Asus Transformer Pad Infinity review

The follow up to Asus's flawless Transformer Prime tablet, the Infinity has some pretty big shoes to fill. Retailing at a hefty £600 the Infinity breaks away from Asus's strategy with the Nexus 7, taking Apple's new iPad tablet head on for the top spot in the high end tablet market.

Design and build
The Infinity's tablet section's dimensions are incredibly similar to Apple's iPad, with the tablet packing a 10.1in screen and measuring in at 263x181x8.5mm. Being only 0.2mm thicker than the Transformer Prime, the only striking difference we noticed between the Infinity and its predecessor, is that the tablet's front facing edges are not flat. Instead the Infinity's edges have a slight transitional step between its metal outer case and Gorilla Glass front.

While not a major problem, it did make the device feel slightly uncomfortable in hand with the step occasionally sticking awkwardly into our palm when using the Infinity one handed.

Another slight issue we have is that the Infinity is fairly heavy when docked, with the tablet and dock combined breaking past the 800g mark. When removed the device weighs a more modest 598g, meaning it is still reasonably satchel-friendly and can still be used on the go without breaking your back.

These small qualms are easily forgotten when faced with the Infinity's tremendous build quality. The Infinity looks and feels sumptuous, featuring a brushed metal finish on both the tablet and docking station parts. As well as giving the tablet a suitably high end feel, having managed to accidentally drop the tablet on a tiled kitchen floor, we found that the Infinity's metal casing is there for more than pure visual allure, with the device surviving the trauma without so much as a scratch.The Infinity's impressive build quality carries over to its docking station. The keyboard and trackpad were both reactive and pleasant to use. The only problem we found with the dock is that with the tablet section inserted it's incredibly top heavy. Resting the combined Infinity on your lap, the device will regularly topple backwards if not held down.

In terms of ports, the Infinity is fairly miserly stocked, packing MicrosSD, Micro USB and headphone inputs on its tablet section, and USB and SD card slots on its dock. While we were a little disappointed at the lack of an HDMI input, we found the USB port made it easy to quickly transfer files from a dedicated PC.