Asus Transformer Book Trio hands-on, first impressions

The first time we saw the Transformer Book Trio was back in June during the Computex exhibition in Taiwan. This month, the Transformer Book will be released in the Philippine and we got a quick preview ahead of the launch.

On the outside, the Transformer Book Trio looks like the popular Vivobook X202 with its netbook-like form factor.

Yet, once you inspect closer, the laptop completely transforms into several configurations.

First, it’s a full-blown Windows 8.1 ultrabook — a full HD IPS LCD display, 4th-generation Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 1TB HDD.

The second configuration is also familiar, just like the previous Transformer series from Asus — the display can be detached from the keyboard dock which automatically switches the operating system into a Jellybean tablet.

The tablet has its own hardware configuration — an Intel Atom Z2580 2.0GHz dual-core, 2GB RAM and 64GB internal storage. Of course, it still inherits that 11.6-inch IPS LCD display at full HD 1080p resolution.

There’s also a manual switch where you can change the laptop OS from Windows 8 to Android while it’s still attached to the keyboard. The tablet has its own internal battery as well as the keyboard dock so the combined battery capacity is actually longer when both are connected together.

Then, the third configuration is with the keyboard dock. Plug it into your TV via HDMI or into any monitor and you can actually run Windows 8 independently. That’s basically the same configuration as will the ultrabook running Intel Core i5/i7.

That means you can use the tablet and the keyboard independently of each other or both at the same time.

We were pretty impressed the first time we saw this back in June and we’re still amazed until now.

The device is made mostly out of metal (aluminum) and has that look of the X202 but with a thicker profile (to accommodate more battery).

Asus Transformer Book Trio specs:
11.6-inch IPS LCD full HD display @ 1920×1080 pixels, 218ppi
Intel Core i7 4000U quad-core processor (ultrabook)
Intel Atom Z2580 2.0GHz dual-core (tablet)
2GB RAM (tablet) + 4GB DDDR3 RAM (ultrabook)
750GB/1TB HDD (ultrabook) + 64GB eMMC (tablet)
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
USB 3.0 ports
HDMI port
SD card reader
Android 4.2 Jellybean
Windows 8

Asus Philippine is set to release the Transformer Book Trio this month with an expected price of a little over Php50k.