The Asus Transformer Book T100 is an inexpensive 2-in-1 computer. It’s a Windows tablet with a 10 inch display, a detachable keyboard dock, an Intel Atom Bay Trail processor, and a price of $399 or less.

It’s the spiritual successor to the netbook… in a good way. It’s cheap, portable, offers long battery life, and has the kind of performance that’s good enough for most day to day tasks.

But like most cheap Windows tablets, the Transformer Book T100 doesn’t have a lot of storage space: Up until now it’s only been available in the US with 32GB or 64GB of flash storage. Now there’s a new option: You can get a 32GB tablet that has 500GB of extra storage tucked away in the keyboard dock.

Asus Transformer Book T100

This configuration has been available in Europe for a few months. Now Amazon and Newegg are selling the Transformer Book T100 with a 500GB hard drive for $400 in the United States (although for a limited time you can save $25 at Newegg with coupon code: PAXASUS25)

Asus includes a 32GB solid state drive in the tablet and a 500GB hard drive in the keyboard. If you want to be able to run apps whether the keyboard’s attached or not, you’ll want to install them to the SSD. But you can use the hard drive in the keyboard for music, movies, documents, and other large files that you may not always need when using the tablet as a standalone device.

Don’t need that much storage? Amazon is also offering a Transformer Book T100 with a 64GB SSD and no extra hard drive for $350, which is about $50 off the original list price. Newegg has that model for $375 (using the same PAXASUS25 coupon).

The 2-in-1 system features an Intel Atom Z3740 Bay Trail quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, a 1366 x 768 pixel touchscreen display, and comes with Microsoft Office 2013 Home & Student 2013 pre-installed.

All of these models could start to look a bit dated soon. Asus is expected to launch a new model with a faster Intel Atom Z3775 processor.

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21 replies on “Asus Transformer Book T100 2-in-1 now available with 500GB hard drive (in the US)”

  1. Nice that they added an upgrade hard drive to the keyboard dock in the US. It would also be nice if they offered the keyboard dock w/ 500GB hard drive separately to those who already purchased the T100T Tablet WO/ the added storage (only the 32/64 SD card).

  2. Wouldn’t that disqualify this machine from Connected Standby? No spinning drives if you want to make the CSD certification.

  3. I wonder if those of us who already own the 32gb or 64gb versions will be able to purchase the keyboard separately?

  4. one thing that hasn’t been answered anywhere: do i need to unmount that harddrive every time i undock it? that would make this a really crappy experience.

    i own the 64GB-Version and the ability to switch between tablet-mode and laptop-mode instantly is _the_ feature i didn’t think i would need before i bought it, but would miss the most if i would have to go back.

    1. I would also like an answer to this. I can imagine the HDD is connected via USB, so I imagine you have to unmount each time

      1. When disconnecting any drive (USB, hotpluggable SATA, eSATA, etc.), it is definitely recommneded to make use of the OS’s safely remove, unmount, etc. functions. These will issue a flush/sync command to commit all writes. They will also check to see if any files on the drive are open by any application before actually unmounting them. If any files are open even though they’re not currently being written to/read from, the unmount should abort and tell the user that files are still open.

        Depending on the application, it could hang, crash, etc. when a file it has open just dissappears. Of course, when applications crash, it could cause the application’s data to be corrupted (ie. configuration files not being properly modified on exit due to the sudden crash) and result in a buggy application on subsequent launches.

        The only thing I can see ASUS doing is what desk docks have for business notebooks: an eject button. Pressing it just does the same thing as going through each device specifically attached to the dock (ie. don’t unmount drives directly connected to the notebook’s ports) and safely removing them through the OS’s internal functions. I’ve seen newer docks that have gotten rid of this physical button and replaced it with a software version. Maybe ASUS will provide a software dock eject function. It’d be nice if this was clear.

    2. Thankfully unmounting on Windows doesn’t seem to be needed anymore ( https://www.pcworld.com/article/254868/safely_remove_usb_drives_just_by_unplugging_them.html ) (I just found this out myself – and all these years I’ve been manually unmounting them!) Of course one still has to be careful that the drive isn’t being used, but hopefully it should be more obvious to a user that undocking whilst the drive is in use may need manual unmounting (and since this isn’t the primary drive, there isn’t the issue of things like the page file). The same issue would apply to the standard version for anyone with attached USB drives.

      I was wondering whether manually unmounting would also power down the drive – potentially an option for the slightly reduced battery life the hard disk version apparently has ( https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Asus-Transformer-Book-T100TA-C1-GR-Convertible.106219.0.html ).

      1. That still doesn’t solve the problem if an application or the OS is actively reading/writing from/to the drive. By making use of the “safely remove” or equivalent function, you know for sure that all current reads/writes have finished and all applications have closed any open files. Disabling caching just makes it less likely for corruption to occur. However, now you have to manually make sure nothing is actually using the drive before physically removing it (ie. make sure all applications that were using the drive are closed and, if available, the active LED on the drive stops).

        The “safely remove” function should also power down the drive for safer removal.

  5. if they’d released this straight off with a wacom digitizer they’d have had my money long ago

      1. I would pay an extra $100 if they added Wacom, upgraded to 4gb ram, AND upgraded the screen to 1080. In its current state, the t100 is a fantastic concept, but not use full enough without 4gb ram and 64bit OS

        1. Thinkpad Tablet 10 that is rumored to be coming soon has all of those specifications matched, and is supposed to cost around $700 without a keyboard. I don’t think Asus could build a sub $500 tablet with those specs.

          1. Yeah, but the Thinkpad tablet 10 is still going to have 2gb ram for $700. I can’t be the only one who thinks 2gb ram is too little for a Win8 tablet.

          2. the Liliputing from the other day article suggested a 4GB version also coming. I think Intel announced a few months ago that many of the new bay trail tablets would feature 4GB. Their was some reason given for the 2GB limit on many early Bay Trails.

          3. I think a reason was that only the 32-bit version of Windows 8 had new features like Connected Standby – this is coming to the 64-bit version, but until then, it means devices can’t make use of more than 3GB. (Also 32-bit Windows is a bit less power-hungry, so 2GB is a lot more tolerable on 32-bit Windows anyway. A shame there aren’t options for 3GB though, even some Android phones have that now!)

          4. A 4gb version IS coming, but the quoted $700 price point is for the 2gb version.

          5. So if Lenovo is charging $700 for a 2GB that meets your specifications, how is Asus going to build a 4GB with all the other specs for $500? Dell offers one that is close for that price but I’ve heard it has serious quality issues.

          6. I think you misunderstood me. The $700 configuration of the Thinkpad 10 does not meet my specifications.

          7. No I understand you – i made a typo. “So if Lenovo is charging $700 for a 2GB that *doesnt* meet your specifications, how is Asus going to build a 4GB for $500”

            My mind and fingers don’t work well at 6 in the morning 🙁

          8. That’s up to Asus to figure out. I don’t think it’s that unreasonable for a newer SOC and an extra 2gb to cost more than an extra $100. The newer Baytrail SOCs are only a few dollars more than the z3740. And 2gb of ram can’t cost more than $20.

            Although it was cancelled, Asus was about to launch the TD300, which was a core i3, 4gb of ram, and an SSD for $599.

          9. and only 1366×768 resolution, no wacom digitizer, and considerably more room to cram that stuff into.

            You’d pay an extra $100 for what you asked for but nobody would take $100 dollars to provide all that extra.

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