Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
Asus packed some choice extras onto the Transformer Prime, and has now got around to upgrading from the basic Android 3.2 Honeycomb user interface to the slicker Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich system, and the firm has confirmed it will be bringing Jelly Bean to the Prime in the near future.
Asus has stayed pretty true to the pure Ice Cream Sandwich system on the Transformer Prime, in fact there are just a few extra widgets for quickly reading your emails, seeing the weather forecast and controlling music tracks, plus a couple of design tweaks to note.
There are no extra app widgets like there are on the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet for adding favourites to an app wheel or an app launcher.
Frankly, these additions offer a nebulous value beyond the stock operating system, and the intuitive Android interface allows you to easily navigate to the apps you want.
Down in the tool bar at the bottom of the screen you'll find back, home and multitasking buttons – the latter of which opens up the Ice Cream Sandwich multi-tasking menu, allowing you to view all open apps and close the ones you don't want any more by sweeping left or right over the thumbnail.
If you like taking screenshots of your tablet's display, then as well as holding down the power/lock and volume down keys, in the settings menu you can also set the multi-tasking button to take a shot when held down.
In the right corner of the tool bar you'll find the clock, battery and notifications bar – tap on this and it'll open up the notification area, allowing you to get a quick overview of your latest emails and social network updates, as well as toggle settings such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS on and off.
There are three additional icons you can use here to set the power level on the Prime - eco mode, balanced and performance, depending on the tasks you're performing and the amount of battery you wish to conserve.
Thanks to that beefy quad-core processor, the Transformer Prime has no trouble running Ice Cream Sandwich, allowing you to glide through the five homescreens and your lists of apps and widgets without any hint of slowdown or lag.
The Asus Transformer Prime can happily run a multitude of applications at the same time without issue, and we didn't experience any slow down even when performing demanding tasks.
There's not too much more to say about the Transformer Prime's interface, because Asus have kept things simple, and more importantly easy to use.
