

The Transformer was on my Christmas list, but Asus had trouble keeping up with demand (after a pre-release recall) and Amazon said I’d have to wait until February. Last week I saw a note that NewEgg had them in stock. The rest is history.

For the geeks reading this the Asus Transformer Prime is powered by an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad core CPU with 1Gb RAM and 32 Gb storage. It runs Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich). This tablet connects to the Internet solely through WiFi.

It’s amazing how little there is to the tablet. It’s wafer thin though it feels substantial and solid. The screen is bright with lots of contrast. Unfortunately it’s also a fingerprint magnet!

I loaded up some apps and started playing around. I screened a few minutes of a movie over Netflix. Beautiful.

I let the Android Market sync my apps from the Samsung phone. That was a mistake. Lots of those are formatted for the smaller screen of a cell phone.

I was disappointed Swype isn’t compatible. I love Swyping! I’m using the SlideIT Keyboard app instead. Pretty similar. Swype may lose me.

After a few hours playing I wiped the tablet clean, brought it back to its factory configuration and started over. That’s become common with me. It’s tough to know what you need before you know what the tablet does.

I still haven’t tried out Skype or any of the video functionality. That’s still to come.

Everyone said I ‘needed’ one. Now the fun begins.

BTW – this entry would have been done hours ago except I was playing.

10 thoughts on “The Tablet Arrives”

  1. Glad you’re having fun with your new toy. Skype is great for parents that are missing their college kid. You get the joy of seeing and talking to them without the responsibility of feeding cleaning up after them!

    1. Elayne – That’s Skype. Swype is a method of typing on a virtual keyboard without lifting your fingers from the screen!

  2. Ice Cream Sandwich – wow, I think I’m going to have to upgrade my Asus Transformer (not Prime – lol)… love Ice Cream Sandwich on my Samsung Galaxy Nexus phone!

    1. Hey Brett, I’ve been looking at the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, but have heard reports about bad battery life and poor cellular reception… is that your experience?

      And, Geoff, I’m going to take a look at this bad boy. Was looking at getting the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 instead, though…

      1. The standard battery life is not great, but I solved that with a $20 by buying an extra battery, and an external charger.

        There is also an extended life battery – haven’t seen them for sale at Verizon yet.

        Ice Cream Sandwich makes it worth while – the phone is very fast.

  3. Hey Jeff glad to see your an android fan and an Asus tab fan, I love mine. Although not a fan of Samsung I have a Droid razr but the Asus tab and razr are nice toys. P.S I recently moved to Wilkes Barre PA any chance of you moving out here and showing the wnep 16 weather guy how to do a forecast and get it right. He is awfully boring, monotone voice, and 99.9% wrong with the forecast. My wife and I really miss your upbeat and RIGHT weather forecasts.

  4. Connecting via WiFi solely means your on a leash. You need 4g. No swype? Not ideal. It does have a fast processor and pleanty of memory. Quad core means you can multitask. Hope you like it.

  5. Ijust recently bought the toshba thrive. I enjoy it alot. Comes with full sized USB, HDMI, and SD card slot. Wifi only yes but with my phone it has the hot spot feature with 4g. In fact that is my internet access at home.

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