Kotas Reviews Straight Talk Wireless

So, I bought a smartphone recently (and reviewed it here). Because AT&T wanted to almost double my already outrageous phone bill ($110/month after taxes and fees for two feature phones, set number of minutes, unlimited texts, and NO DATA AT ALL), my wife and I discussed switching providers. After a LOT of research, we went with Straight Talk Wireless. This is my review of the process and the service.

First off, Straight Talk is an MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) that operates on both the AT&T and T-Mobile networks. What is an MVNO? Essentially they are third parties that purchase network access to a mobile service provider that actually owns and maintains a network, then resells that access to customers for a profit. They are almost all in the prepaid cell phone market, and they compete with the big guys mostly on price of service, and boy is the price nice.

My wife and I have modest phone needs. It should, above all, make phone calls in the places where we travel, and be able to send and receive text messages. The data is a nice thing, but we've not really used it in the past because it cost us an extra $3 every time we accidentally hit the wrong button on the phone. I finally got sick of it, and looked into the cost of actually getting a data plan and a couple of smart phones. Yeah, AT&T wanted to charge us $150/month for two smart phones, 4GB of shared data, with unlimited talk and texts...before taxes and fees, which, of course, I couldn't know. It DID include a subsidy for the new phones, so we could one of the “latest and greatest” phones for approx. $200 each. Still, DAT MONTHLY BILL.

Looking at Straight Talk, the bargain offered seemed almost unbelievable. $45/month per phone for unlimited talk, texts, and data? Outrageous! That’s $90/month for two phones before taxes and fees! But, of course, I had to buy unlocked phones AND get SIM cards and otherwise fiddle. Looking around, a pair of new phones would cost between $800-$1200. That’s a LOT of money, but the monthly bill would be much, MUCH lower. I did the math, and decided that yes, it would be worth it. I bought two Nexus 5s and ordered a couple of AT&T SIM cards from Straight Talk, along with a couple of “prepaid” cards. Eventually, they arrived, and it was time to start our journey down that MVNO road.

Setup

According to the website, it should be as simple as “slap in the SIM card, check to make sure it’s working, and make sure the settings are right.” Oh, but I wanted to port my number, is that cool? “Sure!” said the website. Yeah, not so much! In order to port the number, you have to fill out a bunch of information about your current account (which should be active) along with the usual stuff like your name, address, etc. The process itself seems straight forward, but the forms to enter the data are all slightly off in their wording, so I was constantly second-guessing myself and double and triple checking to make sure I entered the information correctly. Finally, everything was in, and I clicked “Submit”. Then waited the recommended 8-10 hours for everything to go through. Would it work? Spoilers: NO.

Somewhere along the line, something screwed up. It might have been me, it might have been some mysterious timeout on the site, or possibly swamp gas. All I know is, my old phone worked fine, and my account showed the new SIM card as being “unactivated”. Hokay, I’ll just try again. Success! Everything seemed to go through just fine! Wait, why isn't my number showing on the account? To make a long story short, something had gone awry and I contacted their technical support. The first try was a complete failure, and resulted in me being “transferred” to another group...where the phone told me “We have too many calls, try again later.” and hung up. Uh, what? After a few hours, I eventually got through to a tech. This resulted in the current SIM being deactivated and them sending me a replacement SIM card.

Many days later, I went through this process a second time, finding out that THIS time I did screw up the data entry, but in THIS case, I finally got an error message and a help desk case. After plodding my way through the menus, I finally got to a low level tech. To be fair, this time I was quickly escalated to their next level and DIDN'T disconnect me, and 30 minutes later I was the proud owner of a brand new functioning smartphone.

The activation of my wife’s phone took 30 minutes and required no human interaction, since I had already learned all the ins and outs of their weird setup process. I suspect if I hadn't wanted to transfer an out of state phone number that this process would have been much smoother, but at NO point did anyone warn me this might be tricky. Still, kudos to that second level tech. He knocked it out of the park, and if you don’t care about getting a new number it is ridiculously simple.

Service

Our Straight Talk SIMs use the AT&T network and in the month I have used them, I have had zero problems. Data speeds are relatively consistent, texts both SMS and MMS go through without issue, and phone clarity has been rock solid. I haven’t strayed too far outside of major urban and suburban areas, but I was able to get reasonable data rates even out at Red Top Mountain, at least in most areas. The ability to look up the cost of a 7 foot Gummi Python in the middle of the woods is awesome! My wife has yet to complain about signal strength or data speed. To be fair, in the decade or so that we used AT&T for wireless service, I think we called them once maybe. This was actually a major factor in why we went with Straight Talk. The AT&T network is a known quantity. In short, the service is very good, well within our “usual” use cases.

We went with the $45/month plan that includes unlimited talk, texts and in theory, data. They recently added LTE 4G service to Straight Talk, so it seems like an unbelievable deal! And you know what? It IS unbelievable, for the reasons you might think. There is a soft cap on the data. Currently, if I exceed 2GB of usage, my data speed slows from LTE 4G down to 2G until the next billing cycle, so it’s “unlimited” in the sense that if I exceed I’m not cut off entirely or charged a premium for it, but it isn't what I would call truly unlimited. Lucky for me, I simply do not use enough data to worry about it but a heavy data user might need a more robust plan...which Straight Talk doesn't offer. There are also plenty of Internet Horror Stories about people getting nasty emails when they start to get close to their data caps, but I've heard just as many “I use a ton all the time, never get anything” stories so maybe they've improved their service over the years. It is a little shady that the soft cap, while mentioned, is relegated to an * item in their advertising, but every other company does something like that (except T-Mobile, which is very upfront about it).

Customer Experience

Paying $101/month after taxes and fees is great. Really, really great. It is prepaid service, so I pay upfront for 30 days of service, but you know what? It’s still great. I don’t have to fiddle with bills, or worry about if this months bill will be wildly different from last month’s because I clicked a button I wasn't supposed to. The taxes and fees actually make sense and are consistent on my statement. It is remarkably simple in that respect and I am super happy.

The web site experience is what I would call stilted. They've recently redesigned it, but it’s still sort of chunky in both presentation and navigation. There are a lot of options but I don’t really use them, because I signed up for their Auto-Refill option, which charges my credit card every month without me having to do anything. I get notices and emails about it, so it is never a surprise. If you know what you are doing during setup, the website is also super quick, which is pleasant.

Of course, there are a few spines on the rose. Big ones. With additional tiny spines around additional tiny roses. It’s a bit dicey is what I’m saying. The customer service department is clearly a call center in some foreign country. They speak pretty reasonable English, but the turns of phrase are unfamiliar and honestly I would be happier if they just owned it rather than pathetically trying to pretend that “no really, we’re totally in North America.” It’s kind of insulting really, and is a total crap shoot in terms of what kind of service you will get. I ended up calling 4 times: 3 during the setup process and once because I did something dumb. Two of those times were awful experiences. I was either hung up on, or told horribly bad information. The other two were “mixed to amazing”. When I got the replacement SIM, I was told that my previously activated “scratch card” for service would be preserved and carry over when I got the new SIM. Yeah, that was a total lie, though the new SIM fixed all the other problems, so that was $50 down the drain. The stellar call was the tech support guy who identified the problem in setup, immediately escalated me to second level, and I got the awesome tier two dude.

One of the bad calls deserves a special call out. I did something dumb while exploring my new phone and deleted the number for my voice mail. I tried to fix it using the instructions on the website, but failed horribly, so I called in. The guy I got was just awful, telling me he couldn't give the information, and that I would need a new SIM card. I cursed and hung up. In desperation, I tried their “help chat” feature. This? This was amazingly good. I got connected, explained the problem, and in 5 minutes had everything working the way it was supposed to. Kudos to that person too. Overall, I hope I never have to speak with anyone there ever again, and so far, so good. And seriously, that monthly bill is so nice.

Overall

In conclusion, on the FACE Rating System, Straight Talk Wireless gets a tentative two smiley faces. I love the price and the quality of the phone/data service. I am not so crazy about the customer service experience, but I don’t feel I will have to USE those options much or ever, so it should be fine. For me, this was a great choice since I’m pretty tech savvy enough to know how to slap a SIM card in a phone, and pick and purchase my own phone without issue. For anyone with heavy data usage OR a need to have excellent customer service available frequently, you might be better served elsewhere, but for everyone else I recommend trying it out. Bonus, it’s not a monthly contract so if you hate it, you can go elsewhere without any problems!

Kotas Reviews The Nexus 5

In 2014, I finally got off my duff and joined the fantastical world of 2007 by purchasing a smartphone for myself and my lovely wife. In order to eliminate any possible barriers to support, we both got the same phone. AT&T has been our cell provider for over a decade, but they wanted to charge my my first born child for data service, so we kicked them to the curb and went with an MVNO (which I will review in a future post). What does all this mean? That we needed to buy an unlocked phone.

Holy Geez have you seen how much those things cost? The phone I originally lusted after, the Moto X by Motorola, retailed for $600 unlocked at the time of my purchase. What was a cost-conscious-yet-tech-loving purchaser to to? After some cursory research (Read: “Hey Internet, what should I buy?”) I ultimately went with the Nexus 5, 32GB edition for $400. This is my review.

First Impressions

The box this came in is remarkably similar to the Nexus 7 (2013) box, which is honestly a pretty good sum up of everything about this phone in general. It comes with the phone itself, a wall charger and cable, and finally the SIM tray ejection tool, which is like a blunted pin with a large round handle.

The phone itself feels good in the hand, light but sturdy-feeling. The soft touch plastic on the back allows for a nice solid grip, and it fits the hand well with the slight curve of the back. The front of the phone is mostly taken up by the screen, and the bezel along the edge is very, very tiny. For $400, it looks good and feels good. It is also not too big for me. I was worried that the current trend of “BIGGER PHONES. ALWAYS.” that it would be oversized, but I could easily manipulate this with one hand, and I didn’t feel self conscious holding it up to my ear to use it as a phone.

After some transfer number shenanigans, I popped a fresh micro-SIM card in, and the phone sprang to life. My very first impression of the device actually on? DAT SCREEN. Seriously, the screen is absolutely beautiful. But, we all know that first impressions are not often a good indicator of overall happiness. Let’s explore further!

Initial Setup

The initial setup is the standard guided process for Google’s Nexus 7, but with a few “phone centric” bits. It still really wants a wi-fi network, though since I have two-factor authentication it went a little weird, as I couldn’t see the text I got to input the code at first. All in all, it mostly just worked.

Interface

The big to-do about the Nexus 5 is that it comes with Android 4.4 a.k.a. KitKat. What can I say about KitKat? I’ll tell you. I kind of love it. Since I’ve already sold my soul to Google I turned on Google Now and all that crap and you know what? it’s pretty neat to have my phone tell me how long my commute will be in the morning...even if it tells me 2 hours earlier than I need or my personal favorite, 2 hours LATER. There are 2 initial home screens, with a 3rd added with Google Now. However, there are actually “unlimited (-ish)” screens available if you want them, created by dragging icons past your last screen. I generally only use 2 or so screens, so this isn’t a big deal for me, but it is a nice feature.

The speed of this phone is evident in the general usage cases. Screen transitions are smooth and crisp, and apps open very, very quickly (with a few exceptions for apps that have to call back to a server). Things just work, and that is very important in a phone. Not all is 100% rosy though. The new dialer app is pretty, and once you get used to it it is very nice, but getting to a straight numberpad involves an extra step that can throw people off. The alarm app is also buried in a “clock” app that isn’t on the home screen, and it uses a radial menu for time selection instead of punching the time into a number bad. This seems very “different for the sake of different” but it is perfectly usable.

Widgets are no longer selected from the “all apps” screen, but instead by “tap and hold” on a home page, and then selecting the widget option from the screen. You can also set the wallpaper here, though there aren’t a lot of good stock options. Lucky for me, I like the default one. It doesn’t take too long to get used to, but it is different from earlier versions.

The much touted voice commands for Google Now are mostly a novelty, though I’ve had great success with using them to set ad-hoc alarms and for calling people w/o having to tap. It’s not 100% perfect, of course. Background noise can make it too sensitive or not sensitive enough, but for the most part? Voice searching and doing minor things works pretty well. Google’s voice recognition has really come a long way. If you don’t have a source of data though, the accuracy drops.

Apps

All the usual Google Apps are there, which I would expect given that this phone is touted as the “pure Android/Google experience”. Not having to delete/move/ignore some sort of dumb reskinning for things was a huge factor in my decision to purchase a Nexus device, and it was nice to have my phone set up the way I wanted to with little effort. Special notice goes out to the Google Keyboard, which has incorporated a “swype-esque” gesture typing and speech-to-text modes that have come in handy on several occasions. The apps are pretty good is what I’m saying...with one exception.

The camera app is kind of bleah. Oh, it takes pictures well enough, but making any sort of adjustment to things is a hefty chore. It LOOKS kind of slick, but it isn’t very usable. I am used to being able to “touch hover” over an item to see what it is, since I am not a huge photography person. This app pretty much throws all that into the garbage so it’s a “guess and hope” sort of affair until you memorize all the symbols. I’ve accidentally turned on or off (or set to some crazy value) a number of options when I was simply trying to figure out what that option was. My solution? Turn on HDR+ and stop trying to change things. Sure, I give up a lot of control over my pictures, but it’s worth the lack of hassle. This should not be the case with a camera app.

Performance

This thing is packed with mostly top-tier hardware and it really shows. The standout winner? The screen. It is simply gorgeous and everything on it is clear and sharp. The internals back it up nicely with no stutter, skips, or other problems outside of the occasional app problem (that is usually the app’s fault, not the hardware). It is just a joy to use. The wi-fi connectivity is very good, and I can even get a bar of wireless from several feet outside my house. There is only one speaker for media (calls have a much tinier speaker near the top of the phone) but it is surprisingly loud. Calls sound excellent, and my mother reports a lot less crackle and static during our phone conversations.

The camera hardware is pretty solid, though it lives in the “mid-range” area of phone cameras. The software doesn't really take advantage of the thing, but the HDR+ mode is good at keeping things looking decent. Am I going to take an award-winning shot with it? Doubtful, but the best camera is the one you have with you right?

For some, a big downside is the lack of an SD card slot. That’s right, there isn’t anything resembling user-upgradable storage on this thing. This is one reason why I spent the extra $50 for the 32GB edition, rather than the 16GB edition. I don’t have a lot of music or anything, but I am taking a lot more pictures these days. I don’t expect to run out of space any time soon, but it’s nice to have it there if I want it.

Battery life is, again, in the mid-range for this class of phone. I’ve gotten a full 36 hours out of it in one go, but that was with minimal usage. With light browsing, notifications, and so forth, it generally gets down to 50% charged over the course of a typical day. If I’m playing a lot of media (podcasts are a new thing, and I enjoy them), keeping the screen on, or making a lot of phone calls the battery drains much quicker, but I still get about 14-16 hours out of it before it yells at me. I get a day’s work out of it no problem, but more than that and I’m pushing it. I did buy a battery backup device just in case.

Overall

How did I ever live without a smart phone? Seriously, why did I not buy one of these years ago? I’m pretty darn happy with the Nexus 5 as a phone and as a networked device. The ability to pull out the phone and check email, in the middle of a state park or at a restaurant or wherever is truly a life-changing experience, however simple it may seem. This phone does everything I want it to do, albeit imperfectly in a few cases. For the price though? It is a bargain. $400 gets you a lot of phone these days, especially with the recent price drop of the Moto X, but the pure Google Experience (and robust history of quick software updates) make the Nexus 5 an excellent choice if you are looking for an Android phone. On the FACE Rating System I give this phone 3 smiley faces. It would have gotten 4, but the camera app is kind of “bleah” and the battery life could be better. Truly an excellent piece of hardware.

Kotas Reviews the Asus Transformer Prime

So, I purchased a new tablet a couple of weeks ago, and finally received the package last Monday. To give the tablet a fair review. I decided to use it for a week and see what my use patterns would be, as well as get a feeling for day to day usability. That week has now passed. The model tablet I chose to purchase is an Asus Transformer Prime (TF201 model number) with 32GB of storage. I purchased the optional keyboard dock, which adds a keyboard, some additional ports (SD card reader, full USB, etc.) and acts as an additional battery for the tablet. It also can fold down into a netbook-esque profile for carrying.

TL;DR version: I really like the Prime, and while it had a couple of minor issues, it is fantastic and I love it. Now, onto the much more lengthy review…

First Impressions

The box this thing came in was pretty minimalist, containing the tablet, the power cord and wall adapter, the warranty card, and the “manual”. I put it in quotes because the instructions are “here are the ports, this is the power button, here’s how to hook up the charger, good luck!” Still, this is the current trend with modern electronics so I’ll give it a pass. The tablet itself is very cool looking. The metal backing looks really nice and sleek, and the whole product screams “well made”. It feels good in the hand, and can be held with one hand pretty easily, though depending on how you hold it, it might be tiring.

The keyboard comes in a similar, if a bit smaller, box. It also feels pretty solid. One thing they do not tell you about is the tabs that come on the tablet to cover up the connection ports. The one over the “recharging/data connection” plug is pretty obvious, but the two rubber ones that cover the stabilizing tab slots require a pen to remove. I saved them for extended use without the keyboard. Once the plugs are removed, attaching the tablet to the keyboard is easy, and removal is easy too. There are warnings to only pick up the combined device by supporting the keyboard portion, and NOT to pick it up just by the tablet part, so some care must be taken. With the keyboard attached, it looks like a netbook when folded shut (which puts the tablet into a Sleep state).

Initial Setup

When you power on the tablet, it kicks off a little vibrate notification, which surprised me. What also surprised me was the boot time. While it is considerably shorter than my desktop and previous netbook, it’s still about 30 seconds to fully start up from “Off”, which seemed a little long. Waking from sleep is, of course, instantaneous. Upon startup, it sends you right into the Setup Wizard to get everything going. The Wizard will let you skip steps if you want to, but I recommend just following it. It walks you through setting up the wireless connectivity, logging into (or creating) a Google account which is not required, but does ease the setting up of a number of the installed apps, and a few “sharing” settings for the camera, you are all ready to go. Setup was pretty easy, and since I have a Google Account I’d say 90% of everything “just worked” after this. That first night was mostly “charging up the unit to max”.

Interface

The tablet came installed with Android Ice Cream Sandwich (latest version), which was a pleasant surprise, as it was initially supposed to come with Honeycomb and get an update. Asus has received high marks for supporting its Transformer tablets, with frequent updates and so forth. There are 5 “desktops” , and 3 of them come with links to the pre-installed apps. There’s a weather widget (shows the weather at your current location), Date and Time, and several media consumption apps (Browser, G+, Gmail, Kindle, Google Play Store, a Music player, etc) on the first home screen. Other screens have productivity apps (Polaris Office, MyNet, File Manager, etc) and the Tegra Games app all by its lonesome. One screen also had a “Task Manager” widget, which seemed out of place.

The screen seems pretty responsive and desktop transitions were crisp and precise. It is at least as responsive as the IPad 2 (which I’ve played around with), and as sensitive as well. In my usage, I did occasionally get a “mistouch” or two, but I expect any tablet you purchase will have a couple of those due to “user inconsistency in touch”. It took me a little while to figure out what all the “standard Android Buttons” mean, as well as how to do things in ICS, but it was pretty easy to figure out and now I’m navigating the interface like the pros.

Software

The initial software load out is pretty impressive, and I saw little to no “crapware” preinstalled. The browser is the standard ICS browser, and it works. It is nothing fancy, but it is pretty easy to figure out. It comes with most of the Google apps you’d expect: Gmail, G+, Talk and Messenger (though I don’t know anyone who USES Messenger for anything) and some widgets for these. The camera can be set up to automatically upload pictures taken with the camera to your G+/Picasa picture library, though they will not be shared automatically. You can also share various things from these apps. The G+ app got an update recently, and while I like most of the changes, the way it handles “inline” pictures is highly annoying as it stretches them out or cuts them off short. The Gmail app is solid, as is the Talk app. If you want to use any social media outside the Google domain, you’ll need to get the apps from the Store.

The ASUS keyboard is the standard software keyboard and I prefer it over the regular Android one, if only because the keys are slightly bigger and easier to hit. I’ve had an app called “Thumb Keyboard” recommended to me but I have not purchased it.

It comes with two productivity software packages: SuperNote and Polaris Office. I fiddled around with SuperNote (short review: Meh), and it seems usable enough. The handwriting “option” was sort of silly to me, but it probably works better with a stylus than with my fingers. I opened Polaris Office, and it does three things: documents (read: Word), spreadsheets (read: Excel) and presentations (read: Powerpoint). I haven’t really used this app, but it was nice that it was included. EZpdf was recommended to me, but I just pulled the free Adobe app to read PDFs and it works fine.

Of course, you’ll want to use the App Store. Google Play is the app store on Android, and it is…well, it’s okay. The App Store app itself is pretty responsive, and searches do not take a long time. This is good, because you will NEED the search function. You can browse by category, or look at the various “Top” lists: Top Paid, Top Free, Top Grossing, etc. The Category browsing is…minimalist. Just one big category, apps listed in some order other than an obvious one. That’s it! I think you can filter by “user rating”, but it was underwhelming. There’s also a “Staff Picks for Tablet” section, which is nice, but I’d really rather there was a separate “tablet” tab to separate all the apps that are really just for phones out from the ones specially designed for tablets. In fact, I downloaded an app (Tablified Marketplace Lite) to do the sorting for me (it’s free, but a lot slower than the Google Play store, but it links to the Play store for downloading/purchasing). Payment is made through a Google Wallet account…and ONLY a Google Wallet account, though it does allow for the placing of a PIN or Password to prevent unauthorized purchases. I did discover that if the Google Play App Store thinks an app is “incompatible” with your mobile device, that app will not appear in searches nor when browsing.

The App Store keeps track of what you’ve downloaded, and you can even set apps to auto-update if you so desire. I downloaded several apps from the store that were free: TED (for watching TED Talks), ICS+ Browser (a bit snappier than the standard browser), Google Drive, Flixster, and some updates to other apps (G+, Maps). I have so far paid for exactly one app: Angry Birds Space HD. Once payment is set up, it is easy to purchase things. It also sends you an email receipt for paid purchases, which is good. Angry Birds Space HD cost me $2.99 and was worth the purchase price, as it is a great example of a sequel done correctly. There is a free ad-supported version too.

I had some trouble downloading the Amazon App Store app, eventually resorting to direct link from the Amazon website (this does not surprise me, since it is a competitor with the Google Play store). To install this app (and anything purchased from it) you have to enable “allow installs from unknown source” in the settings. Amazon gives a nice walkthrough of how to do this if you can’t figure it out yourself. In order to download things from this store though (even if they are free), you also need to set up 1-Click Mobile on your Amazon account. I haven’t bought anything here, but I did download Amazon Mobile, which was listed as “incompatible” with my device on Google Play. It worked fine, though I didn’t like it and removed it shortly thereafter.

Performance

There have been a lot of reports about weak/poor Wireless and GPS connectivity with this tablet. Initially, the wireless connectivity seemed a little weak, but I remembered a trick I read about on some Android tablet forum: Squeeze gently along the top of the tablet at the level of the camera all the way across. It seems the wireless antenna is attached by a couple of clips that can be shaken loose in transport, but a gentle squeeze can snap them back in. A little squeeze later and the connection jumps from “okay” to “good” in my kitchen. Of course, if I was in the room with my router, it was always “excellent”. Walking around my apartment, the wireless connectivity did drop the farther I was from my router, but that’s expected given it has to go through several walls. At no point did it drop to “poor”, even in the room farthest from the router, though I have a small apartment. Connectivity in other places was also pretty good. I’ve not really tested the GPS functionality, so I cannot report on that performance.

Early on, my device had a couple of lockups, and would not unlock unless I rebooted the tablet. After some consultation I blamed the Task Manager widget and removed it from the desktop it was on. Since then, I have not had a single lock up. I thought it was an odd choice to include on the desktop, and while I liked having that sort of granular control over my tablet, I don’t really think it’s needed and I’ve gotten on just fine without it.

Battery life is excellent. I have not done any formal testing, but just “charge it fully, use until it’s out” I got 32 hours out of it (most of that in sleep mode, of course) before I had to recharge it. How do I know? It has a handy graph. The Wireless eats up a good portion of the battery life. When I was at the car shop getting work done, I spent 4 hours with the wireless constantly on, in the “Balanced” battery mode. This dropped the tablet to about 15% battery remaining, down from 98%. Of course, I had the keyboard attached, and it is possible that affects the battery meter display.

The camera is pretty good. It takes reasonably fine pictures, and the camera app is pretty easy to use. The secondary camera is also good for self-portraits or video chat, and works flawlessly with the G+ Hangout feature. Pictures are stored locally, but finding them in the File Manager can take a little poking around, as they are under “Camera” and not “Photos”. I did not use the “capture video” function. This is not a device you will be using for “random snapshots”, but if you want to take a picture of something and share it while you have your tablet out, this will fit the bill.

The tablet has a lone speaker on the right side, but at max volume can be pretty loud. You won’t fill a crowded hall, but it’s enough to allow for family members in the same room to hear the audio from a YouTube video. Speaking of video, video playback is done solely via direct apps or the web. The TED videos were stutter free, as were the YouTube videos, though both of these apps lacked a good solid “Browse” feature outside of “New” and “Featured”. The search worked well though. Browser playback was less than ideal. At least with the ICS+ Browser, some video playback will cause the app to lock (and Android gives you a helpful pop up to let you know and let you kill it or wait), particularly anything using Blip.tv. Other video playback was fine, though you lose the “in player” controls and ability to click close certain popup ads, which is annoying. Being unable to pause videos was painful, since I was watching it between PvP queues while playing Star Wars.

Basic web browsing with the stock browser or ICS+ was fine. Flash heavy sites could slow down the browser enough to be noticeable (I’m looking at you www.swtor.com), but for the most part it was an enjoyable experience. My bookmarks from home (I use Chrome there) sync’ed up nicely so no import needed. I use the “regular” setup, but you can turn on a “pop-out control” panel option if you want to maximize screen usage.

Speaking of the screen, it is listed as a “SuperIPS+” display or some such marketing speak. It has a toggle for “IPS+”, and you don’t need that turned on indoors. The screen is bright, clear, and even with the brightness at half is very bright. The only time I turned on the IPS+ mode was when I was outside in the sunlight. It made the screen much more readable and I am very pleased.

The Transformer Prime comes with no games, but it does have a link to the “game/tech demo” of Glowball, which is free to download. Glowball is visually impressive, but it is not a very fun game for me. Granted, some of this may be because I have no idea how to play. It uses the accelerometer to move the ball as you tilt the screen, and the ball is a bright glowy thing designed to show off shadows and other eye candy. Looks great, plays awful for me. The aforementioned Angry Birds Space HD is a blast. Everything you loved about Angry Birds, but with new twists involving gravity and lack thereof. Runs smooth, looks great, and is a ton of fun. There are some more graphically impressive games for this tablet, which you can browse through with the “Tegra Games” app, but I did not try any of them.

The keyboard attachment is great. It’s a chicklet-style keyboard like those you see on some Macs, and while the right Shift key is a little small for my liking, it does the job. While waiting to get the brake pads on my car replaced, I sat and chatted with folks via Talk, along with web browsing and email. Using the attached keyboard was a lot faster than using the software one. I could actually do real work on that keyboard if I had to, even if that “real work” was just an overly long G+ entry. The extra battery means “constant all day use” if I want it, adding to the already impressive battery life. The bonus ports are just gravy. I highly recommend this attachment if you are going to buy this tablet. It’s expensive, but it’s awesome when you want to do a long bout of typing on it, or just want a lot more battery life.

Overall

I love this tablet. I’ve never had a tablet before, but I’ve messed around with them when given an opportunity, and I’m really enjoying mine. I find I most use it for browsing quickly while doing something else, such as playing a video game and waiting for an event (such as a queue pop). It is also extremely portable, and I see that this will be a great thing to take on trips, or even just over to a friend’s house. Being able to check my email in the kitchen or from the living room is just awesome, as is the ability to look up things w/o having to boot up a computer. At my in-laws this weekend during dinner, I was able to find and pass around information about the pawpaw tree when it came up in conversation. When I was feeling under the weather, being able to web browse from the couch was very convenient. It was not perfect however, as it had a couple of lockups and some “if I didn’t know this, I’d be more upset” things concerning wireless performance early on. If you are in the market for a high end tablet, but do not want to pay Apple prices, or you just prefer Android to iOS, this is THE tablet to get. I give this tablet 4 smiley faces on a scale 5 frowny faces to 5 smiley faces.

PostScript

So, the Transformer Prime is soon to become the “mid-range” tablet of the Transformer line. Right now there is a “low end” model (the TF300 Transformer Pad) and the “high end” model (the Prime). Asus will soon (Q2 or Q3, depending on who you talk to) release an “updated” version of the Prime, the T700 Transformer Infinity Prime (or some other name like that), which will become the new “latest and greatest” model. For some, it might be worth waiting to see what that model is like before purchasing this one, since it will clearly be an “upgrade” to this model. I am content with what I bought, and it is available NOW rather than “soon”.