ASUS Transformer Book Trio - Triple Threat

What is the ASUS Transformer Book Trio? 

ASUS first introduced their concept of transforming a tablet into a notebook, with the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Android tablet. Essentially, it was a tablet that you can latch on a keyboard dock, thus turning it into a laptop-like device. Apart from the keyboard dock doubling up as an extra battery slice, there wasn't anything else special. Even so, it was the first of such modular products and the concept proved to be fairly popular that it has spawned a whole line of "Transformer" products.

Now, with the advent of more powerful and power-efficient processors (with the latest being Haswell or otherwise known as the 4th generation Core processors) from Intel, the notebook industry is able to apply the concept of transforming Ultrabooks into tablets (and vice versa) onto their Windows 8 machines.

The latest ASUS machine (besides the Transformer Pad TF701T reviewed here) to feature the tablet with keyboard dock hybrid form-factor, is the ASUS Transformer Book Trio. However, unlike most hybrid Windows 8 machines out in the market, the Trio has an additional trick up its sleeve, or rather up its keyboard dock.

Instead of being just a keyboard with a battery, the keyboard dock is filled to the brim with Ultrabook components that power the device when it’s in Ultrabook mode. It has its own Intel Core U-series (i5 or i7) CULV processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB HDD built-in (with options for up to 1TB storage available).

And as for the removable display, it is designed to be a standalone Android tablet with all the necessary components crammed behind its screen. Underneath the 11.6-inch Full-HD IPS display is an Intel Atom Z2560 processor, 2GB of RAM and even 16GB of storage (with options for up to 64GB).

When you combine the display and dock, the keyboard portion of the machine automatically turns it into a Windows 8 Ultrabook. However, even though Windows 8 is the dominant operating system when the two parts are combined, you can easily toggle between operating systems with a push of its dedicated OS switch button.

This method of switching between Android and Windows 8 is simple enough, but unfortunately, the implementation isn’t foolproof. There are certain quirks that we’ve found while using the device. Take note that pushing the OS switch button invokes a software based command that then proceeds to switch operating systems.

This means that both operating systems must be up and running before you can switch between them. For example, the Android environment of the tablet portion must be powered on before you can switch from Windows 8 to Android. The same applies when switching from Android to the Windows 8 environment.

What’s more, we found that the button doesn’t work all the time. There are times when we tried to switch from Android to Windows 8 and all we got was a black screen. This is likely because Windows 8 on the keyboard dock has gone to sleep, and the software switch wasn’t able to wake up the system.

But of course, this isn’t a huge problem because the Trio isn’t all about switching between operating systems on the fly. Like we mentioned before, the keyboard dock has all the components needed to run like an Ultrabook.

And herein lies the Transformer Book Trio’s third and most useful transformation. Hook the keyboard dock (also called the PC Station) up to a monitor or TV, and you’ll have yourself a fully working Windows 8 desktop PC. So instead of having a traditional keyboard dock that’s useless by itself while you’re using the Trio’s Android tablet to stream some entertainment, you’ll be able to continue doing your work that you started when the machine was in Ultrabook mode on a larger screen. If you're a family person, the usage propositions increase as you've a spare system for someone else to use or pass on the Android tablet to your kid to have some fun. There's no end to the flexibility afforded by the Transformer Book as long you've no private information that's stored on it or you've managed that bit with proper restrictions such as with the use of guest accounts or by other means.

Also take note that both the dock and display come with their own speakers. The speakers on the dock are fairly loud; audio is clear and adequate enough for personal consumption of music and movies. However despite the Bang & Olufsen ICEPower branded audio system, we didn’t think that the speakers offered anything better than what other Ultrabooks are capable of.

Design Details

Looks-wise, there’s nothing users haven’t seen before. The Trio is completely encased in aluminum, like most of ASUS’ more premium products. And since it’s from ASUS’ Transformer line of products, the Trio has a brushed aluminum look, instead of the usual circular swirl that you’d find on the Zenbook line of Ultrabooks.

Besides looking good, the rigid aluminum build makes the Trio tough and durable (compared to cheaper polycarbonate builds). There were no creaks or flex to be found anywhere on the machine, which is a strong sign of good fit. In another sense, because of all these factors, the Transformer Book Trio can endure a fair amount of 'abuse' resulting from consistent daily use.

The excellent build quality of the machine also extends to the interior of the notebook. The keyboard has rigid keys that are comfortable to type on, but are a little on the wobbly side. It also has a big and sensitive glass trackpad that's excellent for navigating with.

Since in its combined form, it’s actually two devices, the Trio also weighs like two separate devices. Together, the 0.7kg Android tablet display and 1kg PC Station weighs a pretty hefty 1.7kg compared to other notebooks (like the 1.4kg Lenovo Yoga 11S) that are similar in size.

Even when compared to other premium Ultrabooks which usually weigh around 1.3kg, the Trio is still heavier. Having said that, we’d like to remind readers that it is an amalgamation of two devices, and should be taken as such. It’s more like having a 700-gram 11.6-inch Android tablet, and a 1kg portable PC.

Unfortunately, 0.7kg for an Android tablet is a little on the heavy side, even when considering the screen is substantially larger than usual 10-inch tablets. The problem with having such a heavy display is that it takes quite a toll on the machine's connective mechanism. It's strong enough to hold the display in place so that when you prod the display it won't wobble. However, there is some leeway that allows the the display to move slightly forward.

This means that if you were holding the device up, it will wobble even when you shake it gently. While this isn't a build flaw on ASUS' part as the display won’t detach even if you shake it vigorously, we felt that more could have been done to ensure the display is connected firmly to the dock.

Android Tablet Display

The display of the Trio is essentially an 11.6-inch Android tablet that runs a dual-core Intel Atom Z2560 processor. Judging from its component list, it’s likely positioned as a mid-range Android tablet.

While its full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) IPS display is acceptable on a Windows 8 Ultrabook, it pales in comparison to some of today’s latest flagship tablets like the ASUS Transformer Pad TF701T (2560 x 1600 pixels), Apple iPad Air (2048 x 1536 pixels), or Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014) (2560 x 1600), which have much higher resolution displays. Having said that, it's not much of a loss on an Android platform where there aren't many tablet optimized apps, let alone those that are made for those beyond full HD resolutions screens.

Fortunately, the Trio’s Android tablet display has a build quality that’s usually reserved for much more premium products. It feels solid, very much like the Transformer Pad TF701T, but since the Trio's tablet has a bigger screen, its overall dimensions have also increased somewhat.

It’s 0.8mm thicker than the 8.9mm thick TF701T, as such the Trio's tablet portion has a 9.7mm thick profile. Compared against the new Apple iPad Air, the Trio’s Android tablet display is a full 2.2mm thicker. At the same time, don't forget that the build, finish and screen size are completely different on both products.

As for the Android operating system (Android 4.2 Jelly Bean) itself, it’s almost the same as the version running on the TF701T. It uses the same ASUS made skin over Android, as well as a few extra apps (like ASUS Webstorage and ASUS SuperNote 3.1) from ASUS. While the apps could be useful, we felt that -- like the ASUS skin that comes with the device -- they won’t be missed if they’re not present. However, users who aren’t particular about how their Android OS looks like, this should't matter much.

Performance Benchmarks: Ultrabook

The Trio’s concept is pretty interesting, and users can get plenty of use out of this device. Unfortunately, it has a handicap. Instead of an SSD that most premium Ultrabooks have, or even a hydrid drive with an SSD cache, the Intel Core i7 equipped Trio only has a regular mechanical hard drive that has much slower read/write speeds compared to SSDs. 

The reason for this choice is likely to give users more storage, since the keyboard’s additional storage can be accessed by the Android tablet as well. However, we felt that this took away the Trio’s versatility advantage, as it won’t be as fast as Ultrabooks with SSDs. The ideal go-between should have been to employ a hybird hard drive, but it's obvious that ASUS is looking at cost as well. Here's the full specifications list of the machine to get a better understanding of where it stands:-

To give you an understanding of how much of a performance hit the machine takes without an SSD and only 4GB of RAM, we compare scores obtained from premium Ultrabooks which have the same Core i7 processor, but with 8GB of RAM and SSDs.

The premium Ultrabooks we’ve selected to pit the Trio against are the Acer Aspire S7, Toshiba Portege Z30 and the Sony Vaio Pro 13, which have very similar specifications to the ASUS Transformer Book Trio.

 

PCMark 8

PCMark 8 is a benchmark that puts the machine through real world usage scenarios like browsing, multimedia encoding and graphics editing, as well as casual gaming, and give it a score based on how well it performs on these tasks.

PCMark 8’s Home benchmark basically puts the machine through all of these tasks, and is a good indicator of the machine’s general performance. Interestingly enough, the Trio managed to outperform the Sony Vaio Pro 13 in this benchmark, despite its lack of SSD, and is just 16% behind the better performing Acer Aspire S7. This is because the Sony Vaio Pro 13’s performance is hindered by its very thin form factor, which doesn’t offer adequate cooling to allow the machine’s CPU and GPU to reach its maximum potential.

Surprisingly, the Trio managed its decent showing in the Creative and Work scenarios as well. Only when it came to the pure storage workload, the Trio couldn't keep up with the better endowed counterparts.

3DMark 2013 & Far Cry 2

The ASUS Transformer Book Trio has the same Intel Core i7 processor as the other Ultrabooks, which means it also has the same 1.1GHz Intel HD Graphics 4400 onboard GPU. On paper, their scores are expected to be the same, but of course, there are factors like a notebook’ design that can affect the thermals generated by the machine that affects the level of CPU and graphics performance boost available. In the worst case scenario, the CPU would have to throttle back and this would affect performance further.

In 3DMark 2013, the Trio managed a score that’s almost identical to the score of the Acer Aspire S7 and outranked Toshiba and Sony. Again, the Sony’s slim form factor affected the machine’s CPU and GPU from reaching its full potential. In fact, we had better scores from a Core i5 model of the same Sony notebook.

In the old, but demanding Far Cry 2 benchmark, the scores from the ASUS notebook were among the best by a fairly large margin, and is better than the next best Acer machine by about 10%. So while the Trio isn't built for gaming purposes, it can get by with older games perfectly fine as seen here. Apart from this, the other takeaway from the above tests is that the Trio is able to keep up with premium Ultrabooks in terms of general day-to-day use perfectly fine without an SSD drive.

Battery Life and Portability Index

The Trio might be two devices, but for this portion of the test we tested the Ultrabook portion that's built in the keyboard base and it 33WH battery. The Trio only managed to run for about three hours and 36 minutes due to the small battery capacity.

As far as Ultrabook’s go, this number is pretty average. The machine that performs the best in this area is the Toshiba Portege Z30. It managed to cross the five hour mark by a large margin, and is great for users who need their notebooks to have long battery lives.

However, looking at the Trio’s power consumption, you can tell that it’s actually quite power efficient. In terms of computing performance and battery life, the Trio does manage to balance the two fairly well.

Unfortunately, due to its hefty weight, the Trio suffers somewhat in terms of its portability ratio. However, bear in mind that the Trio is actually two standalone devices combined together, so we wouldn’t put too much emphasis squarely on its portability ratio when it comes to the device’s actual portability.

Performance and Benchmarks: Tablet

The Android tablet display of the Trio is meant to be a companion device that offers additional functionality, and comes with a dual-core Intel Atom Z2560 processor. To give you a gauge on how it performs compared to other recently launched flagship tablets, we've chosen an Android tablet from ASUS, the ASUS Transformer Pad TF701T, the Apple iPad Air, and the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition).

These tablets come with the conventional ARM processors that are prevalent on smartphones and tablets alike. Their popularity lies in the ARM processor's ability to deliver the processing power, while just sipping on the battery. The Intel Atom processor is supposed to match the ARM's level of processing throughput and battery life efficiency.

Quadrant, 3DMark, Sunspider Javascript

The recent slew of Atom processors for mobile devices was supposed to be Intel’s glorious entry to usurp ARM for a piece of the mobile computing space. Unfortunately, as you can see from the machine’s various computing and gaming scores, the dual-core Intel Z2560 processor on the Trio’s Android tablet display is not quite as good as what Intel would want to have you believe. There are however two points to take note. Firstly, we're comparing Intel's main attempt to ARM's several top-tier variants in the market from Qualcomm and NVIDIA. Secondly, benchmarking tools aren't yet optimized for Intel's offering and the processing architecture differs from that used on ARM based chips. These two aspects combined would throw off Intel's results in these tests until there are more appropriate benchmarks.

The closest and most telling of them is the SunSpider JS test that's closest to real world use where it measures the browsing performance of a device. It not only takes into consideration the underlying hardware performance, but also assesses how optimized a particular platform is at delivering a high-speed web browsing experience. In his test, Intel's platform was more than 30% slower to complete the tasks as opposed to the next best performing model form Samsung using the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor. Then there's the NVIDIA Tegra 4 on the ASUS Transformer Pad TF701T which is twice as fast as the tablet in Transformer Book Trio.

So is the Intel Atom Z2560 processor slow and unsuitable for mobility products? Not really. In fact, it's performance is acceptable.

Earlier on page two of our review, you would recollect that we mentioned that the Trio is more of a mid-tier level tablet; it just so happens that the Trio has high-end tablet attributes like a full HD screen and a premium build that we pit it against better class of products, which are also better in-line in terms of physical size. If you were to compare the above performance figures with tablets of its similar caliber such as the Lenovo Yoga Tablet 8, Lenovo Yoga Tablet 10, Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 (8.0) and the Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0, you would soon see that the Intel Atom Z2560 is just as capable, or even better than some of these mid-range tablets.

Battery Life and Portability Index

Oddly, the Transformer Book's Trio tablet had rather poor batter life. We can't blame the Intel processor as the following power consumption chart clearly portrays that its one of the better ranked ones. In fact, power efficiency is good considering the large screen size. Lenovo's less accomplished Yoga Tablet 10 (we've linked the Yoga Tablet 8 review but it has the necessary comparison figures), although cheap, it has an even higher power consumption than the 11.6-inch Trio Android tablet. Clearly the battery capacity packed within the Trio isn't adequate for the tablet to truly match up to stand-alone tablet-only products.

The Trio is only equipped with a 19WH battery, much less than the 30 to 33WH battery charge of most 10-inch tablets. Consider the Trio's larger screen and you can see that it's woefully inadequate. Only the Sony Xperia Z tablet ranked as low in battery life, but it was designed to be the slimmest tablet in the market with an extremely light 495g weight. The Trio's tablet is 700g.

No thanks to its dismal battery life, large dimensions and hefty weight, the Trio’s Android tablet display only managed a portability ratio of 0.43, which is almost 10 times worse than the Apple iPad Air. The tablet's large size is no excuse for it to perform so badly; if anything, having a larger body should give ASUS more space to accommodate a higher capacity battery. As seen in the power consumption chart above, the rate at which it consumes power is rather decent for its screen size and its only lacking a decent battery capacity.

Good Effort, But Not the Best of Both Worlds

The ASUS Transformer Book Trio is an interesting hybrid notebook that continues the traditions of its "Transformer" series of products such as the ASUS Transformer AIO desktop machine. Following its established concept of sandwiching two different devices within a single product, ASUS launched the Transformer Book Trio which we've reviewed today. To many consumers, this might seem like a first of its kind, but in fact similar products have debuted in the past. However, given the marketing power and the consistency in product lineup from ASUS, we bet the Transformer Book Trio would have a high brand recall among consumers.

Historically speaking, products such as this with extra functionality and capabilities tend to draw a much higher premium, but ASUS has surprisingly priced the Transformer Book Trio rather reasonably from S$1,698 which nabs you an Intel Core i5 variant while S$1,998 gets you a Core i7 version that we've reviewed. Is there a catch to this offer?

Its standard compute and graphics performance as an notebook were great, and its HDD provides users with plenty of storage space. However the storage drive is the notebook's Achilles' heel. Without using a SSD unit, the Trio can get quite painful at times as response and loading times are much slower than regular Ultrabooks; this in turn affects the Trio’s OS switching function's usability. At its price point, we believe ASUS should have at the very least considered having a SSHD or hybrid drive to provide the best mix of capacity and speed without too much of an impact of the unit's cost.

Of course, users can easily swap out the machine’s HDD for an SSD to improve the machine’s performance. But take note that doing so would void your warranty, so unless you are a techie, we would not suggest this option. The other thing is added cost to your total system price, which is not cool.

Furthermore, the Android tablet’s performance wasn’t as good as some of the latest flagship tablets in the market. Which means that while you’re getting two machines for the price of one, they’re both not the best of what ASUS has to offer, and are mid-tier at best as we've found out.

We’re also not overly fond of the machine’s 23.3mm thickness (tablet - 9.7mm, dock - 13.4mm) either, but it’s understandable that it needs to be this size due to the keyboard dock being a full-fledged PC by itself.

In the end, the ASUS Transformer Book Trio is maintaining a fine balance between functions, performance and capabilities of an Ultrabook and tablet as best as it can without overly inflating the price or physical attributes. For example, assessing the notebook aspect only, we mentioned that the battery life is acceptable but it could be better. However, if it were to boost the notebook's battery capacity, it might increase the weight of the keyboard dock, thus further increasing the overall combined weight ever closer to 2kg - a weight point for a slim 14-inch notebook. The same can be said of the tablet's inadequate battery life too that might have similar consequences if ASUS were to improve on it. At this point of time, we feel that some compromises might have to be accepted for its class.

If you’re the only user of this device, and are put off by its overall weight and chunkiness, you might want to wait till ASUS perfects this form factor in the near future with the next generation platform update. There is however no guarantee that there's a Trio 2 in the works at the time of publishing. However, if you think that the Trio’s triple use scenario is exactly what you need, and aren’t nitpicking to have the best attributes of both a standalone notebook and tablet, you won’t go wrong with the Transformer Book Trio. The machine’s build quality is top-notch, while the Android tablet and PC Station’s components are good enough to last you for at least a couple of years before becoming obsolete.

For better utilization of your cash, we would recommend opting for the Intel Core i5 version over the i7 model, and use the excess cash to swap out the machine’s HDD for an SSHD drive or a combo SSD and HDD dual drive unit like the Western Digital Black 2. Both drive options can give you the best of both worlds and improve the notebook's overall responsiveness and usability to a certain degree.

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