Asus Transformer Pad (TF701) performance report/review

I recently bought a new tablet, the Asus Transformer Pad (TF701) and since not much information is known about it yet, here are some benchmarks I ran on the tablet! This is a copy of a post I made on the TransformerForums.com website.

I decided to run the tablet through it’s passes with some benchmarks I installed. This includes storage and GPS. Hopefully this answers the questions about performance for everyone. This is a true store bought sample, standard firmware.

Everything was run using firmware version 10.14.1.42 and without the dock attached. Although no heat issues have been encountered (never gets more then luke warm) I did let the device cool a bit after each benchmark run.

Comments or anything else you would like to see are very welcome! All the fullsize pictures can be found at the following url: https://picasaweb.google.com/100675551472213071975/TF701Benchmarks#

First off, CPU-Z:

 

 

 



WiFi Analyzer & Speedtest:
This is actually outside of my house to see how many signals it would pick up. It does VERY well, most other devices find less actually. In the house my basestations easily hit -40Db or even higher which is very good for the position where I normally sit. Throughput is often around 9MB/sec in downloading from the Internet or using iperf and speedtest for instance. It depends a little bit where you orient the plastic part on the back and if your hand is on it or not, but overall it seems well designed. Very very good. (Currently have no 5Ghz available to test)




GPS test:
Tested outside, first screenshot normal (screen) side up, second is with the back facing up and the third is having it straight forward as if it would be mounted on a dashboard. I believe the results to be fine. Lock was almost instant.

 

 




Storage Test:
Pretty good results. They aren’t any SSD speeds, but still I believe that it won’t bog down because of slow storage. Hopefully they will upgrade to Android 4.3 soon though because that would enable TRIM which will keep performance up over time.



Quadrant Standard:
Seems to score quite well. But then again, the devices referenced are quite old.

 

 

 




AnTuTu Benchmark:
Tied first place with the newest Samsung “Octa” Quad-Core A15! Pretty good indeed.

 

 




Vellamo:
Again, the results in the app are too old to really be a comparison.

 

 

 

 

 

 



3Dmark:
I really like results that say “Maxed out!”.  The other results are pretty good too I believe. Also, the scaler inside the GPU seems to work very well, even the 720p looked good upscaled!

 

 

 
Basemark X 1.0:
Quite the heavy benchmark. Benchmarks OpenGL ES 2.0. My Xiaomi Mi2s with a Snapdragon 600 scores Onscreen: 18.195FPS and Off-screen 7.884FPS. So I believe the Tegra4 is faster, it just has a lot more resolution to drive and thus the end result makes it slower. The Mi2s has a 1280×720 screen.
 
 
SunSpider 1.0.2:
Ran some SunSpider 1.0.2 both using the stock browser and chrome. Very very good results!  My SnapDragon 600 1.5ghz phone scores around 1200, so the Tegra4 is more then twice as fast!
 

 

 
 

 

3 thoughts on “Asus Transformer Pad (TF701) performance report/review”

  1. Pretty elaborate performance review you have over here.
    Although the scores are really amazing, one thing to ponder over here is that the sunspider scores for the latest ipad air are reaching sub 400ms level.

  2. Yeah Apple's new A7 SOC is quite something. They have very specific optimizations in there that allow it to achieve such high performance. SunSpider is also very dependent on software optimization though, and Apple has always been very good at that because of their closed platform.

    In the end, they get the faster result, so that's what counts. But the new ipad air only having a dual-core and this tablet a quad-core doesn't seem to make that much a difference in benchmarks that are cross platform, so very much well done Apple!

    But this Tegra4 is actually the first graphics chip tie or even beat Apple! As such, currently comparing an ipad air and a tablet with a Tegra4 the Tegra4 edges out slightly in GPU performance and with CPU performance they will trade blows between the two.

    For me though, it still comes down to platform. I like tinkering with Android and some other stuff surrounding it and also have a lot invested into by now. Apple's platform just doesn't draw me. But I'm happy to see performance reach the same level! For price, Apple also does remain a little bit more expensive.

  3. Hey thanks for your detailed performance review!

    I'm strongly considering this tablet, but I'm also quite interested in the Sony Xperia tablet z. How have you found the battery life on the 701t? With and without the dock?

    I'm in a quandary as to which to choose. I know the performance of the Asus is superior, but I won't be doing any heavy lifting with my tablet, really, so that's not a huge concern for me. The added expandability and battery life would be nice to have, though, although the micro-sd on the sony would likely be enough for my uses. I'd be planning on a bluetooth keyboard to use with the sony, so the dock on the Asus, while nice, isn't impossible to replace, although the USB port, extra SD slot and battery expansion would be great to have, and definitely weigh in the Asus' favour.

    Anyhow, my big concern is down to build quality/in-hand feel. Does the Asus feel solid/premium in hand? Is there any flex? I've read that the 701 is more plasticky than the 700. What do you think? I hopefully will be able to get a hands-on in stores whenever they arrive here, but it would be nice to get your opinion.

    Thanks so much for your input!

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