Some time back I had the privilege of walking the hallowed halls of ASUS Design in Taipei and had a chance to speak one of the designers of the ASUS Transformer Book range. He summed up the need for a Windows 8 tablet and notebook hybrid as such: Modern life moves quickly and we need to adapt constantly to our environment and tasks. That’s why we need devices that can intuitively and seamlessly switch from one mode to the other.
This time round, they’ve taken the concept found in the ASUS Transformer AiO all-in-one PC and applied it to the Transformer Book range. What we have here today is the ASUS Transformer Book Trio – the world’s first 3-in-1, 11.6-inch notebook and tablet hybrid with a fully functional PC Station. The ASUS Transformer Book Trio is essentially a dual OS , dual CPU notebook with a detachable Full HD IPS tablet. On top of that, an external monitor can be hooked up to the PC Station – itself a standalone CPU – to become a desktop PC. The Android tablet comes with a 1.6GHz Intel® Atom™ processor; while the Windows 8-based PC Station can be spec’d up to a 4th generation Intel® Core™ i7 processor for productive computing. The 11.6-inch, 16:9 aspect ratio IPS display showcases stunning visuals in Full HD 1920 × 1080; with a 10-point multitouch function available as an option. As the world’s first dual OS notebook, the ASUS Transformer Book Trio can easily switch between Android and Windows 8 modes, giving you access to over 700,000 apps on the Android ecosystem and over 50,000 entertainment apps for Windows 8.
Despite the disparity in operating systems, you can still easily sync files, photos, videos and even emails. You can continue to surf the webpage you’re on even when you switch from Windows 8 notebook mode to Android tablet. In terms of storage, the Windows 8 keyboard base features up to a 750GB HDD; while the tablet can have up to 64GB of eMMC storage. Away from the electricity mains, power comes by way of Li-Polymer 19.5WH battery in the tablet, and a 33WH Li-Polymer battery in the PC Station. That is good enough for up to 6 hours on Windows 8; and 15 hours on Android. When docked, the battery in the PC Station helps to recharge the tablet.
Joseph