One chassis, multiple engines. The PC industry is moving towards the car industry business model now that Core and Atom devices are starting to be built to the same design. One of those designs is that of the Dell Venue 11 Pro 2-in-1 which I know many of you are considering. It’s going to be a popular model if Dell can get it out there quickly but if you’re one of the many interested, which one do you choose? Atom, Pentium and Core are up for grabs but there’s quite a difference between them.
With 2560×1600 resolution, a digitizer, 38h battery, rugged build and more, this Baytrail tablet is unique. At the Fujitsu Forum today I had a change for hands on. The specs are already in the database here so let’s get straight on with the video and pics. Let us know what you think below but first, here’s the starting price, without keyboard. Approx. 1150 Euro.
Unfortunately the keyboard dock was not available for testing.
The ASUS Transformer Book T100 looks, before it’s available in most countries, to be a hit. Reviews have been good and the interest and buying levels appear to be high. Here on UMPCPortal it’s the #1 most viewed product in the database. On the huge Europe-wide price comparison engine Geizhals, it’s the #1 (we assume most-viewed product) in the tablet and notebook category. The really significant statistic is that it’s the number 5 bestseller in the laptop category at Amazon.com where customers have given it 4 out of 5 stars.
Over in Europe we’re seeing a couple of new models in the line-up which will interest those looking to store all their music and videos because they have a 500GB drive in addition to the 32 or 64GB main storage. The model DK007H adds the drive to the 64GB storage and the DK005H does the same to the 32GB model. 32GB + 500GB will cost the same as the 64GB model. The same price hike, 50 Euro, applies to the 64GB+500GB model. The hard drive is in the docking keyboard. (No, there’s no hint of a keyboard with additional battery!)
Back to the reviews we see that people are getting in to a few more detailed tests now. Gaming videos are appearing too. Kyle Muel has at least 12, [update 26! now] videos up. Crysis, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 and Counterstrike are amongst them. FIFA 14 runs surprisingly well. MobileGeeks also have an ASUS T100 gaming video up.
One of my favorite articles about the ASUS T100 in the last few weeks has to be this one from Liliputing where Brad uses the ASUS T100 as a desktop for a day. “…you get a surprisingly capable workstation.” I’m using the Acer W510 with an external keyboard screen and mouse right now and although it’s fine for blogging, it’s got limits. The ASUS Transformer Book shows just how much of an improvement Baytrail is over Clovertrail. It’s a truly dynamic hardware and software combination which shows us the future of PCs.
There are nine Baytrail products about to launch and I’ve detailed them all in this post. If money wasn’t an issue and if all of these mobile Windows 8 options were available tomorrow, which one would you choose?
For just $399 you can be one of the first to pick up the quad-core Baytrail-based ASUS Transformer Book T100 Windows 8.1 2-in-1 that we saw launched at IDF last month. We were impressed! $399 gets you the 64GB version (there’s a 32GB version but we advise going for the one with the bigger storage.) It should ship soon after 18th October.
A quick re-cap on the key ASUS Transformer Book T100 specifications:
It’s a Baytrail – Z3740 (nominal 1.33Ghz quad-core with boost to 1.8Ghz) – which should bring in a really good improvement over the Clovertrail-based tablets of the previous generation. The 10.1-inch screen cheap xenical online is IPS and has a 1366.768 screen. 2GB of RAM should be OK for the Windows 8.1 32bit OS and included Office software. The battery is in the tablet and it’s a 31Wh unit that will give you anything from 5-10 hours of working time, depending on what you’re doing and how bright you’ve got the screen. There’s a USB3.0 port on the dock so running it through a DisplayLink dock to a larger screen should not be a problem. There’s a Micro HDMI and Micro USB on the tablet.
Here’s an interesting bit of information. Amazon say that the USB port on the tablet supports “charging and USB device.” Does that mean the tablet can be trickle charged via USB? That would be great for mobility.
The tablet weighs just 1.2 pounds and the unit together just 2.4lbs. This is a product high on our list.
At a Baytrail press event at IDF we’ve just had a more detailed update on what’s happening.
Baytrail is the new low-power architecture platform that scales from small tablets to 2-in-1 and desktop devices across, mainly, Android and Windows 8.
The folks at mobilegeeks.com have a hands on video of the recently re-announced Gigabyte U2142 Convertible Ultrabook. Its an 11.6 inch 1366×768 device that comes with a swivel screen similar to the Lenovo Thinkpad Twist and features a whole host of ports for excellent connectivity and also has storage options up to 1TB HDD or 256GB SSD. There is also the possibility to upgrade the RAM up to 16GB. See our previous coverage here.
