ASUS Transformer Book - Intel Atom - 2GB Memory 500GB [Keyboard Dock] HDD 32GB SSD - 10.1" Touchscreen Tablet - Windows 8.1

Beautiful computer. I bought the Transformer to use as my only PC, for any and everything. Screen: I was concerned the small, tablet screen size would be too small for use as a dedicated laptop. Not an issue. I have a projector for watching shows/movies so I got the Transformer thinking that if the screen would make me feel cramped I could just HDMI it into the projector. Yes, "HDMI" was the verb. But there's been no "cramped" feeling to tempt me to do that. The small size is actually better in my opinion. It makes the full Windows 8.1 computer feel tactile, just as a tablet, without being anything less than a full laptop. You can touch and move things on the screen with a move of the wrist and not your whole arm like on a bigger screen. This gives it a more fun feel. A powerful machine that is a tactile little companion instead of a hulking piece of equipment. Brightness nicely ranges from very dark for low-light/ power saving, and very bright for high-light. Colors are brilliant and although it's resolution is not as high as the Surface, for example, you won't notice. Very sharp-looking. And, of course, your big extra benefit of a 10.1" screen is the micro-usb power chord. Don't underestimate how huge that is; one day you may travel on business and forget your charger and feel glad your replacement will cost only a few dollars, if you even need to buy one and can't just use someone else's for their phone (although I only use the bundled charger since I am uneducated in electrical matters and prefer to use what comes with a product). Performance: I was most concerned with RAM size (2 gb). But with a browser, internet radio, a youtube video playing, itunes open, mcafee and an image-editing program all running, only 70% of RAM is used. A note worth mentioning to those who are also thinking of using this as a dedicated laptop, but are unfamiliar with how using an external drive will perform- the 500 gb (D:) dock is not as fast as the tablet's (C:) drive: it will delay a bit when you download to/ start programs from/ run files from it after a short time of not "communicating" with it. It's a short 1-3 second lag that is completely tolerable for me. Once the program is running, it runs fine. It just may take a second to "wake up" the drive to start it up. It really isn't too important, but thought I'd mention that. Power: Of course, battery life is incredible. I have heard negative critiques of charging time, but it takes my Transformer a very average time to recharge when off/sleeping. Does it charge slowly while being used? Maybe. Depends how bright your screen is/ how many programs you're running/ if you're using the speakers... All reasonable times to me. And don't forget again the value in its use of the micro-usb to charge. Portablity/ Feel: It feels great to have a regular book-sized computer as your dedicated laptop in my opinion. It uses a small keyboard as comes with 10.1" computers, but does not feel limiting to me and my average hands of a male of 5 9" height. You know you'll probably be uncomfortable with it if you have very large hands. This review is the longest thing I've written yet with the small keyboard, but I still think I could write pages and pages of a document just fine. The touch screen doesn't move when touched: it's sturdy. The detachable tablet connects, in the words of pcmag, "with a satisfying click". and at the price it's a beautiful touch that it is a full-metal jacket. er, laptop (except the keys). Other: Ports are perfectly minimal but function to serve for all you need. One usb 3.0 port. One SD slot (I haven't used it yet. Everything online says micro-sd although it appears to be the size of mini-sd (?)). Micro usb power. Micro HDMI. Headphone/audio out jack. I only supplemented the laptop with a chord-less mouse for projector use (micro-to-regular HDMI cable) and a 3-port usb 3.0 dock with ethernet port to supplement the usb capabilities and connect to troublesome, slow modems that I may come across. (And speakers with a sub-woofer). Oh yeah, the speakers are generous for a small laptop. Better than those famous weak things from the old macbook. For the job you want in-laptop speakers for, the Transformer's will deliver the sound. Summary: I am writing to those like me who want to buy the best bargain laptop that doesn't feel "bargain". This is a well-performing machine that gives most computer users what they want: a tactile companion for everything. Not just a tablet for internet browsing (although it becomes that and takes care of that purchase) and not a big computer you may find cumbersome and maybe even like it is using you more than you are using it. If you're still interested after reading this, you may have to just buy the computer!

I really REALLY want to like this device.It's sleek, solidly built, and stylish. My plan was to get it as a light-duty portable machine to use at coffee houses and do some light gaming on. Honestly, my biggest fear going into this was that the device wouldn't keep up with my light gaming needs, but various Youtube demos showed me that it could indeed keep up. I knew that the 2GB of RAM would hamper me some, but I was prepared to compromise on that front.What I didn't expect was the flat out AWFUL WiFi. Downloading AVG antivirus took five hours (on my desktop it took something like ten minutes!). Opening pages is a sluggish affair, and streaming video simply isn't happening.I downloaded Torchlight II from Steam (over the course of two days), and ironically the offline gaming performance is smooth as butter. No lags, adequate visuals, and quick load times.The problem seems purely centered on the device's WiFi performance.I'm going to try this on a few other networks to make sure that the T100 is actually at fault, and I'll try a BIOS update if the problem persist. But if things don't improve rapidly, I'm going to have to return this :-(UPDATE: I tried using the WiFi at two different coffee shops, at my parents' place, and at home. I had the same problems at each location: Crazy slow download and upload speeds, no streaming video, and only mediocre casual browsing speeds. I am (very slowly) installing windows updates in the hope that these will fix the issues, but I'm not optimistic. So far this has been a very disappointing experience. I don't know if I just got a defective unit or what, but as it stands right now, I would not recommend this device to anyone.UPDATE II: After downloading and installing all of the Windows updates and driver updates, the WiFi has stabilized at a decent speed. I upgraded this by a star in light of this fact. Having used it for a few days now, I like the tablet; but I have a few complaints.Pros:Great screen.Love the metal body.Love the 500GB keyboard dock.Cons:The keyboard is VERY cramped.32GB of on-board memory is not nearly enough.2GB of RAM is just barely adequate (this would have been a LOT better with 4GB).As a light duty, jack-of-all-trades and master of none device; this meets my needs well enough. If I had it to do over again, I would probably have gone with a traditional laptop with more RAM instead. That being said, now that the WiFi issues have been resolved, I'll be keeping this device after all.Update on 9/2/16:So I've had this convertible for a year now, and my opinions on it have changed dramatically.In short, I love it.The WiFi issues I had when I first got it are fixed, Windows 10 fixed my storage concerns with the 32GB on board the tablet, and I've come to realize that the 2GB of RAM isn't nearly as limiting as I first thought. True, this will never be a gaming beast, but I have an older version of the Adobe Creative Suite on this as well as Libre Office and more than a half dozen games. All of the above work beautifully.The keyboard is still cramped, 4GB of RAM would have been welcome, and I often find myself wishing for a bigger screen; but all in all I'm very pleased with this device.It was well worth the money.

For the price, I'm pretty sure this can't be beat. The laptop is light weight and very convenient. The battery life is fantastic - I'll take it with me in the morning, use it on and off for class all day, get home and sit down and be able to work on it into the night and it might reach 60% charge remaining. If you keep media on the keyboard dock HDD, I recommend moving it to the solid state hard drive on the tablet when you want to watch that movie. This will allow the keyboard hard drive to be turned off and battery life will be conserved. The keyboard is compact so you might have some adjusting to do when coming from a larger laptop or a normal keyboard. The track pad isn't the best I've seen, but it's functional and I've had no problems with it. The touch screen is great and there is minimal glare on it.In terms of processing power, this Atom processor really surprised me. I'm able to run steam and most of my game collection easily. I'm not talking new releases, but for instance, Portal 2 runs very well. The only thing I think I would have done differently was to get the 64gb sold state hard drive model. If you think 32gb will be enough for you, consider that upon purchasing it there will be an 8gb partition set aside for recovery options and then the pre-installed hardware. Free space available when I first turned it on was around 19gb. There were more than a few programs came pre-installed which I found unnecessary, but those are easily removed.