Found few more problems.....

[Jonneh]

I got my case on Amazon.

Here's what i noticed on my WiFi. My router is downstairs. Of course, I have full bars. I go upstairs to my bedroom and I go from full bars to 2. I ran a speed test and I am still getting a good throughput, but it appears that i cant go very far from a WiFi spot. Is this the case with everyone else? Or is mine not the norm?

This is what I am afraid of (when my Prime ships from Amazon in Feb 2012 lol). My college has wifi spots here and there, but the signal is already not very good, and I am usually rather far away from it. The Prime probably won't even be able to connect at all for me in most of my classes. I guess I won't need to connect just to type up notes, though.

 

[BoxArtGuy]

This is what I am afraid of (when my Prime ships from Amazon in Feb 2012 lol). My college has wifi spots here and there, but the signal is already not very good, and I am usually rather far away from it. The Prime probably won't even be able to connect at all for me in most of my classes. I guess I won't need to connect just to type up notes, though.

Can't you tether from your mobile device via bluetooth such as with PDANet app on say your android phone or iphone? I was wondering the same thing... do you think this would be a work around to your issue...

 

[Jonneh]

Can't you tether from your mobile device via bluetooth such as with PDANet app on say your android phone or iphone? I was wondering the same thing... do you think this would be a work around to your issue...

Unfortunately, I'm not rooted on my atrix phone, but I guess if it does work that way, I finally will have a reason to root. Let me know if you get more info about it.

 

[dalvik]

well just got my prime 3 hours ago... overall the tablet appears to be OK like there is nothing detaching/falling off... However I found problems which bother me a lot. When I shake the tablet in my hands there is clearly a loose piece of something rolls inside of it around the speaker area like a loose screw or some other small part... and I dont need to even shake it hard just tilting the tablet a bit and I can hear it.... strange... another problem is I have my SSID hidden and all other devices can connect to it except the Prime... its really annoying because I prefer to keep my SSID hidden.. So I've just unhide that and Prime finally connected to my wifi... anyway these two issues not an end of the world of course but compared to my ipad 2 i'm having a bit of a hard time accepting them..
Also my wife goes to sertain blogs where she watched flash videos/movies and I've tested them on my GSII Skyrocket and they play just fine. (some of them play even on ipad) whereas on prime overall flash performance sucks... some videos take forever to start and they don't even load up completely, others play OK but overall flash interface navigation is very cumbersome. This is one of the most important things we needed along with wordpress blogs which she will test herself later because she wasnt able to make some posts on wordpress on ipad 2. So we will be testing it for various things that we usualy did on ipad and some other things that I'm able to do on my smartphone. we are not expecting regular windows PC performance of course, just simple tasks that mostly require flash and normal browser, I did try opera and dolphine but i found a stock browser to be much better than alternatives. however it is not fluid and smooth at all as it is on ipad or my SGSII Skyrocket. I tend to believe its because of the poor honeycomb optimization, so like I said we'll be testing it more and will have to decide whether to return it or keep it I dont want to wait for ICS and run out of my return eligibility window just to find out that ICS didn't improve those important things. Also my wife's telling me I should exchange the tablet because of the loose piece inside of it.. Can anyone tell me if there is someting rolls inside the device?
P.S. As soon as I opened the box i fully updated the device with latest updates as fell as the Adobe Flash so all these issues are on a completely updated device.
thank you!

 

[XzombieX66]

something loose inside, yeah i would return it asap..

 

[Jonneh]

Damn, that's a shame...I was really rooting for you to get one of the good ones, like I got, since you've been so helpful in the Atrix forums. I agree with your wife, get a replacement, there shouldn't be anything rolling around inside the tablet when you tilt it, that's for sure.

 

[dalvik]

thanks guys I'll check with my local bestbuy if I can go there and get the replacement. I'll let you know later!
Edit:
damn.. they dont have it in any stores around me... my only choice would be to mail it back for exchange but I'm not sure if I really want to do that its not that bad to exchange it just feels a bit unusual... I think we'll like I said try it for at least 2-3 days and then decide whether to completely return it or not... maybe then I'll mail it in for exchange... btw bb CS reps in both stores I called were so rude! not friendly at all! geezz....

 

[Jonneh]

These threads are filling up with the same complaint about Best Buy's CS. Making me glad I didn't order from them. I'm sure they're just getting a ton of calls from (probably rude) customers demanding an exchange for the Prime they got, but still, you gotta stay professional and friendly. Unfortunately, we in the U.S have never understood that. Spend one simple week in Japan and your mouth will be on the floor in awe when you buy something.
Anyway, good luck, I hope ICS fixes at least some of your issues, or you can get a replacement soon!

 

[dalvik]

thanks jonneh! btw I am looking at the back of it and I'm note sure if it is an aluminium or plastic... reviews say its aluminium but i kinda doubt that.. although I have no problem with that and there are no build issues for me so far (well except for the loose piece)

 

[dalvik]

well its been a whole day since i am playing with my prime. and I actually like it! wifi is working fine although bars do drop eventhough i am sitting right infront of the router an it shows me like two bars lol. i found that i like honeycomb keyboard much better than asus, asus keyboard is very laggy i must tell you, very laggy.... also I do like the stock browser, however it did FC a few times... so I think I will keep the tablet and even ordered a nice case for $12 bucks on amazon. also, since i the prime isnt available in any of the bb stores around my area i'm not gonna bother with exchanging it over the mail because of the loose piece inside. I think i can tolerate that and it is not that noticeable anyway... also i dont want to risk because the replacement might have even more problems and on my prime everything works just fine... hoepfully ICS will fix many existing issues. the most important thing for me is that now i can do a lot more things than i could on my ipad. I will report more if I'll find something else

 

[nedqadams]

I've only had the prime for a few hours (thanks ground shipping) but I've notice some things that worry me just a little bit. I know people have had different experiences so I'd like to know if what I'm seeing is a general asus software glitch or something with the unit.

I've noticed that the top of a few of my widgets dont respond to touch and that several applications are slow/glitchy. I'm thinking this has more to do with not total compatibility with the tablet.

Definitely getting some touch response issues and I'm on the latest firmware. Was never on the previous ones so I can't compare. Are people still getting touch issues?

 

[nedqadams]

Also, my screen keeps turning off in games. The music keeps playing but the screen shuts down.
Did it in glowball multiple times and in dead on arrival.
Is there a setting for this? Seems like it should be set to stay on.

 

[blacknoir]

You guys are worrying me. Mine is apparently out for delivery today and I'm hoping that after waiting this long it works! It's also from Best Buy.

 

[XzombieX66]

well its been a whole day since i am playing with my prime. and I actually like it! wifi is working fine although bars do drop eventhough i am sitting right infront of the router an it shows me like two bars lol. i found that i like honeycomb keyboard much better than asus, asus keyboard is very laggy i must tell you, very laggy.... also I do like the stock browser, however it did FC a few times... so I think I will keep the tablet and even ordered a nice case for $12 bucks on amazon. also, since i the prime isnt available in any of the bb stores around my area i'm not gonna bother with exchanging it over the mail because of the loose piece inside. I think i can tolerate that and it is not that noticeable anyway... also i dont want to risk because the replacement might have even more problems and on my prime everything works just fine... hoepfully ICS will fix many existing issues. the most important thing for me is that now i can do a lot more things than i could on my ipad. I will report more if I'll find something else

Hows your gps?

 

[dalvik]

Hows your gps?

well i really dont know... when i start google maps it finds my location but its using wifi to do that. and honestly gps was the last thing i was looking for in a tablet i'm using gps quite often on my phone but my tablet 90% of the time stays at home...but i will check it outside tomorrow if you like and report here.

 

[dalvik]

I've only had the prime for a few hours (thanks ground shipping) but I've notice some things that worry me just a little bit. I know people have had different experiences so I'd like to know if what I'm seeing is a general asus software glitch or something with the unit.

I've noticed that the top of a few of my widgets dont respond to touch and that several applications are slow/glitchy. I'm thinking this has more to do with not total compatibility with the tablet.

Definitely getting some touch response issues and I'm on the latest firmware. Was never on the previous ones so I can't compare. Are people still getting touch issues?

the screen responsiveness actually pretty good on my tablet I'd say its just about as good as on my ipad2I was moving around widgets today in particular wanted to test the areas to reorganize themand i had no problem.... did you try factory reset it might help also i,d sugest downloading touch screen test from the market and see if you really getting any issues with your display...

 

[dalvik]

Also, my screen keeps turning off in games. The music keeps playing but the screen shuts down.
Did it in glowball multiple times and in dead on arrival.
Is there a setting for this? Seems like it should be set to stay on.

does it happen in a middle of playing or when you leave it idle with the game running on it? I have my screen set on 2 minute time out and when i tried to play games it didnt shut down but i havent left it idle for longer than 2 minutes...

 

[dalvik]

Hows your gps?

well i was just outside for like 5 minutes (its really cold) testing the GPS with the GPS test app from the market. It sucks..... the prime managed to get a brief 2 second lock on 2 satellites and then they disappeared... So like other people confirmed GPS on this thing does not work. I get instant GPS lock with about 20 satellites on my Galaxy S II Skyrocket even on the third floor in my 4 story building. But like I said GPS was the last thing for me in a a tablet. I'm not even sure if my ipad 2 has gps module built in I never even cared to look. But I Also tested WiFi connnection on the Prime and compared it with my GSII so here's the results:
GSII: DL 12.86mbps UPL 2.05 with 34 ms ping.
TF Prime: DL 6.97 mpbs UPL 2.04 with 26ms ping
I can see that webpages open a bit slower on the Prime than on GSII but that also maybe the honeycomb browser. However with the last statement from Asus about GPS performance I'm now a bit concerned if the WIFI signal is also being obstructed by the poor back casing/design rather than just a software driver...

 

[HaveADay]

I can see that webpages open a bit slower on the Prime than on GSII but that also maybe the honeycomb browser. However with the last statement from Asus about GPS performance I'm now a bit concerned if the WIFI signal is also being obstructed by the poor back casing/design rather than just a software driver...

I have a feeling this is exactly the issue. Let's not forget how much trouble Apple has had with metal casing and faraday cages, there's no reason to expect anything different in this case. The previous Transformer TF101 with a plastic casing had no such issues. Certainly an interesting data point.

Ben

 

[tmeader]

Actually, at ~7Mbps download, you aren't going to notice any difference in web page loading (unless you're going to something with a RIDICULOUS amount of video/graphics) compared to ~13Mbps . I would think that it's a browser difference.

Not to say that the wireless overall isn't lacking compared to other devices... but how much of an effect that actually has on something like web browsing is pretty slim (at least at the speeds you're talking about).