We don't get a lot of projectors for review, but ASUS sent us their P1 Portable LED Projector and so we wanted to do a short write up of the device. It's a small projector primarily intended for portability and business use–something that you could easily carry with you as you travel to meetings so that you know you'll have a viable projector for your presentation. Tipping the scales at less than a pound, there are many projectors where the lens alone is larger than the P1.
So how does the ASUS P1 fare in our short look? While we don't have the necessary equipment to test many aspects of the projector, for the intended purpose it delivers what ASUS has promised. Read on for our thoughts on the device.
Asus Zenbook UX31E
Now we’re talking turkey
With the Asus UX31E, all the fuss about Ultrabooks starts to make sense. Its all-metal chassis, cut from a single sheet of aluminum, is undeniably handsome. And while this attractive metal wedge that’s just .71 inches at its thickest brings to mind the fine craftsmanship of a MacBook Air, it’s by no means a knockoff. The UX31E possesses a unique character that’s admirable in its own right. And at ,050, it’s 0 less than its similarly spec’d Apple counterpart.
Silver inside and out, save for a black bezel around the screen and black backing to the keyboard, the UX31E sports a faintly etched pattern of concentric circles on its lid, while the deck is adorned with a pattern of brushed vertical lines, interrupted only by a spacious clickpad. While clickpads can be persnickety and frustrating to use, we didn’t have any issues with the pad on the UX31E. As for the keyboard, the size and spacing of the keys feels right, and although the key press is shallow, there’s a satisfying click at the end of each depression.
Another welcome feature of the UX31E is its 1600×900 screen resolution, besting the 1366×768 of the other screens in this roundup and the 1440×900 of the 13.3-inch MacBook Air. Like all the others, the UX31E’s screen is glossy; it produces a bright, vivid picture and holds up well off axis.
The two speakers embedded in the chassis are powered by Bang & Olufsen ICEpower tech and put out surprisingly full audio for a device of these dimensions.
Internally, the UX31E also impresses. Its Core i5-2557M proc is clocked at 1.7GHz, with a max Turbo frequency of 2.7GHz. Combine that with a SATA 6Gb/s SSD and you’ve got a machine that posts healthy gains over our zero-point in the benchmarks and some of the fastest scores in this roundup. To put it in perspective, the UX31E had sequential read and write speeds of 463MB/s and 341MB/s, respectively—pretty darn close to the spec’s max bandwidth. Sadly, the SSD is just 128GB.
The UX31E’s battery life surpassed five hours in our tests. It recharged to 50 percent in less than an hour, and reached a full charge in three. Booting to Windows took 23 seconds.
Asus throws in a tasteful, brown padded carrying case for the UX31E, as well as a matching pouch that holds two connector dongles: USB-to-Ethernet and Mini VGA-to-VGA. Yes, Mini VGA is built into the unit (who knew it even existed?), along with Mini HDMI, USB 2.0, USB 3.0, headphone, mic, and a media reader.
All told, the UX31E weighs in at three pounds, 2.1 ounces (or 8.3 ounces, if you add the power supply). If going toe-to-toe with Apple’s Air on both design and specs, while beating its price, is what it takes to achieve product hotness, then Asus has done it.
,050, www.asus.com
Whilst it isn’t unusual for a mobile device manufacturer to take advantage of a prior product’s sales success, Asus goes a step or two beyond a simple update and minor upgrades when they planned Round Two. The Asus Transformer Prime steps beyond a new version of the Eee Pad model of last year.
Overview
The Transformer Prime was granted instant attention as a birthright from the Eee Pad’s prior success. It stands on its own feet, however, and makes independent strides toward its own claims to fame.
The Asus Transformer Prime was the first mobile tablet to house the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor. It claims another first place as the tablet that first hit the markets carrying the Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich, a major step ahead of the Eee Pad’s Honeycomb OS. There’s nothing wrong with Honeycomb, but everyone in the industry knows that ICS is definitely next-gen to any prior Android platform.
The spun, metallic back case of anodized aluminium makes this tablet jump up above the crowd. Less than an ounce heavier than the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and slightly lighter than the iPad, it feels more durable than its weight would presume.
Ice Cream Sandwich. High-end resolution and graphics quality. Fast, fast fast processing speed. Brilliantly smooth operations paired with mag camera and video capabilities – How can we ignore this tablet?
The slim depth of this piece belies just how much the Asus Transformer Prime has packed inside!
Specifications
MobilePhones.org.uk staff try our best to find accurate information on your behalf, but the information provided may not be current or accurate. Whenever possible, we mention if its based on rumours or unofficial information.
Dimensions: 263 x 180.8 x 8.3 mm / 586 g
Display: 10.1 inches / Super IPS+ LCD capacitive touchscreen / 1280 x 800 pixels at 149 ppi.
Operating System: Android 3.2 Honeycomb, upgradeable; or Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich.
Speed: NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core chip / ARM Cortex A9.
Memory: 1 GB RAM / 64 GB.
Camera: Rear: 8 MP / auto-focus / touch focus / Panorama shutter view. / 1920 x 1080 pixels/ Video recording: 1080p HD / Front: yes.
Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 b/g/n.
Features: Rear camera sports f/2.4 aperture and back-side illumination sensor for greater photo control. Dual camera design. Bluetooth 2.1 EDR. USB 2.0 ports. Full keyboard docking attachment; folds into laptop configuration when joined and closed. Micro HDMI (type D). Computer sync; OTA sync. Proprietary USB charging connector. Multi-file audio and video players; streaming-capable.
12-core GeForce GPU for absolutely brilliant graphics.
Additional comments: Moderate-use tests revealed only about half the battery power was used after a full day’s use. Heavier use or more demands brought the battery life down, but testers found they could still put in a hard day’s work on one charge, putting this device right up there with iPad’s battery reputation. Outstanding on-board memory capacity!
Overall opinion: Unless you are through-and-through, won’t pay attention to anything else Apple fan, THIS model, the Asus Transformer Prime has to be one of the first tablets you want to consider very, very closely. You’d find it difficult to justify purchasing another tablet model. This lightweight tablet is anything but a light-weight entry into the mobile computing arena.
We might all be flailing wildly at our laptops to open documents soon as at least two prototype Asus laptops exist that incorporate Microsoft Kinect sensors.
The Daily was lucky enough to snag some time with what a Microsoft insider confirmed were two official Microsoft prototypes running Windows 8.
The gesture control sensors sit where the webcam would normally be (in the centre of the panel above the screen), with what looked to The Daily like LEDs beneath the display.
The Daily Flail
Unfortunately the Murdoch-owned iPad newspaper didn’t manage to grab any pictures nor use the gesture control, but it does seem to confirm that we’ll see Kinect functionality baked into portable hardware at some point in the near future.
Kinect is already compatible with Windows, with the necessary hardware being released in February 2012 after developers were given access to the SDK late last year.
The motion-sensing peripherals have been a massive success for Microsoft on the Xbox 360, bagging well over 10 million sales and a T3 Gadget of the Year award to boot.
Llano is still selling strong for AMD, as shown by the relatively recent reports of representing a major aspect of their CPU profit margins. Building on our Llano and A75 review base, ASUS gave us the opportunity to look at their F1A75-M Pro motherboard – e-tailing at the time of writing for around 0. Here at AnandTech we have reviewed other offerings from ASUS in A75, in full ATX from the F1A75-V Pro, and the mini-ITX F1A75-I Deluxe. This time, it's the turn of micro-ATX. Read on for the full review!
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