We generally don't have time to review low-end products, but
sometimes we see something at such an aggressive price we just have to take it
for a spin. That pretty much describes our feelings about the ASUS Transformer
Book T100, a 10-inch Windows tablet that comes with a keyboard dock in the box
-- all for just $349. Incidentally, too, this is the first product we're
testing with Intel's new quad-core Bay Trail-series Atom processor, which can
run full Windows while at the same time keep pace with low-power chips like the
ones in the Surface 2 and Nokia Lumia 2520. So, is all of that enough to make
it a good deal? And can you forgive ASUS for all the ways it cut corners? We
think you might.
HARDWARE
It's easy to forget ASUS was once king of the netbook space.
Nowadays, the company mainly makes headlines for its futuristic-looking
Ultrabooks and its beastly gaming machines. But the T100 is a reminder that
ASUS is actually very good at making super-small, super-cheap PCs. Though the
T100 shares the same form factor as ASUS' line of Transformer Pad Android
tablets, the quality is much lower. Look closely and you'll see it has the same
pattern of concentric circles on the back, but instead of being made of metal,
the back is all plastic. Shiny, fingerprint-prone plastic, at that. Not even
that efficient polycarbonate stuff we've been seeing lately on other devices.
It's a definite step down in quality, but then again, ASUS tends to sell its
flagship Android tablets for around $500. Clearly, the priority here was to
push the price down and keep the keyboard dock in the box.
Speaking of the sort, the keyboard is
where ASUS' netbook
roots really start to show. The layout actually isn't that different from the
company's 2008-era minis (making a comfortable keyboard for a 10-inch device
evidently presents the same spatial limitations as ever). A full-sized keyboard
this is not, but all things considered, it's reasonably easy to type on,
especially since certain important buttons like Enter, Shift and Backspace are
generously sized. Still, the underlying panel feels a bit unsteady, and the
keys are quite noisy.
All in all, we would never suggest you use this as your
primary keyboard, but for taking notes, searching the web and dashing off quick
emails, it's fine. That said, you might still want to consider pairing it with
a mobile mouse: The small built-in touchpad can be too jumpy even for
single-finger navigation. Try and hit an onscreen object too close to the left
edge of the screen for instance, and you might accidentally cycle through open
apps instead.
What's especially nice is that when the tablet is docked
inside the keyboard, it stays put in the lap; unlike with some other keyboard
docks we've tested recently, you don't have to worry about this guy toppling
backward. Bonus: Since there's no kickstand at work here, the screen angle is
adjustable. As it happens, the 1,366 x 768 IPS screen offers pretty wide
viewing angles anyway, with a 300-nit brightness rating allowing for easy
readability under harsh fluorescent lights (outdoor viewing is another story).
So, the T100 looks like a netbook, and offers the same
typing experience as a netbook. And it feels like one too: With the tablet
docked so that it's in clamshell mode, the whole thing weighs 2.4 pounds (the
tablet itself comes in at 1.2 pounds). It's just about as heavy as a netbook,
and just as easy to carry in one hand, though it will still feel heavy compared
to a Surface 2 with a Touch Cover attached.
One convenient thing about having the keyboard dock in the
box (aside from all that typing) is the selection of ports you'll get --
namely, a USB 3.0 socket on the left side of the dock. On the tablet itself,
you'll find micro-USB and micro-HDMI ports on the right landscape edge, along
with a headphone jack and microSD slot. Over on the left, meanwhile, is the
volume rocker and Windows Home key. Up top is the power button, just where
you'd expect it to be. And on the bottom? The very necessary docking connectors
(also where you'd expect them to be).
Around back, you'll find speakers on either side, which push
out surprisingly loud sound. You won't want to crank the volume all the way up,
though, as the quality becomes unusually distorted; you can actually hear some
buzzing in addition to the actual music, and that's despite having ASUS'
SonicMaster technology on board. Settle on a more medium volume setting for a
more pleasant experience. Rounding out our tour, there's one thing you won't
see: a rear camera. That's right, there's just a 1.2-megapixel webcam here for
the occasional video chat. A bit of a surprise, given that ASUS normally puts
out decent tablet cameras, but then again, it had to cut costs somehow.
SOFTWARE AND WARRANTY
Well, this is a nice surprise: The T100 comes with very
little third-party software installed. On tap, we have Netflix (an app we
actually like), along with Microsoft's newly updated OneNote app, and a trial
of Microsoft Office. Users also get unlimited ASUS WebStorage, but alas, it's
only free for one year, so be prepared to pay up (or switch providers) after
that. As for warranty coverage, the T100 comes with one year of support, just
like most products we review around here.
PERFORMANCE AND BATTERY LIFE
Tablet Battery Life
ASUS Transformer Book T100 10:40
Microsoft Surface 2 14:22
Apple iPad Air (LTE) 13:45
Nokia Lumia 2520 13:28
(tablet only) / 16:19 (with dock)
Apple iPad mini 12:43
(WiFi)
Apple iPad mini with Retina display 11:55 (LTE)
Apple iPad (late 2012) 11:08
(WiFi)
Apple iPad 2 10:26
ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime 10:17
Apple iPad (2012) 9:52
(HSPA) / 9:37 (LTE)
Nexus 7 (2012) 9:49
Microsoft Surface RT 9:36
Apple iPad 9:33
ASUS Transformer Prime Infinity TF700 9:25
Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 8:56
Sony Xperia Tablet Z 8:40
Hisense Sero 7 Pro 8:28
Toshiba Excite Write 8:13
Lenovo IdeaTab S2110 8:07
Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 7:38
HP Slate 7 7:36
Nexus 10 7:26
Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 7:18
Nexus 7 (2013) 7:15
RIM BlackBerry PlayBook 7:01
Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 6:55
HP SlateBook x2 6:34
(tablet only) / 8:49 (keyboard dock)
The T100 is the first device we're testing with one of
Intel's new Bay Trail-series Atom chips -- specifically, a quad-core Z3740
processor, clocked at 1.33GHz. With the help of 2GB of RAM, the tablet handles
the overhead of Windows 8.1 just fine. Performance almost always felt smooth,
whether we were cycling through open programs, returning to the Start screen or
flipping pages in the Kindle app. As for apps, you might be wondering how far
you can go in the world of traditional desktop programs before the tablet
starts to stutter. As you can imagine, we didn't bother to install Photoshop on
this -- that's not what this device was made for -- but we did try lightweight
apps like iTunes, Spotify and HipChat (the Engadget staff's IM client of
choice). All of these ran smoothly with no hiccups.
In web browsing, too, the T100 notched a score of 460.9ms in
the JavaScript benchmark SunSpider, putting it right in line with the Surface 2
(406) and Nokia Lumia 2520 (508.4). (Note: Lower numbers are better in that
test.) It also takes just 11 seconds to start up -- that's about half the time
it takes the Surface 2 to fully load. Unfortunately, we initially had some
problems waking the tablet from sleep, though ASUS has already released a
software update addressing the issue. Also, we occasionally noticed a slight
pause when opening apps (like Bing Weather, for example), but this was the
exception, not the norm. Speaking of Bing Weather, the tablet locked onto our
location almost instantaneously the first time we loaded it up, and was very
quick to change our default locale to New York, NY.
As for battery life, the 31Wh cell is rated for up to 11
hours of casual usage, up to 9.5 hours of video playback and up to 10 days of
standby time. We'd say these claims are on the conservative side: With the
brightness set to 50 percent and WiFi on, we actually got 10 hours and 40
minutes of video playback, so that bodes even better for more intermittent
usage. All told, that's still a good three hours behind new ARM-powered tablets
like the iPad Air, Surface 2 and Nokia Lumia 2520, but it matches what we were
getting from tablets that came out last year, including the iPad 4.
CONFIGURATION OPTIONS AND THE COMPETITION
There are two configurations of the T100, with the only
difference being internal storage: There's a 32GB model that goes for $349, and
a 64GB version priced at $399. Either way, the rest of the specs are the same,
and they both come with the keyboard dock in the box.
What's funny is that there aren't that many other tablets
this size using Intel's new Bay Trail processor. There's the 10.8-inch Dell
Venue 11 Pro, which starts at $500 with 64GB of storage, 2GB of RAM, a high-res
1080p display and a similar Bay Trail processor. Unfortunately, though, a
keyboard isn't included in the box, so the price gap versus the 64GB T100 is
actually even greater than the $100 base price. There's also the HP Pavilion
x2, which just recently went on sale for $600 (dock included).
At this point, it also makes sense to mention Microsoft's
Surface 2, though even that isn't quite the same. Namely, it packs a Tegra 4
processor and Windows RT, which means it can't run traditional x86
applications; only apps downloaded from the Windows Store. It's the same story
for the new Nokia Lumia 2520, the only other Windows RT tablet currently
available. Though it offers comparable performance and battery life to the
Surface 2, it's lighter and easier to use in tablet mode, and it also comes standard
with an LTE radio (Verizon and AT&T will sell it in the US).
However, the 2520's optional keyboard dock isn't as
comfortable as the Surface 2's keyboard covers, and it doesn't sit as well in
the lap either. Either way, they're both more comfortable to type on than the
T100, and they're both just generally better-made. Again, though, you have to
be OK with the fact that although the Windows Store is growing rapidly, it
still has some holes.
But back to the T100: What else can you get for the same price?
Well, you can buy a smaller 8-inch tablet like the Acer Iconia W4 ($330),
Lenovo Miix 2 ($299), Toshiba Encore ($330) or Dell Venue 8 Pro ($300), but
these offer less screen real estate, of course, and weren't necessarily
designed to be used with keyboard cases. Meanwhile, netbooks have also made a
comeback in the form of super-cheap, touchscreen laptops -- almost all of which
have 11-inch screens, similar to the ASUS T100 we're reviewing today. These
include the HP Pavilion 10 TouchSmart ($350), the Dell Inspiron 11 ($380) and
the Toshiba NB15t ($380). Keep in mind, though, that these machines will be
heavier and will likely offer shorter battery life. And though we haven't spent
enough time with the Dell or Toshiba models to pass judgment, we've played with
HP's offering, and found the touchscreen to be far less responsive than what
you'd get on a proper tablet.
WRAP-UP
We wouldn't necessarily like the T100 if it weren't for its
extraordinarily low price: It looks and feels like a netbook, with a tacky
plastic shell, middling display and cramped keyboard. Still, it offers solid
performance for the money, allowing you to run full Windows programs when some
pricier tablets will only run apps from the Windows Store. The battery life is
also impressively long, albeit not quite as long as an ARM-powered Windows RT
device. And as much as we might kvetch about the keyboard, it's at least
included in the box, instead of sold as a $120 add-on. You'll be making some
compromises if buy this, but for $349, we doubt you'll have many regrets.
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