I think I'm going to have to return it...

[HaveADay]

I've had a Xoom for about a year so I thought I knew what I was going to get when I ordered the Prime. A better screen, better size, faster version of basically the same thing. I'd read about the various issues with some early Primes but figured none of them looked like they'd be show stoppers. Turns out the wifi might be a show stopper for me. With my Xoom and Prime both sitting on my desk I notice drastically different results. The Xoom stays locked on at 54mbps with signal strength between -60 and -65db on a 802.11G AP. The Prime fluctuates from 1-54mbps and signal strength varies from -65db to -80db. Unfortunately this has turned out to be a more than theoretical difference. Firstly in installing apps I noticed it was taking a very long time. It took about 2 hours to install about 500mb worth of applications, obviously not all of that time was attributable to the network but I'd estiamte a little over 80% of the time was. I then tried speed test on both tablets. The Xoom got right around 15mbs on every test. The Prime fluctuated between 4mbps on the high end and 1.1mbps on the low end. I called Asus support who of course didn't acknowledge any awareness of any widespread problems and suggested I should send the unit in. I've had it for less than four hours and at this point I'm not invested in it enough to send it in for repair. I'd rather just return it to Best Buy. I suspect that if I got another unit I'd experience the exact same issue.

Thoughts? Anyone ready to talk me off the ledge?
Ben

 

[oasis9389]

return it, please.

 

[PhiPsi32]

Perhaps an imperfect solution, but you can upgrade to wireless N pretty cheap. I just bought my brother a refurbished Linksys E2500 for $40 on Amazon (free super saver shipping). It works very well and wireless N usually has better range and throughput. Probably not the answer you wanted but something to consider.

 

[czm2000]

At least wait for ICS update next week to see if that changes anything. You have 14 days to return it, so you have nothing to lose.

Then after that of you're not happy, I'd return it.

Sent from my GS2

 

[HaveADay]

Unfortunately the place where the wifi performance issue is the most acute is in my office. We use a Cisco managed wireless environment with about 30 radios throughout the office. The upgrade wouldn't be trivial and while it's something we're considering it's not going to happen overnight.

Thanks for the suggestion though. I'm pretty sure that I'm going to return and see what happens over the next couple of weeks or months. Supply is only going to get better, I have my Xoom to use for now and I'm sure time will help make the decision easier.

Ben

 

[Bob22025]

I've had a Xoom for about a year so I thought I knew what I was going to get when I ordered the Prime. A better screen, better size, faster version of basically the same thing. I'd read about the various issues with some early Primes but figured none of them looked like they'd be show stoppers. Turns out the wifi might be a show stopper for me. With my Xoom and Prime both sitting on my desk I notice drastically different results. The Xoom stays locked on at 54mbps with signal strength between -60 and -65db on a 802.11G AP. The Prime fluctuates from 1-54mbps and signal strength varies from -65db to -80db. Unfortunately this has turned out to be a more than theoretical difference. Firstly in installing apps I noticed it was taking a very long time. It took about 2 hours to install about 500mb worth of applications, obviously not all of that time was attributable to the network but I'd estiamte a little over 80% of the time was. I then tried speed test on both tablets. The Xoom got right around 15mbs on every test. The Prime fluctuated between 4mbps on the high end and 1.1mbps on the low end. I called Asus support who of course didn't acknowledge any awareness of any widespread problems and suggested I should send the unit in. I've had it for less than four hours and at this point I'm not invested in it enough to send it in for repair. I'd rather just return it to Best Buy. I suspect that if I got another unit I'd experience the exact same issue.

Thoughts? Anyone ready to talk me off the ledge?
Ben

I bought two of the Transformer Prime tablets. One for me and one for my wife. The weak wifi was a show stopper for me. I returned both to Best Buy this morning. I'll wait until they fix the wifi reception before reordering. My wife and I already have a 7 inch Galaxy Tab, Acer Iconia, both have a 10.1 inch Archos and I have an HP firesale tablet when they were $99.

 

[dmmattix]

Most of the deal breakers for me seem to point back to the Prime's metal case. Evidently to get past the signal attenuation on the WiFi side they had to use two antennas and the GPS just really does not work due to the signal issues. They claim the two antennas fix the WiFi issues but enough people have this problem that it is hard to tell. Of course WiFi is so dependent on how it is laid out, the channels assigned, the channels your neighbors use, G vs N and so on and so on. It makes it difficult to really determine whether it is fixed or not. Of course if you want to use it at the local Starbucks or Hotels when you travel you have no control over the configuration and marginal WiFi reception can really bite you in the butt.

I guess I will just be happy with my TF101 and wait for the ICS upgrade...

 

[kenyee]

At least wait for ICS update next week to see if that changes anything. You have 14 days to return it, so you have nothing to lose.

The ICS update *WILL NOT* fix this.
It's a hardware issue...metal blocks radio waves. It's actually a pretty big engineering Fail
Look at anandtech.com's review of the GPS issue...same thing as wifi, but a *lot* worse...

Kills my purchase of the Transformer Prime too...sigh. And I liked the screen and Tegra 3...

 

[allan1313]

My wifi is pretty good. It is usually only about 2 to 3 mbps slower than my other devices during download, and right on par with upload speeds.

Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk