ASUS Taichi 21 (11-inch) - Dual Displays

Dual Displays, Pushing the Envelope on Form Factor

ASUS has a recent history of coming up with pretty thoughtful ways (Transformer and Slider) of converting tablets to notebooks, and vice versa. These transformation methods allow devices to switch seamlessly between notebook and tablet form factors. 

The latest innovative transformation method comes from the ASUS Taichi. This 11-inch, 1.25kg Ultrabook is ASUS' answer to the question of how you can seamlessly convert a notebook into a tablet, and back again. Take note that there's also a 13-inch version of the Taichi (Taichi 31), but the review unit we've received is the 11-inch version. The difference between the Taichi 31 and the Taichi 21 is just their size. Their core components largely remain similar. 

The Taichi's transformation method is rather elegant. Instead of playing around with hinges, they simply mounted another full HD multi-touch display (1920 x 1080 pixels resolution) on the lid of the notebook. That means the Taichi still has a familiar clamshell form factor, except it's got a display acting as the lid of the notebook. First demoed at Computex 2012, the Taichi is finally available in retail after more than 9 months since ASUS first teased us with this interesting design. Read on as we detail more about it and what the Taichi can do.

Dead Simple Transformation

When the lid is closed, the external display acts as the tablet's display when the device is powered on, and when the lid is open form thereon, the machine automatically switches to notebook mode (thus disabling the external display). However that's not all the secondary display can do.

Having a secondary display means the Taichi is able to work in multiple modes. To get the Taichi running in its four different modes, all you have to do is hit the Screen Switch button on the top right of corner of the keyboard. There is also a Screen Switch rocker on the external left side of the machine.  

Here's a quick rundown on the different modes the Taichi can be used in. "Display 1" refers to the machine's primary display as used in the respective modes, while "Display 2" refers to the machine's secondary display.

• Mode 1: Notebook mode - This is the typical notebook mode, where the primary (internal) display is active, and the secondary display on the back of the machine is disabled. 
  
   
• Mode 2: Tablet mode - In this mode, the external display is active, while the internal screen is deactivated, whether or not the lid is closed or open.
  
   
• Mode 3: Mirror mode - In mirror mode, the external display mirrors what's shown on the internal display. 
  
   
• Mode 4: Extend mode: Here, the external secondary display is now an extension of your desktop. The touch capabilities of the external display is still functional.

Mode 1 (notebook mode) is pretty straightforward. You use it like a normal notebook. Unfortunately, the internal display isn't touch sensitive, so your only input options are the keyboard and trackpad. In mode 2 (tablet mode), the secondary display is active, along with its multi-touch capabilities. That means you can only use touch or digitizer to interact with the Taichi's external display.

In mode 3 (mirror mode) you're able to interact with the Taichi using its keyboard, trackpad or with the Taichi's external multi-touch display. We found that this mode useful for collaboration or demonstration. One user is able to use the keyboard and trackpad, while the other user is able to use multi-touch and the Taichi's digitizer for input. Concurrent usage of both displays is tricky (e.g. one user could be typing away, but the other user could have moved focus elsewhere on the screen), but if it's used in a turn-by-turn fashion, there are no issues.

Mode 4 (extend mode), also allows for collaboration, but in a less direct way. In this mode, the multi-touch function on the secondary display is also active, which means another user is able to provide input via touch. We found that in this mode, one person could be working on something, while another can be watching a movie at the same time using a secondary screen. Another possible scenario is during presentations. The user can be working or reading off a program, while the external display is showing some slides.

However one thing to take note about the Taichi in mode 4 is that two users aren’t able to provide input into two different apps at simultaneously. You also can’t have the desktop environment on one display, and the Windows tiled start screen environment on the other.

This is a Windows 8 limitation (or rather a general OS limitation) that only one active Window can receive input (albeit from multiple sources) at any one time. This means that you can’t work on an open Window with the hardware keyboard and trackpad, while someone else is working on the touch display and soft keyboard with a another open app.

This usage limitation isn’t the fault of the OS or the manufacturer, but we felt that ASUS should have provided a better workaround to this problem we faced if they were going to put two displays on a notebook. After all, it's just a natural expectation of end-users once they notice the dual-screen design and think about the possibilities.

Build Quality and Handling

Despite the obvious confusion around the usage of the machine, the Taichi is still an Ultrabook which has excellent build quality. The external lid display is protected by Gorilla Glass, which makes it quite resilient, just like the previously reviewed HP Envy Spectre. Because of the rigidity of the glass, there's no flex to be found anywhere on the lid. The only issue is that the Gorilla Glass attracts fingerprint smudges that accumulate quickly.

The bottom half of the Taichi is put together with two pieces of machined aluminum (palm rest and bottom cover) making the machine feel solid to the touch. One problem we had however, was that the edges of the notebook are very sharp, which makes prolonged use pretty uncomfortable for our wrists. 

There’s no curvature to displace the harshness of the edges, but it does allow the Taichi to be closed seamlessly without any gaps between the lid and palmrest. Having no gaps between the lid and keyboard doesn’t translate to better handling but it does add to the premium feel of the Taichi, which we observed it didn't creak or flex when it was used in tablet mode. 

As a tablet, we also found that the 1.25kg Taichi suffers from the same problems as the Sony Vaio Duo 11, and the Toshiba Satellite U920t. It's simply too heavy for extended usage when cradling it in your hands. Even though its 11-inch display is just slightly bigger than that of regular 10-inch Android/iOS tablets, it also weighs twice as much, which makes it unwieldy. As a notebook its weight is perfectly fine, which is its primary usage model and thus it's equipped with a suitably beefy processing platform. The tablet mode is just complimentary and to use it comfortably in this mode, you'd have to lay the Taichi flat on the table, or on your lap.

Keyboard and Trackpad

Also adding to the premium feel of the Taichi was the backlit keyboard. The chiclet-style keys had very good resistance, and had just enough key-travel. It was comfortable enough to type on, however we felt that the individual keys were also quite wobbly. This is something that won’t sit well with users who are very particular about the rigidity of their keyboards and even the individual keys.

The keyboard itself is also sunken (so that the keys won’t hit the display when closed), which sometimes hinders fingers when reaching out for the space bar. However we do like the big glass clickable trackpad - it’s responsive and the clicks felt assuring.

Ports and Speakers

Benchmarking and Performance

Like most Windows 8 convertible Ultrabooks today, the ASUS Taichi 21 pulls double duty, as a big (and heavy) tablet when you need it to. However, it’s first and foremost an Ultrabook, with Ultrabook components such as a consumer-ultra-low-voltage (CULV) processor.

As such, its performance is expected to be on par, with other premium Ultrabooks (with SSD instead of a mechanical HDD) out in the market. To give you a gauge on where it stands, we’ve selected some of the latest Windows 8 Ultrabooks to compare it against. Also take note that the Sony Vaio Duo 11 scores are taken from a Core i5 variant, instead of a Core i7 variant stated in the table. 

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PCMark 7

PCMark 7 is a benchmark that puts the notebooks through a standard battery of tests. The tests puts stress on each of the machine’s components (CPU, GPU, SSD) and gives a score based on how well they hold up. An overall score is then given, which gives us an idea of how the machine performs.

Here, the ASUS Taichi with its 1.9GHz Intel Core i7 processor manages to stay slightly ahead of the rest. It shows that having a faster clock speed does translate to a performance boost. The advantage it has here is negligible in real world usage, but it can come in handy for more compute intensive tasks such as video transcoding and the likes.

3DMark 11 & Far Cry 2

The onboard GPU that comes with the Taichi’s Ivy Bridge processor is the same as those found in the other Ultrabooks. This means the Taichi’s graphic performance is the same as other Ultrabooks, even though it has a slightly higher clock speed.

This two benchmarks aren’t here to tell you that the Taichi can excel in gaming, because it can’t. Instead it’s here to show you that everyday tasks that involve the machine’s GPU like rendering of system animations and web pages, are no problem for the Taichi as it can definitely keep up with other Ultrabooks.

Battery Life and Portability Index

An Ultrabook’s worth very much depends on its battery life and portability. In this segment, we put the Taichi to the test, to see if its battery performance is good enough to make it through at least half a day. And because it has a secondary high-res display, we’ll also see how much power the secondary screen siphons.

Battery Life & Power Consumption

To test the machine’s battery life, we put it through the Powermark benchmark. This benchmark simulates typical usage by opening and closing browsers, videos and other media.

The Taichi’s results for this benchmark was quite disappointing, with most of the blame on the 35Wh battery found in the Taichi. It’s about the same capacity as the batteries found on the Vaio and the Satellite notebooks with similar battery life results.

ASUS, like Toshiba and Sony, likely made the decision to put a smaller battery into the machine, to help lessen its weight and thickness. This makes the machine thinner and lighter, but also cripples it in terms of battery life.

The Taichi stayed alive for 2 hours 53 mins. That’s barely enough juice to get your work done before lunchtime if you started in the morning. If you activate the second screen, the uptime drops to about 2 hours and 31 minutes. It’s still a bad result, but it was also a pleasant surprise. We expected the second display to use up much more battery than just dent the uptime by a mere 27 minutes.

Unfortunately, since the Taichi’s normal battery life is pretty weak, 27 minutes translates into a significant chunk of the machine’s battery life. That means users might need to plan way ahead if they want to utilize the secondary screen when the machine is unplugged.

Portability Index

Our portability index is a formula that tries to quantify how portable a machine really is. It basically uses elements like a machine’s battery life, mass and volume to tell us if a machine is worth your time to carry it about.

The best direct comparison would be with the Sony Vaio Duo 11, which has the same dimensions and weight. Here, the Vaio Duo 11 is considered to be more portable due to its better battery life. The Taichi’s single display battery life also couldn’t help it keep up with the Vaio Duo 11.

However as an Ultrabook, the ASUS Taichi 21 is on par with most of the recent Windows 8 convertible Ultrabooks out in the market right now. We find that the Taichi’s 11-inch display size a major factor that helps it keep up with the portability of the 13-inch Ultrabooks. Perhaps ASUS shouldn't have used such a high speed processor that's not so beneficial for this class of products.

Luxury You Can Do Without -- For Now

Throughout the review of this product, we can’t help but feel that the Taichi is ahead of its time. Having two screens is definitely nice, but the second screen will always be underutilized. Firstly, since the displays are back-to-back, one screen will always be facing away from you. This means that only the person sitting across from you can appreciate it. Which begs the question, how often will there be someone there to appreciate your second screen?

That said, we can envision the secondary display being tremendously useful for people who are constantly sharing information with others like teachers, or sales people. They can use the mirror mode, or the secondary display mode to share and (or) collaborate with others easily. The third use scenario for the Taichi is a tablet. When closed, the Taichi is a fully functional Windows 8 tablet with the power of an Ultrabook.

Unfortunately as a tablet, it also has the same problems that the Vaio 11 and Satellite u920t has. It’s too heavy to be held in one hand for more than a minute. Although it's 11-inch screen size is only slightly larger than other 10-inch Android/iOS tablets, its 1.25kg weight makes it almost twice as heavy. 

Also take note that during our battery tests, we found that the secondary display drains as much as 20% of the machine’s battery -- which is already pretty bad no thanks to its limited battery capacity and fast processor. This means that the machine has to be plugged in if there was any intention to utilize the secondary touch display. We felt that ASUS should have added a larger battery than the 35Wh (most 11-inch Ultrabooks have the same capacity though) battery built into the machine to power its two full HD displays. However, some users might not prefer that as this would weigh the already portly 17.4mm, 1.25kg Taichi down even more.

That said, the ASUS Taichi 21 is a handsome and solidly built notebook. The interior of the machine is also pretty much mostly made of aluminum, just like an ASUS Zenbook, which means it’s quite sturdy and will be able to handle hard knocks. 

However, because it performs exactly like you’d expect an Ultrabook to, we found the machine’s $2698 price-tag hard to swallow, even when you consider its premium build quality and components. If you compare it with ASUS’ own full HD Zenbook ($2098 without touch), it actually costs $600 more for an additional (and smaller 11-inch) multi-touch display. This isn’t a strict comparison between the two machines, but rather an illustration of how costly it would be for ASUS to innovate with form factors. Because the Taichi is the first of its kind, it is expected to be a bit pricey, but we hope it won’t be this way for long.

We also find that if ASUS were to charge $600 more for the 11-inch Taichi, it should at least have made the primary display touch-capable as well. That's because we find that sometimes it's easier or faster to reach out to touch certain Windows 8 onscreen elements, than to do it with your trackpad. And even then, we hope consumers can figure out what they want to do with an additional display before committing to a dual-display Taichi. To end, the Taichi is an interesting take of a multi-function notebook but it would only appeal to a niche audience for now.

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