ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity (TF700T) Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 25, 2012 3:00 AM ESTBattery Life
The Transformer Pad Infinity features an integrated 25Wh battery, similar to the original Prime. You can obviously extend battery life by docking the Infinity into the optional keyboard dock.
Without an increase in battery capacity, you can expect a drop in battery life compared to the Transformer Prime as there's a leakier SoC, faster DRAM, higher resolution panel and brighter backlight to drive. The drop isn't huge, but it's noticeable:
While the original Prime pulled just under 9.5 hours, the Infinity borders on 8 hours of continuous use on a single charge. It's very similar to the battery life from the original Eee Pad Transformer, and better than what you can get out of a TF Pad 300. Eight hours isn't bad by any means, but it's the price you pay for maintaining portability while driving up performance/display.
Video playback battery life is thankfully quite respectable on the Infinity. I haven't had time to run the Prime and TF Pad 300 through our new tablet video playback test but at over 10.25 hours there's really nothing to complain about here. You can watch a few movies on a single charge, which is great for anyone stuck on a long haul flight.
For our gaming battery life test I'm not sure just how comparable the iOS/Android numbers are because it's quite likely that the NVIDIA hardware is actually doing more work here. But the important takeaway is the significant drop in battery life compared to the TF Prime. What we're likely seeing here is the penalty of the leakier SoC combined with the higher speed memory and increased memory bandwidth demands. If you're gaming on the Infinity, just plan on having a charger handy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
112 Comments
View All Comments
dagamer34 - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity - 1080p + 1.6Ghz->1.3Ghz Tegra 3 + Windows RT + Touch Cover = $599 Surface RT starting price.killerclick - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
Yeah, except you get a 1366x768 screen and a lack of apps. Plus you have to wait three months for it. Plus the touch cover doesn't have an extra battery. Plus how are you going to use the kickstand+touch cover on your lap?Give it up, the Surface is a crap product, especially Surface Pro. A tablet is neither a PC nor a laptop, and Microsoft doesn't seem to understand that.
Samus - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
Microsoft understands perfectly that a tablet can both be a PC and a laptop.UpSpin - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
You can buy such tablets already: Asus EEE EP121, Samsung Series 7 Slate. Also the future Win 8 tablets, which are both a PC, laptop and tablet will cost twice as much as the TF700.WinRT won't be a laptop replacement, rather an inferor iPad clone, which won't give you any advantage, especially not compared to Android.
name99 - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
You may the way they understood that the SAME Windows could work just as well on a tablet and a PC (dating all the way back to 1987 and the Go tablet business)?You mean the same way they understood that the same Windows UI could work on a phone, through all the different naming iterations of WIndows CE/Windows Mobile?
I think let's believe it when we see it. Right now what I see is that the fraction of people who LIKE Windows 8 as a PC OS is pretty damn small, which suggests a fundamental flaw in your theory.
french toast - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
Really? So no one likes w8 despite the fact it isn't even on sale yet?So you think because a company releases a poor product many moons ago.. that obviously means every product will be poor from that point onwards...
rickcain2320 - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
Windows 8 has been out in beta and RC phases for quite some time now. No rave reviews by anybody other than fanbois wearing blue e t-shirts and paid bloggers.themossie - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
Anecdotally...A software developer just paid me $40 to downgrade their Microsoft BUILD conference slate from Win8 DP (developer's preview) to Windows 7. This is the prototype for the Samsung Series 7 Slate, released to encourage Win8 developers. Not a good sign.
They encountered driver issues (will be fixed by Win8 release) and found the workflow very unpleasant (which will not!)
I played with 8 for a while first. Ugly, ugly operating system. The desktop feels gimped, because the start button returns you to Metro. I don't care about the missing start menu, but Metro isn't useful enough by itself, forcing me to the Desktop for real work - and several operations on the Desktop take you back to Metro :-(
Also, IE for Metro is completely unusable.
Belard - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - link
Windows8 totally BLOWS chunks. Anyone who I know in RL who has used Windows8 on the desktop think its SUCKS.I used it... it sucks. I'll go WindowsXP before I deal with Windows8.
Vista sucked because it was buggy garbage...Win8 sucks because its a crappy UI design.
prophet001 - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - link
You got a little foam on your lip there bud...Little to the left... little more... there! you got it off.