Asus quietly introduced a new version of the popular Transformer Book T100 2-in-1 tablet in April, giving the new model a slightly faster processor. While the Transformer Book T100 I reviewed in November featured a 1.33 GHz Intel Atom Z3740 Bay Trail processor, the new version has a 1.47 GHz Atom Z3775 chip.
It’s still a low-power, quad-core processor, but the new model should offer modest performance improvements to what was already a pretty great tablet/notebook hybrid for the price.
Now the new model is starting to pop up in retail listings, suggesting it’ll sell for about $399.
That’s the same price as last year’s model — although you can now find Transformer Book T100 units with the older processor selling for much lower prices. TigerDirect is offering a refurbished model for just $250Â after rebate at the moment.
As for the new model, Adorama is taking orders for the Transformer Book T100 in white or red for $399 each.
Both models feature Atom Z3775 chips, 2GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, Windows 8.1 software, and Microsoft Office 2013 Home & Student software.
Like their predecessors, the new models are basically 10 inch tablets with 1366 x 768 pixel IPS displays. Attach the tablet to the keyboard dock that comes with it, and you’ve got a small laptop which should get around 8-10 hours of battery life while offering decent performance for common PC tasks.
via Mobile Geeks
Was on the fence non-stop about whether or not to wait for the new one or get the current one. I think I’m just going to get the current one.
Actually wait, now I take that back. The new one looks like it’s going to come standard with a spot for a hard drive in the dock!?
Did the new one (without the 500gb hd in the dock) have a place to add your own hd after all??
So basically a 15% improvement in CPU and GPU performance based off of benchmarks.
I don’t think that really adds much in terms of usability or lifespan as opposed to if it came with 4 GB of RAM (and 64bit OS.)
Probably, but some can view it as something better than nothing to hold them over until the Cherry Trail updates comes out and we still got till the end of the year before we start seeing any of those… Though, it’ll help if they don’t already have a Bay Trail device already…
One of the unique features of the T100 was the 500 GB
hard disk in the keyboard dock of the upscale version.
I haven’t seen a hard disk in any other 2-in-1, which is
a shame.
I’d like to see a user-accessible 2.5″ HDD bay in this type of
products’ keyboard dock, even an empty one (no drive
installed), as SSDs are now priced around $0.50/GB,
and hybrid drives are even cheaper than that per GB.
While a high speed interface to this mass storage would
be nice, USB 3.0 is more than acceptable.
These devices can’t really replace laptops until they offer
the capacious storage you get with a conventional laptop.
I would LOVE if devices like this had an empty M-sata slot. It would be great if it was in the tablet portion, and not the keyboard.
The mobile SoCs don’t support SATA, which excludes mSATA… but could be a option if they make a tablet from one of the Bay Trail M/D models that Intel is selling under the Celeron/Pentium branding… Those at least support SATA II and thus could support a mSATA…
Mine doesn’t have the 500gb hard drive, I guess I have one of the earlier models. Anyway to get the one with the 500gb hard drive or even this new one?