ASUS doesn’t appear to have revealed much online about the Transformer Book this evening as their events take place in London and New York but there’s enough so far to confirm it’s coming and to fill out some of the specs. A 13.3” 1080P IPS display, CPU options up to Core i7 and there’s a 128GB SSD in the tablet. Up to 500GB hard drive sits in the keyboard dock. More specs below…
Confirmed specifications
- CPU Core options up to Core i7 3517U
- Full HD 10-point touchscreen. IPS.
- 128GB SSD (tablet) + hard drive storage (up to 500GB) in keyboard dock
- 4GB RAM
- Micro HDMI (tablet)
- Micro SD (tablet)
- Headset port (tablet)
- Sensors (Gyroscope, compass, accelerometer)
- 720p (1.3MP) front cam. Internal mic
- (Optional) 5MP rear-facing camera.
On the docking keyboard…
- SonicMaster stereo speakers
- Backlit Keyboard
- Magnetic charger connector (dock)
- Mini DisplayPort (dock)
- 2x USB3.0 (dock)
- Ethernet (dock)
- Full SD port (keyboard)
Unconfirmed: GPU, Weight, Size, Price, Availability, Entry-level configuration.
All updates now in the ASUS Transformer Book specifications and info page.
From the Press Release:
“ASUS Transformer Book
ASUS Transformer Book is the world’s first ultraportable to combine the best features of a notebook and tablet. When it’s time to work, Transformer Book is a powerful and fully featured notebook with a high-capacity hard drive. When its time to relax, the high-definition display detaches from the keyboard dock and Transformer Book instantly becomes a multi-touch Windows 8 tablet with its own blazingly fast SSD storage. With Smart Battery technology that ensures maximum mobile performance in both modes, Transformer Book the perfect solution for anyone who needs all the power of a notebook with the versatility of a tablet.”
Via: Techinstyle.tv
I long for this.
This is the definitive tablet/PC! Great job by Asus, hope the price will be good!
Great! Thanks for revealing the press release. The graphics will be interesting, I’m hoping for discrete ones; – there’s also no info of a (Wacom) digitizer of some sort. Hoping for more!
digitizer would be too good to be true :D
+Digitizer, 100% agree …premium Core-based tablets should include a digitizer and optional desktop dock. Those options would also help distinquish them from the more budget Atom & ARM based tablets.
now, THIS is the laptop I was waiting for! PLEASE make it available at the Windows 8 release next friday!
Latest news. This won’t be available immediately. ASUS have said it’s possibly for early 2013. That doesn’t sound too good to me as it could slip further out…close to Haswell.
January means it’ll be likely based on <10W Ivy Bridge devices. It'll sacrifice CPU and iGPU to get that low. Another device that's likely based on that part is Microsoft Surface Pro.
It’s clearly aimed at pro users, so why only 4GB of RAM?
I also wonder about two ports on the tablet part: charger connector (any kind, I guess it’ll be there) and USB.
Would love some pen input too.
With all that +8GB RAM it would be my dream device ;)
Only 13″ announced, did they scrap the 11.6″? Also looks like no NFC, may have to pass even if there’s a smaller screened version. The search continues!
It appears the 11.6 and 14″ versions are on the back-burner.
OMG it will be mine!
Some more info in this video, mentions one previously unannounced model, the Vivo Smart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA9RYG7wdsA&feature=player_embedded
Thats the Vivo Tab Smart I think. Clover Trail/
Yes, the Vivo Tab Smart is a new entry with Clover Trail Z2760. Unlike the Vivo Tab, the VTS will be 10.1″ and won’t come with a digitizer pen.
Accessories are also more limited as it won’t have a Keyboard dock. Just a cover that doubles as a kick stand and a optional bluetooth keyboard with touch pad.
Starting price is just $499 with 32GB vs the $799 with 64GB for the Vivo Tab.
Asus also appears to be adjusting their pricing a bit since MS announced the Surface pricing. Since the Asus Vivo Tab RT now appears to include the dock for the $599 pricing.
Not sure on the Vivo Tab yet though…
Thanks for all the info. Looks like I’m stuck for a Windows 8 device to buy, current ones are either overpriced or lacking features. Great.
From the video, it looks like it’s hard to dock the tablet. I can see myself slipping and either mashing the screen onto the keyboard or going the other way and snapping the hinge.
How does undocking work? Do you have to trigger some sort of undock command first to make sure the extra hard drive and any peripherals can be safely removed? Just removing the tablet would likely cause issues and/or data corruption.
According to a video Asus have developed their own interconnect. I can only assume it’s a PCIe but extension. However, that doesn’t affect the dock/undock issue with the drive unless they’ve turned buffering off perhaps.
Tough choice after seeing this. Either this or wait for haswell processor next year and see what ultra-book will have in-store for us.
If this is available after CES (which is very likely now) then we’ll have Haswell devices to think about. Haswell is a big step forward for these sort of devices.
Haswell will be pretty far away even then. The Ultrabooks based on that platform are early as Computex and late as August.
There’s an alternative that already exists. That’s the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro. It also has a SIM card slot to be truly mobile.
At 13.3″, its impressive. The one spec that I’m scratching my head at is the limited front camera. This device deserves better than 1.3MP and a single mic. I’ll be curious if this will be another premium consumer tablet that doesn’t offer a desktop dock. Though I imagine they can offer that at anytime in the future … it would be just nice to know if that is even in the cards.
I hope, they will make one more type of docking keyboard with battery, not hdd.
So close to perfect… it would only need:
– matte (anti glare) screen
– 8GB RAM (or more)
– drop the SD card slot and put in a Logitech universal receiver that can connect to 6 periferal devices at once, wirelessly (1.2 GHz), also to the soon to be realeased SD cards that will have wireless integrated in them (no need to take them out of the camera any more!)
The power connector is genious, but make it more compact.
I wonder what makes the Windows Experience Index to the low number of 5.4. It’s probably the memory.
Would be interesting to know the SSD R/W speeds for 4kb random blocks and the battery time (tablet / docked). Also, besides dimensions and weight, noise levels would be useful.
Since it has 3rd gen. I5/i7 procs, can it also do WiDi like the Zenbook Prime? (Intel® Wireless Display)
It needs a Intel Centrino 6000 series wireless card for WiDi.
No wacom pen? Without pen input this isn’t the perfect tablet pc, it isn’t a productivity machine, it’s just an overpriced toy. How they decided to put a second, spinning hard disk on this and not add a wacom digitizers is beyond me. Honestly, asus? Forcing me to give money to Samsung are you?
So close, yet so very far away.
Obviously aimed at high end users, but only a fool would buy it. The small things add up to big limitations.
Only 4GB RAM on a high end machine? Seriously?
128GB SSD standard, should offer 256 standard on the i7.