A well-built machine with bags of power and a unique twist
Few manufacturers have bought into the hybrid model as heavily as
Asus, and the Taiwanese company has been blurring the lines between
laptop and since the original Asus Transformer back in 2010.
While
the original Asus Transformer was an Android tablet with a detachable
keyboard dock, the range has expanded with the arrival of Windows 8 to include the Asus Transformer Book.
Scores
We
first saw the range back at IFA 2012, and it's taken this long to see
full products hitting the shelves. The Transformer Book TX300 is a 'hero
product' for Asus, which means it's unlikely to be widely sold, but is a
showcase of the best design and performance.
The TX300 is encased
in brushed aluminium, giving it a quality sleek finish, enabling it to
stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the MacBook Air in the looks department.
However, it has a hidden trick up its sleeve. The screen unclips
from the keyboard base to turn this 13-inch laptop into a 13-inch
tablet, for playing games, surfing the web or watching movies.
To the untrained eye, the Asus Transformer Book TX300 is the spitting image of the 13.3" Asus Zenbook UX31A Ultrabook, which is because it's essentially the latter cut in half.
It's a new take on the hybrid form-factor, which has become the Holy Grail for manufacturers of Windows 8 devices. The TX300's peers are almost too numerous to mention: the Sony VAIO Duo 12, Dell XPS 12, Asus's own Taichi, Microsoft Surface Pro and even Lenovo Yoga 13
all aim to solve the same problem of bridging the laptop and tablet
divide, yet, aside from the Yoga, this Transformer Book is one of the
few to stay rooted to the traditional laptop form. It's
a smart move from Asus, and one we fully endorse. The problem with most
of its competitors is that the keyboard docks are horrifically cramped,
suffer poor performance and end up being more expensive than laptop
equivalents. It makes the proposition a hard sell to consumers when an iPad can be picked up for £399, and a cramped unusable keyboard purchased for a fraction extra. With
the Transformer Book TX300 you get a powerful laptop, rocking a
top-of-the-range processor which doubles as a tablet. The only issue, is
that this tablet happens to be 13-inches, weighs 900g and costs over
£1,000.
But is it worth your money? Read on to find out.
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