SAN FRANCISCO—The mobile theme at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) is stronger than ever this year, so it's not exactly a surprise that so many PC companies appearing or exhibiting at the show here are adding major new laptops, tablets, or convertibles to their product lines. The latest to do so is Asus, which tonight unveiled two new systems in the Transformer Book family.
The Transformer Book T100 is a close variation of the original Transformer Book convertible Asus revealed at Computex last year. The 10.1-inch system is based on Intel's new quad-core Bay Trail platform, and its two-part dockable design means it can be used as either a traditional laptop or a standalone Windows 8.1 tablet. (It is, for all intents and purposes, a smaller version of the 13.3-inch Transformer Book T300 Asus debuted at IFA last week.) Asus also touted the fact that that T100 will come preinstalled with the Home and Student version of Microsoft Office 2013.
Taking the concept to the next level is the Transformer Book Trio, which made its initial appearance at Computex back in June. Though it has a two-piece design similar to the T100's, the Trio uses a keyboard dock that contains its own Intel Core i7-4500U processor—meaning it can function as a desktop when the 11.6-inch screen is detached from it and used as a tablet (and that two people can use it for different things at the same time). And when the tablet is docked, you can switch between two operating systems—the dock's Windows 8 and the screen's Android 4.2—with the touch of a button. Interestingly, the Trio's tablet uses a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z2760 processor—not one of the new Bay Trail chips.
In addition to the T300, the T100 and Transformer Trio also join a newHaswell-based Asus Chromebook, which was also unveiled today.
According to Asus, pricing for the Transformer Book T100 in the United States will range from $349 (for the 32GB model) to $399 (for 64GB); pricing has not yet been given for the Transformer Book Trio. The T100 will be available October 18 (the same day as Windows 8.1, but Asus has not yet announced official availability for the Trio.
Source: pcmag
Source: pcmag
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