Just as we had gotten used to ASUS’ fantastic Transformer Prime series of dockable tablets, the company has gone and announced a complete re-jig. From now on, the ‘Transformer Prime’ will be referred to as the ‘Transformer Pad’. ASUS has also unveiled a top-end range of tablets called the Infinity Series.
So just to set things straight, the recently released Transformer Prime TF201, and the improved (but not to be released until June) TF700T models will now be known as ‘Transformer Pads’. This has already been shown with the new entry level model that ASUS revealed this morning, the Transformer Pad 300.
ASUS also unveiled a new top-end model, which it says falls into a new range known as the ‘Infinity Series’. It’s awfully similar to the TF700T, though ASUS has mixed some design aspects from the original TF201 in.
The TF700T promised to eradicate the GPS and Wi-Fi issues found in the original Transformer Prime by offering a plastic back, which to us looked rather dull. However, the new Infinity Series model combines the gorgeous ringspun aluminium back of the TF201 with a thin matte plastic panel that runs through the rear camera at the top to provide better GPS and Wi-Fi reception. Bam, two birds killed with one stone – why didn’t ASUS do this the first time around?
The Infinity Series will feature two main models – a Wi-Fi only model and a 3G/4G LTE model. Strangely, the Wi-Fi only model will carry the Quad-Core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor, while the 3G/4G model will use a different processor; the equally impressive Qualcomm S4. We’re not sure why this is; and it does seem like a strange decision.
Other than that, the specifications are the same. You get the same gorgeous and very bright 10.1-inch Super IPS display with 600nits of brightness, an 8-Megapixel autofocus rear camera with LED flash, 2-Megapixel front-facing camera, 1GB of RAM, HDMI-out, 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of internal storage, and of course, the option to dock it into a netbook-sized keyboard. ASUS has added a 16GB model in which should be cheaper, and all three will run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich right out of the box.
Battery life remains at 10 hours from the tablet itself, with a further 6 hour top-up available from the keyboard dock when fully charged.
ASUS hasn’t confirmed a price or release date for its new Infinity Series models, though we’re hoping this is the last of the meddling around with names and internal parts, for now at least. Our heads hurt!
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