Apple iPad 2 vs Asus Transformer Prime head-to-head review

Asus has been grabbing the headlines with the release of the Transformer Prime, an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad-core powered tablet that runs Google's Android operating system.

Yet, even though the iPad 2 is coming up to its first birthday, the Apple device has swept aside numerous challengers and is still the most highly rated and popular tablet around.

The Transformer Prime is a hybrid device, which comes with a keyboard dock that turns the tablet into an Android-based netbook. We take a look to see how the iPad 2 stands up against it.

Design and portability
Apple has long been able to differentiate itself from competitors by offering sleek products, but other manufacturers such as Asus have caught up in this area. Both devices look stunning - the iPad 2 is available with a pure white or jet black bezel and metallic back, whereas the Prime has deep black edges and a polished aluminium frame.

The iPad 2 measures 241x186x8.8mm, similar in size to the Transformer Prime at 263x181x8.3 mm. Apple's device is shorter, wider and a tad thicker than the Asus tablet. With a weight of 601g, the Wi-Fi only iPad 2 is also 15g heavier than the Prime (586g). However, this difference is pretty much negligible.

When the Prime is docked, the weight increases to 1.1kg, which is in-line with most 11in netbooks and ultrabooks. Of course, with the Prime you can simply detach the tablet whenever you want.

Winner - Draw - Both come with a stunning design and are equally portable

Display
The Prime comes with a 10.1in Super IPS+ display that has a 1280x800 resolution and a pixel density of 149 pixels-per-inch (PPI). The picture quality is excellent and there is an outdoor mode that increases brightness to make the display easier to view in sunlight.

In comparison, the iPad 2 has a slightly smaller 9.7in LED-backlit widescreen display that uses IPS technology. The resolution of 1024x768 and 132 PPI may not be as high as on the Asus tablet, but still yields impressive results.

Both displays are excellent when it comes to reading content and displaying multimedia. However, there is a slight yellowish tinge to the Prime when a white background is displayed, something that is not apparent on the iPad 2. However, we did prefer multimedia playback on the Android tablet.

Winner - Transformer Prime - The Android tablet just shades it due to the bigger screen and better brightness