Review: Asus Transformer Pad Infinity

Asus is making some of the best Android tablets on the market. In fact, the Taiwanese company currently offers three 10.1-inch-screen tablets within its premium Transformer line.

The best of the bunch is Asus' latest, the new flagship Transformer Pad Infinity TF700, which becomes available on July 16 and follows the Transformer Prime and the Transformer Pad, both of which arrived earlier this year.

All three tablets run Google's latest mobile operating system, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. All three also have the ability to "transform" into a laptop-style device by slipping the tablet into a keyboard dock, which is sold as an optional accessory.

The Transformer Pad Infinity introduces a new 1920 x 1200 resolution 10.1-inch Super IPS+ display.The obvious question is, "What's the difference between all these Transformers?" Aside from price (the Infinity is priced on the high end: $500 for 32GB of storage and $600 for 64GB), the biggest differences are found in the displays.

The two previous Asus tablets, the Transformer Pad (starting at $380) and Transformer Prime (also starting at $500, but likely due for a price cut) were built around screens with 1280 x 800 resolutions – the standard resolution found on the best tablets from Android rivals Acer, Samsung, and Toshiba in the 10.1-inch size.

The Transformer Pad Infinity introduces a new 1920 x 1200 resolution 10.1-inch Super IPS+ display, covered in Corning's new Gorilla Glass 2. It looks much better than its predecessors – it's not quite as noticeable of a resolution jump as what's found on Apple's third-generation iPad and its 2048 x 1536-pixel Retina display, but it's fairly close.

It's a really beautiful display, and one of the better screens I've seen on a tablet. Watching high-definition video on the Infinity is a joy, with deep blacks and warm colors. In fact, the display on the Infinity is so detailed and sharp that Asus' included wallpapers look just a tad soft upon close inspection. Many app icons haven't been optimized for screens this dense, so they look a bit blurry. While surfing the web, I noticed that text renders crisply and clearly with no discernible jaggedness or pixelization, but the accuracy of the display betrays the lower resolution of ads and images.

In this regard, higher-resolution devices such as the Infinity, the new iPad and the new MacBook Pro with Retina display are all a bit ahead of their time. Pushing the platform forward is a good thing, but it's apparent the Android world isn't fully prepared for a screen this sharp. Outside of a small number of games, super high-resolution apps are scarce, and tablet buyers who surf the marketplaces seeking quality apps that look appropriately amazing on this awesome screen will be left wanting.

As more devices with such detailed displays get produced, web publishers, content creators and app developers will have to catch up. And when they do, the consumers with the best displays will reap the benefits. Until then, the larger tablets are caught on the outside. There are a lot of apps available in Google Play, but big names such as Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and even Google+ still don't offer versions tailored to large Android tablets. Eager users are left with stretched-out phone versions.

Aside from the screen, the experience offered by the Infinity is pretty much exactly the same as what's found on the Transformer Prime and Transformer Pad. Like the two other Transformers, the Infinity uses Nvidia's powerful quad-core Tegra 3 processor and 1GB of RAM. The Tegra 3s found in the Transformer Pad and Prime were clocked at 1.4GHz, and the Infinity's Tegra 3 is clocked at 1.6GHz. But in launching apps, surfing the web, streaming video via Netflix and playing games such as Grand Theft Auto III and Angry Birds in Space, I noticed no huge performance boost here.

Previous Transformer tablets handled multitasking, high-definition video playback and HD gaming like a champ, and the Infinity doesn't disappoint. In all of my test situations, the Infinity handled these intensive tasks smoothly and without sluggishness or glitches. As with previous Transformers, the Infinity has a micro-HDMI port on the left side, making it easy to hook the tablet into an HDTV.

For each of its Transformer tablets, Asus sells a $150 "mobile dock," which turns turns the touchscreen slates into something like a laptop.On the back of the Infinity is an 8-megapixel camera paired with an LED flash. It shoots some of the best photos I've seen a tablet snap. Granted, this 8-megapixel camera won't produce photos as beautiful as the 8-megapixel cameras on Apple's iPhone 4S and HTC's One X smartphones, but progress is being made on the tablet camera front. Still unchanged, however, is the extreme awkwardness of taking a photo with a 10.1-inch tablet.

The front-facing camera on the Infinity is a 2-megapixel unit that isn't great at taking photos, but works just fine for video chats.

Another difference between the three Transformers is the materials used for the backing. The Pad uses plastic, and the Prime uses a beautiful brushed aluminum. The Infinity uses a combination of the two, with a brushed-aluminum back topped by an attractive and sturdy strip of high-quality plastic, which allows Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS signals to transmit more easily.

Asus doesn't make many alterations to Android Ice Cream Sandwich, which I like. It's a fine operating system and the fewer add-ons the better.

Of course, I can't properly review this device without also taking a look at its matching keyboard dock. For each of its Transformer tablets, Asus sells a $150 "mobile dock," which turns turns the touchscreen slates into something like a laptop. The dock, which tightly latches on to the Infinity, contains a keyboard, a trackpad, an extra USB port and an SD card reader.

The price is a bit steep, but typing on the keyboard is comfortable, and more convenient than using the on-screen keys for long emails and other work. The trackpad isn't great, but you can disable it and just tap and swipe the screen. A perk of the dock: added battery life. The Infinity itself gets about nine hours of battery life, but the dock adds an extra five to six hours.

I only really had two complaints in my time with the Infinity: the speaker placement, and a still-apparent lack of apps optimized for use on a tablet.

The lone speaker found on the Infinity is on the back-right of the device, and when I hold the slate in landscape mode, the audio gets muffled by my hands.

Even more frustrating is that issue I brought up earlier, and it's something that's largely outside of Asus' control: the lack of quality, full-sized tablet apps that make the most of this awesome screen. It's a persistent complaint for just about any Android tablet. It's time for this to change, and that responsibility rests with Google and app makers, not its hardware partners. This issue holds back the entire Android ecosystem, and prevents Google-powered tablets from being able to compete punch-for-punch with Apple's iPad.

WIRED Lots of speed and brawn. Beautiful display is one of the best on a tablet. Ice Cream Sandwich is a joy compared to previous versions of Android. Lightweight. Built with top-notch materials – feels durable, not cheap. Mobile dock adds a comfortable keyboard and a significant battery life boost.

TIRED The mobile dock is expensive at $150, and its trackpad isn't great. Poor speaker design. Android still doesn't have enough tablet-optimized apps.