Lenovo IdeaTab A2109A vs Asus Transformer Prime TF700T
Asus and Lenovo can be identified as rivals coming from the same industry. Their rivalry and competition in the Laptop market has been immense and tense. However, both brands own a fair piece of the meaty market out there. The approaches used by these two companies, to promote their products are distinctively different. Asus deals with the looks and the sturdiness of the laptop. They also try to make it performance prone, yet reliable and affordable. On the other hand, Lenovo always targeted their tablets to the premium market where the tablets are of high performance and high appeal amongst professionals for their robustness. Lenovo laptops were clearly ahead of their time too giving customers the pleasure of holding on to their laptops for a prolonged time period. This is what happened in the laptop market, but the tablet market is a whole new area. Let us see how they are performing in the tablet market.
Asus touched the tablet market; specifically Android tablet market; somewhat earlier compared to Lenovo. Hence they had the competitive advantage although we see Lenovo is rapidly catching up now. Asus came up with top of the line tablets as well as budget line tablets and had the crown for been the tablet with the best performance for some time. There was a time where an ambiguity existed whether the revealed tablets would actually be released. We still have that doubt for some tablets revealed in CES 2012 aren’t released yet. Let us keep that thought on hold for a while and let’s move on to what Lenovo has done as of yet. Lenovo has adapted their knowledge on the laptops to the tablets in order to make them perfect. The IdeaTab series had plenty of good features and should Lenovo market them with intensity, they are bound to catch a sound percentage of the tablet market. However, the details about sales on IdeaTab tablets are not available and hence we can’t evaluate them on that ground. So let us move on to look at their raw performances and get an idea about where they stand in the spectrum.
Lenovo IdeaTab A2109A Review
Lenovo IdeaTab A2109A is a 9 inch tablet that fits between the 7 inch and 10 inch tablet storm. It has moderate performance matrices although we have to take it for a run to ensure the quality. It has a LCD capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels at a pixel density of 167ppi. IdeaTab 2109A has an all-aluminum variety rear encasement which can appeal to your finer tastes. It is rather light for a tablet in this class weighing 1.26 pounds. Lenovo IdeaTab 2109A is powered by 1.2GHz quad core processor on top of NVIDIA Tegra 3 chipset with 1GB DDR3 RAM. Android OS v4.0.4 ICS is the current operating system although we hope Lenovo would release an upgrade to v4.1 Jelly Bean soon. This is not a powerhouse by the looks of it, but it certainly wouldn’t break your heart. If you buy this tablet, we guarantee you’re in for some sweet gaming experience with the 12 core NVIDIA Tegra 3 GPU.
IdeaTab A2109A comes in 16GB of storage capacity while having the option to expand the storage using microSD card up to 32GB. There is a 3MP camera at the rear as well as a 1.3MP camera in the front for video calling. IdeaTab A2109A is certified for SRS premium sound which means you are in for a great audio experience, as well. There is a 3.5mm headphone port and a micro USB port as well as a micro HDMI port. Unfortunately, IdeaTab 2109A doesn’t sport HSDPA connectivity. Instead, it’s limited to Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n which may be an issue if you are in a country where Wi-Fi networks are rare. We don’t have records about the battery usage patterns as of yet although it was purported that Lenovo IdeaTab 2019A would come with a two cell lithium ion battery. The prerelease is offered at a price of $299 at BestBuy.
Asus Transformer Prime TF700T Review
If you have seen us reviewing Asus Transformer Prime TF201, you would have known that we were impressed with Asus Transformer Prime. We are also impressed about the Prime TF700T, although not as much as we were for TF201. The key difference again starts with the screen. Asus Transformer Prime TF700T, which we would refer as Prime from now onwards, has 10.1 inches Super IPS LCD Capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels at 224ppi pixel density. Needless to say, we are even more impressed with this screen panel and the resolution it offers. The Super IPS LCD panel was just what we wanted in such a high resolution screen like this. It also has 1.3GHz Cortex A9 quad core processor on top of Nvidia Tegra 3 chipset. The graphics are being dominated by ULP GeForce GPU and it also has 1GB of DDR2 RAM that complements the configuration. We are convinced that this setup would deliver robust and seamless performance on Android OS v4.0 IceCreamSandwich.
Prime comes in flavors of Amethyst Gray and Champagne Gold while having pleasing ergonomics. The dimensions are just comfortable at 263 x 180.8mm, and the thickness is one of the best in the market at 8.3mm. It inherits the expensive looks from Prime TF201 and keeps continuing to impress us. Having HSDPA connectivity, it isn’t one of those tablets that define its connectivity through Wi-Fi although Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n is available for continuous connectivity. The ability to act as a Wi-Fi hotspot makes the tablet ideal for sharing internet. It has 32 or 64GB of internal storage options while having the option to expand the storage using a microSD card.
Asus hasn’t forgotten the optics either for Transformer Prime features one of the best cameras in the tablet market. The 8MP camera has autofocus and LED flash with geo tagging, and the camcorder can capture 1080p videos at 30 frames per second. It also has 2MP camera for the video conferences. It seems to come with a modified UI featuring Asus Waveshare. We also expect the battery life of TF700T to be somewhere around 12 hours.
A Brief Comparison Between Lenovo IdeaTab A2109A and Asus Transformer Prime TF700T
• Lenovo IdeaTab A2109A is powered by 1.2GHz Quad Core processor on top of NVIDIA Tegra 3 chipset with ULP GeForce GPU and 1GB DDR3 RAM while Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime TF700T has 1.6 GHz Cortex A9 quad core processor on top of Nvidia Tegra 3 T33 chipset with ULP GeForce GPU and 1GB of RAM.
• Lenovo IdeaTab A2109A and Asus Transformer Prime TF700T run on Android OS v4.0.4 ICS, and we expect an upgrade to Android OS v4.1 Jelly Bean soon.
• Lenovo IdeaTab A2109A has 9 inch LCD capacitive touchscreen featuring a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels at a pixel density of 167ppi while Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime TF700T has 10.1 inches Super IPS LCD Capacitive touchscreen featuring the same resolution at the same pixel density.
• Lenovo IdeaTab A2109A has 3MP camera with 1.3MP front camera while Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime TF700T has 8MP camera that is capable of capturing 1080p HD videos.
Conclusion
We have various types of conclusions at the end of comparisons. Some contains a clear verdict and the facts to support that. Some instances wouldn’t carry a clear verdict, but an indication of a better tablet subject to the consumer’s preferences. There are some cases where the conclusion represents the balance between performance and price. This is one of the latter, where we have to talk about the balance between the price and the performance. Lenovo IdeaTab A2109A is offered at $299, and Asus Transformer Prime TF700T is offered at $499. The difference as you can see is $200 and is of substantial value. So we will have to do a thorough analysis to find out what’s best for you.
Asus Transformer Prime TF700T has a better overclocked processor compared to Lenovo IdeaTab A2109A although both seem to feature the same architecture and preferably the same chipset. What I can definitely say is that Asus Transformer Prime TF700T has a better screen featuring a monster resolution compared to IdeaPad A2109A. It also has better optics featuring a 8MP camera with advanced functionality. Besides these, the two tablets can be safely placed at the same ground. So it is up to you to evaluate whether these features matter to you equivalent to a value of $200. If they do, Asus Transformer Prime TF700T should be your choice, and if it doesn’t, then Lenovo IdeaTab 2109A would be the ideal choice for you.