Where to start with apps for Asus Transformer Prime

FrankGrimes

I've got one of these beauties (Asus Transformer Prime) arriving in a few days and am looking forward to it as it looks a great piece of kit.

But I'm new to Android (it runs Android 4.0/IceCream Sandwich) and with the wealth of apps out there I'm not sure where to start with downloading apps and modding the OS (which I know I'll probably want to play around with if it is possible). I'll be browsing through the 'must have apps' thread but what I'm not sure about is what apps work well for phones vs what ones work well for slates, or are they the same on both?

I'll be taking the slate with me for some travel I'm doing soon so want to use it for browsing on the go (can you get it to work with Microsoft Exchange email?), video playback, music (currently use Zune for my Windows Phone and Squeezebox Server for my music collection at home), Office document reading (Excel, PowerPoint, Word - is that possible), Skype, PDF reading (for a college course) etc. so that's all standard enough stuff and much of it seems to be covered by built in apps, but I guess there's likely alternatives that might generally be regarded as the best options for those things? But that's just the start of what I'll use it for and it'd be great to see what kind of other things people use their slates for cos that'd give plenty of food for thought.

Is there a guide you'd recommend for getting started with Android on slates? Nice one

ferrigan101

FrankGrimes wrote: »

I've got one of these beauties (Asus Transformer Prime) arriving in a few days and am looking forward to it as it looks a great piece of kit.

But I'm new to Android (it runs Android 4.0/IceCream Sandwich) and with the wealth of apps out there I'm not sure where to start with downloading apps and modding the OS (which I know I'll probably want to play around with if it is possible). I'll be browsing through the 'must have apps' thread but what I'm not sure about is what apps work well for phones vs what ones work well for slates, or are they the same on both?

I'll be taking the slate with me for some travel I'm doing soon so want to use it for browsing on the go (can you get it to work with Microsoft Exchange email?), video playback, music (currently use Zune for my Windows Phone and Squeezebox Server for my music collection at home), Office document reading (Excel, PowerPoint, Word - is that possible), Skype, PDF reading (for a college course) etc. so that's all standard enough stuff and much of it seems to be covered by built in apps, but I guess there's likely alternatives that might generally be regarded as the best options for those things? But that's just the start of what I'll use it for and it'd be great to see what kind of other things people use their slates for cos that'd give plenty of food for thought.

Is there a guide you'd recommend for getting started with Android on slates? Nice one

You will probably find that most of the phone apps will work on it, even if they aren't exactly optimised for a tablet.

For video playback I've just started using MX Player on the Prime and the One X and it's pretty impressive.

For music it comes installed with Google Music, so if you have an account already set up it's great. If not, it still plays any music you have on the device and it works well for me.

For Office reading/editing I use Documents To Go (I got it when it was on sale.) and it's great for all MS Office stuff and PDF reading. The tab comes installed with Polaris Office but I haven't used that too much tbh.

Skype works well on it, no issues to report

For browsers I'm skipping between Boat Browser , Chrome Beta and the stock browser. Chrome is fairly quick and you can have all your desktop bookmarks sync with the tab, but it has Flash problems. Boat Browser is fairly quick too, has no problem with flash but does force close on occasion. The stock browser is alright but I've had a few force close issues with it.

I've been using Tablet Market to browse Tablet optimised apps and games, it's pretty useful.

I'd be interested to hear what other folks are using on their primes too. I haven't went down the rooting road myself yet but probably will do in the future as I want to get the old PS3 contoller on the go for GTA 3

And before I forget, Dual Battery Widget A nice little widget that gives you tab/dock battery levels and other battery info.

FrankGrimes

Much obliged ferrigan101, all very useful info there, cheers.

Interesting about the possibility of using an external games controller with it. If there was any way to get a SNES emulator going so I could play Super Mario Kart with a controller (find touch controls fiddly), that'd be sweet and well worth spending time figuring out how to make it happen.

ferrigan101

No worries.

As for controllers, there is this on the market but it requires root and seems to be a bit fiddely to set up. Would be worth it though I guess.

gar

Andftp for FTP
Andzip for zipped files
Scummvm for playing old point and click games. Works really well
Perfectviewer for reading comics and PDFs
Temple run - good fun
Tunein radio
Filmon tv
Imdb
Mx player
Thejournal
Broadsheet
Skype
Angrybirds

Gar

Chet T16

Emulators:
https://slideme.org/user/yongzh