[Asus  Eee Pad Transformer Prime] Blairware:
It's the journey, not the destination, as long as there IS a destination!

I agree. The issues we see with lagging, and pauses are more due to Honeycomb, and it's almost development OS feel compared to fully fleshed OS like, dare I say it in here? iPad. There, I said it. That said, I would never buy an iPad regardless of how well it

works as a whole package

A lot of expert opinion that I have been following believes that Honeycomb, and Android by association, are more to blame than the hardware. I tend to agree with that assessment, and I am cautiously optimistic that ICS,especially with the delays at the end of the development cycle is going to make a significant difference.

I have been in the Android camp only over the the last year and a half, having made the move from years of Windows Mobile when it became undeniable that Android

development

was out-pacing everything else out there. I got the original Transformer MOSTLY because the development forums were much more populated than for other Android tablets, such as say the Toshiba Thrive. I saw one post in there where the guy was saying: "Hello? Where IS everybody? LOL!) Hardware wise, most of them were cookie cutter replicas, with a few differences in ports, and esthetic's. Transformer seemed as good or better in most things that count to me, and the Keyboard Dock closed the deal. Where Android is concerned, I believe that if you can't do something today, you will be able to do so soon, and it's because of that frantic development pace that I stay engaged. It's not having perfection (boring) but seeking it; it's all the fun (read, frustration, aggravation, enlightenment, discovery, satisfaction, and ripping your hair out)t that this type of environment provides.Current Android development reflects most of the values and pleasures that brought me to tech as a career in the first place.

The funny thing is, while I LOVE the thin profile of the Prime, I was never in love with the metal casing, as attractive as it is. Sure it blew away the material of the first one, and the look is pretty slick, but I was concerned about fingerprints and how durable the "coating" was going to be, and truthfully, it's not great. These things (especially Amethyst Grey) are fingerprint nightmares.

And for that bit of flash that it provides, it seems we may have some signal degradation issues.

One thing needs to be noted: It is not the casing that is breaking GPS or Wifi. It obviously degrades those signals to some degree, but if some people have fully functional GPS, then proof of concept is plain. What is disturbing as hell is the

quality control issues

that cause AnandTech to have not one, but

two

defective units, and now all of these failing GPS issues, be it antenna, chip-set or whatever, Asus has already shown that their marketing, distribution, supply, partnerships, and PR are all among the worst of any tech company that I have seen, but their

ONE SAVING GRACE: A TRULY TOP OF THE LINE, BLEEDING EDGE DEVICE is plagued with QC issues.

(well, "plagued" might be a bit strong, but it's serious as hell, and without the claim that they make a top tier, super spec device of unparalleled quality, they basically are just a Taiwanese "Apple Wanna-be" Even the Zenbook has had some serious issues, which I won't delve into here.

I was willing to put up with a lot of "Growing Pains" and "learning experiences" because ASUS is the new kid in town, but this kid is turning out to be somewhat of a bull**** artist, and none too dependable.

Not too sure I want to be friends at this point.