Review: Asus Transformer Book TX300

Many people own a laptop computer and a tablet. Thus they have to make a decision whether they should carry one or the other, or perhaps both. Asus says that you shouldn’t have to do that and as a result, they came up with the Transformer Book TX300. It’s a 13.3″ notebook that can be “transformed” into a tablet that runs Windows 8. Now I when I took it out of the box, I thought I saw resemblance with another laptop that’s very popular right now. Let me show you:

On the right is my MacBook Pro. On the left is the Asus Transformer Book. Clearly we know where where Asus got their inspiration from. But perhaps Apple could take some inspiration from Asus:

Unlike the current MacBooks, it has built in Gigabit Ethernet. Apple might want to get a Transformer Book and figure out how they can provide Ethernet without users needing an Ethernet to Thunderbolt dongle. In terms of connections, it comes with two USB3 ports, a DisplayPort connector, and an SD Card reader.

When you use it as a tablet, you get a stereo headset jack, micro HDMI output, and a micro SD card slot. In both cases you charge the battery using a magnetic power adapter that is similar to Apple’s MagSafe power adapter, only bigger. If you’ve seen a Surface Pro power adapter, it’s roughly that size. I will note that it seems out of place as the actual connector is large given the overall size of the Transformer Book. Finally you also get Bluetooth and WiFi in case Ethernet isn’t available. Since the screen is 13.3″, it’s bigger than most tablets out there. The screen resolution is 1920×1080 and it’s sharp and bright due to the fact that it’s an IPS display. Though in tablet mode, or anytime you leverage the touchscreen features, it does attract fingerprints. Despite being bigger than most tablets out there, it’s easy to hold. The total package is thin, but it’s not exactly light at 4.2 pounds. Still it is easy to carry around either in laptop mode or in tablet mode. To go from laptop mode to tablet mode, simply slide a latch on the hinge to detach the screen from the keyboard. It click back into place when you want use it as a laptop. Though the hinge where you connect the screen does look kind of flimsy to me. Plus lining up the screen and hinge is kind of tricky, even with an alignment guide on the hinge. Once you get the hang of it, reattaching and detaching the screen is no problem.

How does it perform? The one that I got my hands on had an i7 processor in it with 4GB of RAM and two storage devices. In tablet mode, you get a single 128GB SSD. But in notebook mode you also get a 500 GB hard drive. You also get Windows 8 as part of the package. I’m not fond of Windows 8, but it’s more than usable thanks to the touchscreen and the big touch pad. Though I didn’t run any benchmarks on it, my seat of the pants feel was that it was reasonably quick. Anything that I tried on the Transformer Book wasn’t a problem whether it was a video on YouTube, or Microsoft Word. Another thing that got my attention was the sound. Asus put a Bang & Olufsen ICEpower audio system with four speakers and MaxxAudio technology on the software side into the Transformer Book. It works as the audio doesn’t disappoint. On the video side, you get two cameras. A 5MP / 1080p rear camera and a front-facing HD webcam. That will make Skype sessions very cool. In terms of battery life, my tests got an average of 4.5 hours. Asus claims 5 hours and I usually tend to take vendors battery life estimates with a grain of salt as they usually have no real world relevance. Thus it was a good surprise that my tests were close to what Asus says I should get.

So what’s my verdict? If you’re looking for a Windows 8 tablet and a Windows 8 notebook and you want a small package, check out the Transformer Book from Asus. Even if you mostly use it as a notebook, I think you’d find it useful as you can “transform” it into a tablet when you need to. That way you can have just one device for all your needs. That’s a value proposition that’s hard to beat.