Asus Transformer 3 Pro

A Windows 10 hybrid with style

There’s no particular reason why you should spend a grand on a laptop. Plenty of desktop PCS cost that much after all, but they give you top performance. The mobile i5 processor in this ultra-slim hybrid can’t even match the £40400 PC we review on page 220. Then again, you get a built-in monitor – and the whole thing’s a lot easier to lug around.

When you think of a tablet running Windows 10, you think of Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4. Straight out of the box, the Transformer 3 Pro stands up to the comparison, with a metal case that’s even thinner and a slightly larger screen. It matches the Surface Pro 4’s USB 3.0 port, microsd card reader and monitor output and adds a faster USB Type-c port.

The screen, as sharp as the Surface Pro 4’s, looked brilliant in our tests, covering 99 per cent of the SRGB colour range. Its maximum brightness is 25 per cent lower than the Surface Pro 4’s, though, so it wasn’t as easy to see outdoors. A fold-out stand props the tablet firmly at any angle. Asus includes a keyboard as standard, and we preferred it to the Surface’s optional Typecover. The backlit tile-style keys travel enough so you can feel what you’re doing. The touchpad occasionally ignored our swipes, and the magnets could have held the keyboard in place more firmly. An Asus Pen stylus is also included.

You can pay extra for an i7 processor and more memory, but with the i5 and a rather mean 4GB memory the Transformer 3 Pro performed adequately in general use. The integrated graphics card even managed some games. Multi-tasking, however, tended to set off the internal fans. Yes, somehow Asus managed to squeeze fans into this in an attempt to make up for the limitations of the mobile processor.

We found a Surface Pro 4 with a similar specification, but half the storage, for £66 less (£934 from Amazon www.snipca.com/22194), or with the same SSD and twice the memory for £164 more (£1,163 from Amazon www. snipca.com/22195). Both included the Type Cover keyboard and a slightly quicker i5-6300u processor. In short, there’s little to choose between them on price. Where Microsoft clinches it is on battery life. The Transformer 3 Pro ran out after four hours 20 minutes of video playback, while the Surface Pro 4 should get you through an entire working day.

In other respects the Transformer 3 Pro is excellent, so it’ll be worth seeing how much it gets discounted. For now, the Surface Pro 4 keeps its crown.

VERDICT: It’s a lovely little machine, but Asus hasn’t quite provided an incentive to choose it over Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4 ALTERNATIVE: Microsoft Surface Pro £934 Its screen is slightly brighter, and its battery lastss much longer,ger, but the keyboardrd is worse