Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This first paragraph is all you need to read. Everything else was prior to latest news. Asus has already announced another version of the Prime for Q2 and it has a redesigned shell to improve Wifi, GPS and Bluetooth !!! With this being announced so early, before the original Prime has even been able to hit store shelves, its very obvious that Asus knew about the wireless issues of the Prime prior to releasing them. Rather than delay (remember rumored delays due to Wifi issues)and fix the issue they pushed the Primes out in time for good holiday sells, knowing it was flawed. All the time a new designed shell was already in the works and even possibly already in hand. Asus did add higher resolution screen on the new model but its likely this was to merit releasing it has a "different" Prime. Very poor move by Asus. I recommend not buying the Prime or the new version Prime. Below is a list of signficant flaws to consider when making your purchase decision. Please read the UPDATE sections below for more specific notes. 1. Poor GPS caused by aluminum shell design 2. Reduces Wifi range and performance (likely due to same shell as well) 3. Drastically reduced Wifi performance when connected to and/or streaming to bluetooth device capable of music / video streams. UPDATE !!! So the issues keep coming. It is known now that there is an issue with using Bluetooh and Wifi at the same time. I have tested this myself and it seems to depend on exactly what the bluetooth is being used for. When used to stream music to a bluetooth headset or stereo, WiFi transfer rate is dramatically impacted. I tested without bluetooth and was getting 13000 range kbps. With bluetooth streaming on the transfer dropped to 400 kbps and lower. This will be an issue for those that might like to stream music to their entertainment center while browsing on the Prime. UPDATE !!!! Asus has issued a statement concerning GPS issue. They have admitted it is due to the shell and will no longer list or market GPS as a feature. My review started off as 4 stars but to me this is a significant screw up and a sign of poor QC. Whats worse is that early rumors of delayed release due to Wifi issues shows that Asus knew of the problem then but decided Christmas sells were more important than delivering a product that worked the way it should. WiFi issues have also been confirmed and are due to the shell however the WiFi signal is still strong enough to work, but it could be and should be better. WiFi is also not optimal and with 3 units tested I found all three to have significantly shorter range than other devices like iPad 2, iPhone, laptop. Transfer speeds over Wifi are also slower. With all the devices running the same test and sitting the same distance from the router, the Prime came up with slower tranfers. As the distance from the wireless router was increased for each device, the transfer rates for the Prime suffered more than the other devices. So for example moving all devices to a bedroom 40 feet away with two walls between them and the wireless router, all the devices, except for the prime, showed the same level of transfer loss. The Prime on the other hand showed a greater loss. WATCH THIS VIDEO to see that the Prime does have WiFi performance issues. [...] UPDATE !!!! Well the rumored GPS issues were apparently real. So real in fact that Asus is no longer listing GPS as a feature of the Prime. Check the Asus site if you doubt. You might find it listed on other sites but that is only because ASUS does not have access to those sites to remove it. This tells me that the GPS issue is more than likely due to a design flaw and since they are removing it from the list they will most certainly not continue trying to fix it, because it probably cannot be fixed. I had to take away a star for this reason. Very shady tactic on part of Asus. Of course Zealots will brush this off as being an unimportant feature, even though they were sure to point it out as a great included feature that you must pay extra for on the iPad 2. I also forsee Asus adding it back to the specs but it will be for legal reasons only. I was lucky enough to get my hands on 3 of these, two of which were not even Pre Orders. One was a walk in to BB and the other online order from BB, which took only 3 days to process and ship to me. One was from Santa for my 11 year old daughter and the other two for me and my wife. I'm starting the Prime off with 5 stars and deducting or adding back as I go. - 2 Stars - Faulty GPS. Asus either did not test GPS or knew there was an issue and released it anyway. Either way is not good. Asus has removed GPS from the list of features on the Prime and admitted it is due to the shell. - 1/3 Star - BackLight Bleeding on all three. When held in landscape mode the location of the light bleed is on the right side just below the corner. The bleed is not subtle either. On two of the units there are two distinct sections next to eachother. On the third unit its one less distinct area. Being in the same location I am wondering if its a quality control or design issue. It does not stand out under normal use unless that area is dark and has no graphics to cover it. It will stand out during movies when that section is dark. - 1/3 Star - Case / Glass separation on all three. The next thing noticed on all three is a cracking sound when holding along the left side in landscape mode near the volume rocker. If you press there you can see the glass move in as you press. I think this is a design issue and maybe has something to do with the volume rocker. When viewed from the side (thin view), you can see the glass sticks up slightly higher there. Its as if the glass was suppose to be snapped in but it did not hold. - 1/3 Star - Crashes and Interface issues. I should not really deduct for the OS Interface since its probably not the fault of the device but since it is a part of the device I will. We have experienced crashes although not in excess. Its usually on the browser. I also find that sometimes tapping an icon is not responsive and you must tap several times. Its as if the touch screen stops sensing. This was noticed on the Xoom and the Fire as well so I would say its an OS issue. + 1 Star - Is for the performance and overall experience with the device. This thing is fast and that is using it in the mid performance setting. Boot Time - YIKES !! 1 minute boot time ! I will not deduct from this because we generally will let it sleep and not power off until night time. Sound - The speaker seems sufficient to me. I would not have a problem using it for watching a movie or gaming as long as there were not others around that might be annoyed. Screen - The screen looks amazing. Viewing angles seems to be very good. For example sitting at the end of couch with the Prime facing me directly, my daughter and wife sitting to my left could view without having to lean back and over towards me. Quality - In my opinion could have been better, specifically the backlight bleed and cracking along edge that I already pointed out. If those were not present I would not have anything negative to say about the quality of the prime. Is this an iPad2 killer ? I do not think so. If you hate Apple then of course you will think it is. Heck the Apple haters thought the Xoom was the iPad 2 killer. I'm not a hater or zealot of either side. Fact is Apple has really polished their OS. I think once the Android OS gets polished and tweaked a bit that I would definitely put the Prime on top. Maybe the next update in January 2012 ? If the update is focused on improvements to the current OS and not just a bunch of new features that will open up new problems then I think it will be very promising. I have my fingers crossed. <<<UPDATE>>> I exchanged one our Primes, which had the worst backlight bleed, at our local BB. The replacement was much better. The cracking / moving glass near volume rocker is not there. Bleed is so minor that I would call it no bleed at all; however the minor bleed I can see is in the same exact spot as the others. I also researched some and found a review that mentioned the bleed and it was in the same location as well. I have been reading complaints for WiFi and GPS issues. I have no way to test the wifi speed but must admit that I see constant fluctuation of signal strenght on the Prime. Apparently the GPS issue is signal strength related. What I have read is that it is strong enough to lock on and give your location but not strong enough to maintain a lock if mobile, for example if you were trying to use it for navigation from point A to B.