ASUS Transformer Book T100 Review: Redefining the Entry-Level Windows Notebook
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 18, 2013 12:00 AM ESTDisplay
The T100 features a 10.1-inch 1366 x 768 IPS display, which makes for awesome viewing angles and an experience that will put most entry level notebooks to shame. Compared to what we’re used to seeing from Windows notebooks, ASUS did a tremendous job with the panel selection given the price of the T100.
Brightness, black levels and contrast are all reasonable but nothing extraordinary. Max brightness in particular is limited to only 228 nits. That’s more than bright enough for indoor use, but outdoors or in direct sunlight you may wish for a brighter panel. Black levels are quite good, which helps deliver great contrast ratio. As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, the gap between display panel and cover glass is large enough that reflections can be an issue - a problem that is worsened by the fact that the panel can’t get super bright.
Whether or not any of this is a problem to you really depends on perspective. If we’re limiting our comparison to traditional entry level PC notebooks then ASUS has really redefined what it means to be a $349 PC. If you broaden the comparison to Android tablets and even Chromebooks, the comparison grows more difficult.
Color accuracy isn’t great on the T100. Once again, compared to what you’d traditionally get from a Wintel PC at this price point it’s amazing. Compared to the Chromebook 11 we recently reviewed at $279 however, the T100 needs some work.
It’s definitely not a bad display, it just doesn’t live up to the expectations of some other low cost devices we’ve seen lately (e.g. 2013 Nexus 7, Chromebook 11). The charts below show you the stark difference between what we're expecting to display and what the T100 actually displays:
There's a green hue to all of the white/grays, and the other colors are just off. Users definitely benefit from the viewing angles of IPS but the T100 needs calibration.
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vista1984 - Friday, October 18, 2013 - link
people are just finding a better mix functioned device. i am sure most people here have a power desktop that can beat yoga pro's performance easily, and also have an ipad or android tablet can beat yoga pro's portability and battery life easily. but we are tired of switching between and trying to find one device that can be a tablet + netbook with enough power and long battery life.Arbie - Friday, October 18, 2013 - link
Process Lasso will seriously boost response = apparent performance, where that's a concern. I'm still running two old Asus eeePC netbooks with weak processors and PL makes a huge difference. It takes them from PITA to passable, or even pleasant except when the slow HD bogs down.I can't say enough good things about Process Lasso, and just realized that here is a good place to mention it. Because these new Asus machines run Windows, they can run PL. With that and the fast storage I'd bet the lower CPU grade won't mean much in pactice.
sirfergy - Friday, October 18, 2013 - link
Could you elaborate on why IE11 is terrible? I hate generalizations like that w/o any data to back them up.Klimax - Friday, October 18, 2013 - link
Frankly, it doesn't make sense. Chrome might have been at some point better, but I don¨t think it is true for some time.He might want to update his knowledge, it is out of date by quite few years.(And the only thing Chrome had was Javascript performance, nothing else)
Braumin - Friday, October 18, 2013 - link
I agree I actually prefer IE11 even in desktop mode.Chrome is great too I just think they are both great. Not sure why there's all the hatred.
Drumsticks - Friday, October 18, 2013 - link
Me too. I just got 8.1 and I'm unbelievably impressed with IE11. Scrolling is awesome (finally!) and performance is quite snappy.cylemmulo - Friday, October 18, 2013 - link
It is listed to release today but no stores carry it and Amazon won't do saturday delivery, I guess I will have to wait until Monday, I wish the review had some actual games on the performance I'm curious to see how it does on some older ones.tential - Friday, October 18, 2013 - link
Because of the pricepoint of this laptop and the fact that it's running full windows, I find most of these benchmarks to be UTTERLY useless.I am not crossbuying a laptop with keyboard vs a tablet.
I think this is more for us looking to upgrade our laptops vs other entry level laptops (like haswell entry level). Feel most of these benchmarks are quite useless when it comes to comparisons. I'd rather see it compared vs
Core2Duo
Ivybridge Celeron
Haswell Celeron
Other <350 laptops.
Dunno how I can compare an Android laptop I can't use anything with(exaggeration) compared to Windows.
Also, slightly annoying that these companies think 2GB of ram is acceptable. Just add another 2GB and put it at cost rather than need to make a margin on EVERY single thing. 2GB of ram would add what? 10-20 dollars extra tops? Probably less since they buy it in bulk...
tential - Friday, October 18, 2013 - link
Can't edit, I know it docks and is used as a tablet as well but man, it's running windows. Other things aren't. I need to compare it to other windows devices!!! =DBrianChase1776 - Friday, October 18, 2013 - link
This^^I want to buy the product for web browsing and light gaming in bed. The only laptop I ever owned (broke after a year) was an HP with a Core2Duo 1.8gig processor, 4 gigs DDR2, and an 8600M GS on Windows Vista. The laptop was fantastic at even moderate to heavy gaming and I could play Far Cry 2 at an enjoyable frame-rate at pretty high settings (I know the game sucks, but the visuals it could pull off blew my mind on a laptop). So I'd rather see how it stacks up to a ~4 year old laptop in terms of performance because I won't end up buying it if I can't play: STALKER, Mount and Blade, and AI War on it.