Is the Asus Transformer Prime good for college students?

by ://www.flickr.com/photos/98231059@N00/4941617651">John.Karakatsanis

Question by Ann: Is the Asus Transformer Prime good for college students?
I have a laptop, but it’s not good for carrying around. I am looking into getting a tablet for school, but it seems the ipad wouldn’t be compatible with my pc. I really like the Asus Prime but what I need to know is if I could link the Prime up to my pc to transfer notes, papers, etc. I’m not very tech-savvy so I would love any advice on this. Also, could I link the Prime up to a printer?

Best answer:

Answer by Richard
I have the original Asus Eee Pad Transformer (the slower version of the tablet you are asking about). It’s a lovely device, and the keyboard dock makes using the tablet much easier than trying to type using an on-screen keyboard.

For transferring files between the Asus and my PC, there are a couple of options. First of all, my Transformer has two USB ports that work well with USB pen drives; and it also supports SD and Micro-SD cards. (Without the keyboard attached, it supports only the Micro-SD card.) Second, I have installed an App from Google Play (formally known as Android Market), which allows me to transfer files directly between the Transformer and my PC over the WiFi network. The App is “Wifi File Transfer Pro” by smarterDroid. It cost me about $ 3 if I remember correctly. When the App is started it displays a URL on the tablet screen. I enter this URL into the browser on my PC, and I can then explore the tablet’s file system and transfer files in either direction using the PC browser to control the whole thing. There is a free version of the App, but it has a limit on the maximum file size that it can handle, which is why I bought the Pro version after trying out the free one.

As for use by college students, the Transformer with the keyboard dock has a superb battery life, which is quoted at around 15 to 17 hours depending upon just what you are doing. Great for a complete day’s work.

There is a negative to using any tablet for serious work and that is that some of the tools such as word processing and spreadsheets can be a bit limited in what they offer compared with the equivalent Microsoft products. I have found that documents and spreadsheets will transfer from the Asus to Microsoft Office, but do sometimes need some reformatting to get them looking correct after the transfer. Basic text is fine, but the complex formatting does suffer in the transfer.

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