Transformer Prime X-ray

Transformer Prime X-ray
Transformer Prime X-ray

You knew this was coming. Orientation of the x-ray is as if you were holding it landscape looking at the screen. Click the image to embiggenate.

Easily visible is the battery in the center (which actually appears to be two batteries) and several main boards. The pair of oval things on the right are the speakers. At the top the cameras and flash LED are visible. The board between the batteries I’m guessing is the charging circuitry for the batteries. On the left side are the microSD slot, HDMI port and the volume buttons. Above the left battery, the big square thing is probably the Tegra 3 chip.

Compare the x-ray to the tear down pictures over at AnandTech.

About: Transformer Prime

I like my new Asus Transformer Prime. It is shiny.

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Click on the images to embiggen.

The issues with wifi range have been reported on in other online reviews, with the aluminum back being pointed at as the main culprit.

I thought I’d look at it using Wifi Analyzer.

With my Galaxy S II laying on my desk and the wireless router sitting arm’s length away, the signal is pretty strong.

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Transformer Prime, laying on my desk in the same spot the phone was. Note the signal intensity is down about 20dB from what my Galaxy S II was showing.

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I’ve done this in a few spots around the house with similar results. I haven’t bothered to run any speed tests. Plenty of those already on the web. If I hold the Transformer Prime close to the wifi router with the front facing towards the router, the signal is about 5dB higher than when I turn it around with the back facing towards the router.

If great wifi range and performance is what you need, the Transformer Prime probably isn’t for you.

Adding distance

Up to 20-25 km/week on a pretty regular basis now. Morning runs are all around 5k and feel pretty comfortable running at a 5:30/km pace. Long runs have been around 6-7 km. I think I can add a few more of those in each week and make the long runs longer.

After today’s 7.7 km run, I think I could do a 10 k at a 6:10 – 6:20 pace pretty easily. I think when it starts getting light out again in the morning, I’ll add in some of my 6 and 7 km routes to my daily runs. That should get me up to around 30-35 km/week.

Running up and down the street to the main road is getting a little on the boring side now. The longer routes will add a bit of variety.

Charleston Eats: Jestine’s Kitchen

Pot roast with green bean casserole and mac ‘n cheese

Jestine's Kitchen - Pot roast with green bean casserole and mac 'n cheese

Fried pork chops with green beans and mac ‘n cheese

Jestine's Kitchen - Fried pork chops with green beans and mac 'n cheese

+1 Tablet

The Asus Transformer Prime I ordered arrived yesterday. After an agonizing one hour wait for it to charge up enough to power up, it spent another hour or so sucking down apps from the market after I finished setting it up.

It’s been pretty fun to play with, although I haven’t done too much with it yet aside from exploring the Asus interface slapped onto Android. It came with Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) installed on it already. Looking forward to seeing ICS on my Galaxy SII.
The screen is pretty nice, and gets pretty bright when you turn on the IPS+ mode (for daylight viewing).

Wifi range isn’t all that great, because of the aluminum back, but I knew that already from what I read in various reviews. Same with GPS it seems, although I haven’t taken it outside yet. It detects no GPS inside the house, while my phone will pick up a few satellites.
Next task is to figure out how to get my computers to see it when I plug in. Android ICS uses Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) now instead of USB Mass Storage to connect via USB and there are a few more hoops to go through.

The main reason I decided to get myself a tablet was so that I could go through the stacks of journal articles without having to spend all my time in front of the computer reading them or wasting a lot of paper printing them. I think it will work out pretty well for that, although the aspect ratio of the tablet isn’t exactly optimal.

One thing I have noticed so far is that charging via USB port isn’t very effective. It doesn’t seem to charge if it’s being used, and only very slowly if it’s off or shut down. It seems like the Prime’s power draw is about the limit of what USB ports can provide (mine anyway).

harging happens best using the wall wart.

Really liking the Prime so far.