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- Mar 9, 2008
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Well, a couple of days ago I bought a T100 transformer tablet PC from Asus and I might as well post my opinions of it.
In case of TL
R - It needs a faster CPU, 4Gb of RAM and 64/128Gb storage models instead of 32/64Gb, everything else is great. If you wanna get into details, read on.
Specs are as follows:
CPU: Intel® Atom Quad Core Z3740 1.33GHz, (Turbo: 1.86Ghz)
IGP: Intel HD Graphics 4000
RAM: 2GB LPDDR3 1067 MHz SDRAM
SSD: 64GB eMMC (There are 32Gb models and models with or without 500Gb keyboard dock) - possible expansion with microSD cards up to 64Gb
Screen: IPS 10.1' 1368x768 (150ppi approx)
Front cam: 1.2 Mpix with a mic.
OS: Windows 8.1 32bits + 2013 Office
Price: around 400$ for the 64Gb variant (no 500Gb keyboard dock, though I would have gladly paid extra for it, if it was available).
The main reason I bought it is that because it has a fully fledged version of windows (none of that RT garbage), so that means it can run everything you can run on your PC while keeping the hardware requirements in mind.
In the box, you’ll find the charger, microusb to usb cable, keyboard dock, the tablet and the user manual which is useless as ever. It is all packed up nicely in protective plastic.
Now, what everyone might be asking “How does it perform?” Well I’ll tell you, it blows every similarly priced laptop out of the water. It boots up faster that my android phone or the Nexus 7 i previously owned. Apps start almost instantly, though in some cases that low CPU speed starts to show.
For now I have used Office 2010, Chrome (lots of tabs) and CATIA V5 R20, all of which performed fine, though CATIA did begin to lag a bit in complex assemblies, still admirable performance in every day use.
Now games. It can run pretty much everything from 2011 and back at 720p low ~ medium settings. Games I tried:
Path of Exile - 30 ~ 40 fps at 720p, medium details. (slight cpu bottlenecking)
CoD MW2 - 50 ~ 60 fps 720p lowest settings
Shadowrun Returns - 30 - 40 fps native resolution, high settings (touch controls included)
UT2K4 - Highest settings, native resolution, perfectly playable on smaller maps, on large ones the fps tends to drop.
Civ 5 - Playable at 720p low settings (it also has touch controls)
Killing Floor - not playable, CPU bottlenecking becomes apparent here
Warframe - surprisingly playable at 720p lowest settings, but with large amounts of enemies the fps does drop significantly
Spiral Knights - perfectly playable at native resolution
Skyrim - not playable, at least not without some serious modding and tweaking.
Hearthstone - perfectly playable (plays even better than on the iPads)
Overall as you see, this little guy packs a surprising punch for the buck, it’s graphics performance is comparable to AMDs 6450 and 7450, which are bottom line cards, but for a tablet, this is perfectly fine.
Now the storage on the 64Gb model is small but manageable once you add a 32Gb ~ 64Gb microSD card to it. 32Gb model has plainly said too little storage. Yes there is the variant with 500Gb keyboard dock, but you have to take note that when you detach the tablet from the dock it’s the SSD and the microSD card that counts.
With 32Gb model, you have around 30Gb of partitioned space and about 20Gb of that is taken up by the OS, you can do only so much to make more space available. After installing the Office and a couple of updates, those 10Gbs of space will disappear faster than than you can say “I wish I bought the 64Gb one”.
Now there is an interesting difference between the 32Gb and the 64Gb models. The windows 8 has that nice recovery feature,where you can backup your OS on to a flash drive or a separate partition on your storage device. Now the 32Gb model has a small 8Gb ROM module which has the recovery partition but can not be reclaimed. 64Gb model does not have that ROM recovery module, but a hidden partition on the internal SSD, which leaves you with around 49Gb of partitioned space, of which about 20gb is taken by the OS, leaving you with 30Gb of free space. You can reclaim those 8gb on the 64Gb model, but you really should migrate the recovery partition to a flash drive prior to that (8Gb is minimum). After an afternoon of uninstalling apps, disabling features and services, I managed to free up about 15Gb extra, leaving me with 45Gb available,which is perfectly fine for me. I also added a 32Gb MicroSD card just to keep the downloads and music somewhere, so I had pretty much 75Gb of free space.
If you’re interested about what I did, I disabled System Restore, Hibernation (be sure that you change the power options so you don't make your tablet go into hibernation while it’s disabled, it once happened on my PC and it wasn't nice. So it should either go to sleep or shutdown (I set my tablet to shutdown on critical battery and when the lid is closed (while connected to the charger it goes to sleep instead). The booting up is really quick, as I said before, faster than most android and iOS devices.
Using the disk cleanup tool is also a good idea to free up space. I also uninstalled all Metro UI apps ( I can’t stand it even with a touchscreen). For services to disable you can check Black Viper’s site.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Update your BIOS (it should be the first thing you do if you buy it) using the win flash tool supplied on the asus site, the updates resolve issues with slow charging and memory card problems.
After an afternoon of tweaking and disabling redundant services I was actually impressed by how responsive the tablet was. Don’t get me wrong, it was fine before, but those extra 15Gb of free space and lower ram consumption are always a welcome sight.
The screen had a slight green tint when I got it, but nothing I couldn't tweak with windows color calibration, but I suggest you use Intel’s Graphics control panel, mostly because of finer controls.
Speakers are pretty damn powerful for a device of this size and price.
Trackpad, meh in every aspect, I tend to mix up the left click and right click, because I have no way to figure out on which side of the track pad my finger is (it’s completely flat).
What should be improved:
CPU: Intel Atom - Z3795 1.6Ghz ~ 2.4Ghz
The main performance issue I have noticed on the T100, is the CPU bottlenecking, simply 1.33Ghz ~ 1.86Ghz, simply isn't enough for some heavier apps and relatively new games. Considering that the price difference between Z3740 and Z3795 is just 8$, you can see why I want to asus to do this. Also the Z3795 supports 4Gb of ram unlike the Z3740 with it's 2Gb limit.
4Gb of 1066Mhz RAM, for obvious reasons. Lately even 4Gb is becoming the lower limit, while 8Gb is becoming more common on both PCs and Laptops. I did have some games crash a couple of times when I alt tab, due to low RAM.
Extra USB ports, atleast 2 or 3. USB 3.0 2x and 2.0 2x would be a fine setup. Simply said, just one USB port won't be enough without a dedicated USB hub. Not to mention users like me who have a USB wireless mouse, USB headset an external drive and a flash drive. Even if you only need one USB port for the mouse, you will need another one if you ever wanted to plug in some form of external storage.
SATA Interface inside the keyboard, regardless of if the model comes with a HDD. The 10' size is perfect to fit in a couple of 2.5' HDDs. I don't expect it to have RAID 0 support, but it would be pretty kickass to have 4Tb of storage in your keyboard dock.
Larger SSD models. 32Gb is the absolute rock bottom, without 8gb rom recovery partition you would have no free space.
My suggestion, make 64Gb, 128Gb and maybe 256Gb models and put the 8Gb ROM recovery partition in all models. The microSD slot is a nice feature, though it would pretty much become unnecessary with larger models.
Sturdier build. While the keyboard feels perfectly fine, the tablet itself has a bit of a flex in the upper middle, which you can feel when trying to unplug or plug it into the keyboard dock.
A bit more gaming friendly keyboard. While I understand that this device is not aimed at gamers, it's IGP's performance is sufficient to run a lot of games, and probably the worst thing is the keyboard and it's inability to register a couple of keys being pressed simultaneously. Primarily the issue where you have to release W and then press Shift first and then W in order to sprint. Same thing goes for W + Ctrl.
Making a small bump in the middle of the trackpad would be useful because of the before mentioned issues.
The battery life is exceptional, but it's something you will never have enough of, so a bigger battery is always good.
A better charger. Even with the BIOS updates that resolve the charging issues, the tablet charges really slowly when on or in sleep. To charge it faster you have to shut it down completely. So a way to charge it at a normal rate while on would be a good thing.
This might be a surprise to everyone, but this tablet does not need a 1080p screen. Even while using it in tablet mode, I did not notice the pixels at any point (unless I shove it in my face and start looking for them).
1368x768 is the perfect resolution for it, good enough ppi and lower power consumption than a 1080p screen it also allows app snapping, so that’s good enough for me.
Due to the strange keyboard layout, it might need slight backlight for low light conditions, but it's just a minor gripe of mine.
Besides those complaints I am extremely satisfied with T100s performance. The booting up is fast, so fast that I set it to shut down whenever I close the lid to save the battery. It simply doesn't feel like a low grade cheap laptop, even though it has a price of one.
As I mentioned before, it has some minor issues (primarily amount of ram and cpu speed), but I feel that Asus has made a big step in a good direction with this device and I hope that they continue to pursue this market.
Though, the company that pretty much dictates the development of these devices is Intel. The Bay Trail is the paradigm shift in the mobile device market and I hope that they continue to develop the Atom platform in the future.
Oh and one last thing, I would really like if Intel began to put more powerful IGPs on their low end CPUs. A combination of Z3795 with Iris Pro or 4600 for example would yield incredible gaming performance.
NOTE: Recently T200 was released which is pretty much a minor upgrade over the T100, (slightly faster CPU and an extra USB 2.0 port). They also positioned the keyboard dock connector closer to the left side, Probably so people don’t try to plug in their T100s into that dock.
In case of TL
R - It needs a faster CPU, 4Gb of RAM and 64/128Gb storage models instead of 32/64Gb, everything else is great. If you wanna get into details, read on.Specs are as follows:
CPU: Intel® Atom Quad Core Z3740 1.33GHz, (Turbo: 1.86Ghz)
IGP: Intel HD Graphics 4000
RAM: 2GB LPDDR3 1067 MHz SDRAM
SSD: 64GB eMMC (There are 32Gb models and models with or without 500Gb keyboard dock) - possible expansion with microSD cards up to 64Gb
Screen: IPS 10.1' 1368x768 (150ppi approx)
Front cam: 1.2 Mpix with a mic.
OS: Windows 8.1 32bits + 2013 Office
Price: around 400$ for the 64Gb variant (no 500Gb keyboard dock, though I would have gladly paid extra for it, if it was available).
The main reason I bought it is that because it has a fully fledged version of windows (none of that RT garbage), so that means it can run everything you can run on your PC while keeping the hardware requirements in mind.
In the box, you’ll find the charger, microusb to usb cable, keyboard dock, the tablet and the user manual which is useless as ever. It is all packed up nicely in protective plastic.
Now, what everyone might be asking “How does it perform?” Well I’ll tell you, it blows every similarly priced laptop out of the water. It boots up faster that my android phone or the Nexus 7 i previously owned. Apps start almost instantly, though in some cases that low CPU speed starts to show.
For now I have used Office 2010, Chrome (lots of tabs) and CATIA V5 R20, all of which performed fine, though CATIA did begin to lag a bit in complex assemblies, still admirable performance in every day use.
Now games. It can run pretty much everything from 2011 and back at 720p low ~ medium settings. Games I tried:
Path of Exile - 30 ~ 40 fps at 720p, medium details. (slight cpu bottlenecking)
CoD MW2 - 50 ~ 60 fps 720p lowest settings
Shadowrun Returns - 30 - 40 fps native resolution, high settings (touch controls included)
UT2K4 - Highest settings, native resolution, perfectly playable on smaller maps, on large ones the fps tends to drop.
Civ 5 - Playable at 720p low settings (it also has touch controls)
Killing Floor - not playable, CPU bottlenecking becomes apparent here
Warframe - surprisingly playable at 720p lowest settings, but with large amounts of enemies the fps does drop significantly
Spiral Knights - perfectly playable at native resolution
Skyrim - not playable, at least not without some serious modding and tweaking.
Hearthstone - perfectly playable (plays even better than on the iPads)
Overall as you see, this little guy packs a surprising punch for the buck, it’s graphics performance is comparable to AMDs 6450 and 7450, which are bottom line cards, but for a tablet, this is perfectly fine.
Now the storage on the 64Gb model is small but manageable once you add a 32Gb ~ 64Gb microSD card to it. 32Gb model has plainly said too little storage. Yes there is the variant with 500Gb keyboard dock, but you have to take note that when you detach the tablet from the dock it’s the SSD and the microSD card that counts.
With 32Gb model, you have around 30Gb of partitioned space and about 20Gb of that is taken up by the OS, you can do only so much to make more space available. After installing the Office and a couple of updates, those 10Gbs of space will disappear faster than than you can say “I wish I bought the 64Gb one”.
Now there is an interesting difference between the 32Gb and the 64Gb models. The windows 8 has that nice recovery feature,where you can backup your OS on to a flash drive or a separate partition on your storage device. Now the 32Gb model has a small 8Gb ROM module which has the recovery partition but can not be reclaimed. 64Gb model does not have that ROM recovery module, but a hidden partition on the internal SSD, which leaves you with around 49Gb of partitioned space, of which about 20gb is taken by the OS, leaving you with 30Gb of free space. You can reclaim those 8gb on the 64Gb model, but you really should migrate the recovery partition to a flash drive prior to that (8Gb is minimum). After an afternoon of uninstalling apps, disabling features and services, I managed to free up about 15Gb extra, leaving me with 45Gb available,which is perfectly fine for me. I also added a 32Gb MicroSD card just to keep the downloads and music somewhere, so I had pretty much 75Gb of free space.
If you’re interested about what I did, I disabled System Restore, Hibernation (be sure that you change the power options so you don't make your tablet go into hibernation while it’s disabled, it once happened on my PC and it wasn't nice. So it should either go to sleep or shutdown (I set my tablet to shutdown on critical battery and when the lid is closed (while connected to the charger it goes to sleep instead). The booting up is really quick, as I said before, faster than most android and iOS devices.
Using the disk cleanup tool is also a good idea to free up space. I also uninstalled all Metro UI apps ( I can’t stand it even with a touchscreen). For services to disable you can check Black Viper’s site.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Update your BIOS (it should be the first thing you do if you buy it) using the win flash tool supplied on the asus site, the updates resolve issues with slow charging and memory card problems.
After an afternoon of tweaking and disabling redundant services I was actually impressed by how responsive the tablet was. Don’t get me wrong, it was fine before, but those extra 15Gb of free space and lower ram consumption are always a welcome sight.
The screen had a slight green tint when I got it, but nothing I couldn't tweak with windows color calibration, but I suggest you use Intel’s Graphics control panel, mostly because of finer controls.
Speakers are pretty damn powerful for a device of this size and price.
Trackpad, meh in every aspect, I tend to mix up the left click and right click, because I have no way to figure out on which side of the track pad my finger is (it’s completely flat).
What should be improved:
CPU: Intel Atom - Z3795 1.6Ghz ~ 2.4Ghz
The main performance issue I have noticed on the T100, is the CPU bottlenecking, simply 1.33Ghz ~ 1.86Ghz, simply isn't enough for some heavier apps and relatively new games. Considering that the price difference between Z3740 and Z3795 is just 8$, you can see why I want to asus to do this. Also the Z3795 supports 4Gb of ram unlike the Z3740 with it's 2Gb limit.
4Gb of 1066Mhz RAM, for obvious reasons. Lately even 4Gb is becoming the lower limit, while 8Gb is becoming more common on both PCs and Laptops. I did have some games crash a couple of times when I alt tab, due to low RAM.
Extra USB ports, atleast 2 or 3. USB 3.0 2x and 2.0 2x would be a fine setup. Simply said, just one USB port won't be enough without a dedicated USB hub. Not to mention users like me who have a USB wireless mouse, USB headset an external drive and a flash drive. Even if you only need one USB port for the mouse, you will need another one if you ever wanted to plug in some form of external storage.
SATA Interface inside the keyboard, regardless of if the model comes with a HDD. The 10' size is perfect to fit in a couple of 2.5' HDDs. I don't expect it to have RAID 0 support, but it would be pretty kickass to have 4Tb of storage in your keyboard dock.
Larger SSD models. 32Gb is the absolute rock bottom, without 8gb rom recovery partition you would have no free space.
My suggestion, make 64Gb, 128Gb and maybe 256Gb models and put the 8Gb ROM recovery partition in all models. The microSD slot is a nice feature, though it would pretty much become unnecessary with larger models.
Sturdier build. While the keyboard feels perfectly fine, the tablet itself has a bit of a flex in the upper middle, which you can feel when trying to unplug or plug it into the keyboard dock.
A bit more gaming friendly keyboard. While I understand that this device is not aimed at gamers, it's IGP's performance is sufficient to run a lot of games, and probably the worst thing is the keyboard and it's inability to register a couple of keys being pressed simultaneously. Primarily the issue where you have to release W and then press Shift first and then W in order to sprint. Same thing goes for W + Ctrl.
Making a small bump in the middle of the trackpad would be useful because of the before mentioned issues.
The battery life is exceptional, but it's something you will never have enough of, so a bigger battery is always good.
A better charger. Even with the BIOS updates that resolve the charging issues, the tablet charges really slowly when on or in sleep. To charge it faster you have to shut it down completely. So a way to charge it at a normal rate while on would be a good thing.
This might be a surprise to everyone, but this tablet does not need a 1080p screen. Even while using it in tablet mode, I did not notice the pixels at any point (unless I shove it in my face and start looking for them).
1368x768 is the perfect resolution for it, good enough ppi and lower power consumption than a 1080p screen it also allows app snapping, so that’s good enough for me.
Due to the strange keyboard layout, it might need slight backlight for low light conditions, but it's just a minor gripe of mine.
Besides those complaints I am extremely satisfied with T100s performance. The booting up is fast, so fast that I set it to shut down whenever I close the lid to save the battery. It simply doesn't feel like a low grade cheap laptop, even though it has a price of one.
As I mentioned before, it has some minor issues (primarily amount of ram and cpu speed), but I feel that Asus has made a big step in a good direction with this device and I hope that they continue to pursue this market.
Though, the company that pretty much dictates the development of these devices is Intel. The Bay Trail is the paradigm shift in the mobile device market and I hope that they continue to develop the Atom platform in the future.
Oh and one last thing, I would really like if Intel began to put more powerful IGPs on their low end CPUs. A combination of Z3795 with Iris Pro or 4600 for example would yield incredible gaming performance.
NOTE: Recently T200 was released which is pretty much a minor upgrade over the T100, (slightly faster CPU and an extra USB 2.0 port). They also positioned the keyboard dock connector closer to the left side, Probably so people don’t try to plug in their T100s into that dock.
