I am the not-so-proud owner of a gently used, second had Asus TF201 Transformer Prime. It was released in the US in December of 2011, making it 4 years old. It is my first and only tablet to date. I was initially pleased with it but over time it has grown very sluggish. I kept hoping Asus would release an update (it originally came with Honeycomb but was eventually upgraded to Jellybean (4,1.1). The hardware is gorgeous but the software is buggy and slow. I wanted an upgrade.
I heard that once the bootloader was unlocked, it could be updated to a custom, faster ROM from CyanogenMod so I began the process of doing updating to a customer ROM. Word of warning kids, RTFM (read the friggin' manual) before you attempt to flash an Android tablet or phone. Failure to do so could cause you grief. At least it did for me.
I am not sure where the problem happened. I unlocked the bootloader, flashed in a third party one (Flatline), then copied the new ROM to my SD card. When I booted my TF201 in recovery mode, it did not recognize the SD card. That was odd. Oh well, I just hooked the tablet up to my PC and copied the files to the internal storage to install from.
I booted the tablet into recovery mode, installed the custom ROM, rebooted and .... nothing. It was stuck at the bootloader screen. It would not completely boot.
For about 2 weeks I tried to resurrect it and finally today I stumbled across the TWRP bootloader and used ADB to push it to the tablet. I rebooted the tablet in recovery mode and I had a new bootloader...that had SD card support. So I put the SD card into my PC and copied the ORIGINAL ROM from Asus onto the card and booted back into recovery mode. I pointed the bootloader to the new ROM to install and started the process. For several minutes it did not seem to do anything. Then the machine powered off. No OS. I tried again, this time touching the screen every few seconds to keep it alive. Finally it completed and even offered to Root my tablet for me. Oddly enough it still said there was no OS installed but asked me if I wanted to reboot anyway. I had nothing to lose so I rebooted.
The tablet cycled a few times then finally came to the Android setup screen. I was back in business!
I don't use it all that much...mostly for books and for Candy Crush, plus watching videos, but I have been lost without it. I keep it with me to check mail when my phone is charging plus I can surf the web if I need to. Again, it is not fast but it is all I have.
Now that I have a proper bootloader, I am going to try the ROM's from CyanogenMod if this thing slows down like it did before. I should be safe as long as I understand what I am doing when I do it :)
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