Asus Transformer Book T100 Chi

Asus has re-energised its Transformer T100, quite literally by adding Chi to its name. Besides the rebranding, the Windows tablet also gains a newer Intel Atom processor and various other small tweaks.

The Asus arrives in its box like a regular clamshell folding laptop, albeit a very small one with 10.1in screen. The unit actually comprises two parts – a Windows 8 tablet and a snap-on keyboard assembly. When docked together, you get some of the benefits of a real laptop, such as mechanical keyboard and finger trackpad, although screen angle is more limited in its tilt, almost certainly to prevent the back-heavy unit from toppling over backwards.

Construction quality is good, with both tablet back and the entire lower keyboard section made from anodised aluminium; this was finished in dark blue on our sample, with a polished bevelled edge detail.

In contrast to the earlier version, the keyboard connects to the tablet only by Bluetooth. Asus has set aggressive power management here, which turns off the keyboard after just a few minutes left idle. This leads to delays whenever you go to use keyboard or trackpad after a moment away, as you must wait for the radio link to wake up and re-establish, a process that can take several frustrating seconds.

With the tablet and keyboard sections as two electrically unconnected items, you must also charge them separately, each through their own Micro-USB 2.0 ports. The keyboard is very frugal in its power consumption, lasting for days and charging inside of an hour. The same is not true of the tablet, and we found it could take two hours on charge with a flat battery before we could even turn the device on. To complete the charge to capacity took around eight hours using the supplied 10W USB charger, which is a ridiculous time to wait.

The tablet has a 10.1in IPS glass-fronted touchscreen with 1920x1200-pixel resolution, giving it a more useful 16:10 aspect ratio than the usual Android and Windows tablets. Pixel density is relatively high at 224ppi, giving clean and sharp definition. The OS interface is set by default to 150 percent scaling to make the Windows desktop more sensibly sized.

There’s the usual inevitable problems trying to run Windows by fingertip. The standard Windows environment is barely navigable through touch, leaving just the moribund Metro interface and its dearth of useful applications.

Two USB ports are included, a Micro-USB 2.0 and 3.0. Also available is a microSDXC card slot and Micro-HDMI video port. Tiny speakers are sited either side for stereo, and volume is adjusted by a rocker switch on the left.

Components

Powering the T100 is a 1.46GHz quad-core Intel Atom processor, specified with a Burst mode to 2.39GHz. This is now a 64-bit processor even if Asus supplies the Transformer with a 32-bit version of Windows 8.1 with Bing, the economy edition that at least tends to garner less bloatware out of the box.

Memory is just 2GB and not upgradable, rated at 1333MHz. For storage there’s an internal 64GB flash drive, not a laptop-style SATA solid-state drive but eMMC.

This flash drive provides performance roughly comparable with a 2.5in hard disk in its sequential read speed, and half that speed in sequential writes.

For wireless connection there is Bluetooth 4.0 and 11n Wi-Fi but there’s no option for cellular internet connectivity. There are cameras fore and aft, specified as 2- and 5Mp.

The older Transformer Chi scored 2330 points in PCMark 7

with its 1.33GHz Atom processor and the same memory quota. The new Chi model showed a 17 percent increase, to 2741 points, while PCMark 8 Home returned a relatively poor result of 1223 points (1225 points in Accelerated mode). The Work module of PCMark 8 saw a large drop in score when moving from Conventional to Accelerated mode (1550- and 1236 points respectively), which shows the weak graphics processor is little help for OpenCL-compliant programs.

Where the Transformer also falls down is in graphics performance. In the Batman: Arkham City benchmark, it averaged 18fps when set to an easy resolution of 1280x720 and Low detail. At the same settings, Tomb Raider 2013 also limped along at the same unplayable 18fps framerate.

Storage speed from the eMMC card was mixed, up to 123MB/s for sequential reads but just 59MB/s for sequential writes, according to CrystalDiskMark. Testing 4kB random data performance, we measured around 20MB/s reads and 16MB/s writes, rising to just 40- and 19MB/s when attempting a higher 32-thread queue depth. So usefully, it is faster than a hard disk when it comes to small file transfers.

Verdict

Promoted as a 2-in-1 tablet and laptop solution, the Transformer Book T100 Chi looks smart and we can’t fault build and finish quality at the price. However, it is compromised as a laptop, and as a tablet it fails to be any more endearing than every other unloved Windows tablet.