Asus Transformer Book Chi T100 review

The Asus Transformer Book T100 was one of the best-value and most attractive laptop/tablet hybrids we saw last year. However, things have moved on since then and Asus’ latest Transformer Book Chi T100 has introduced a string of new changes to try and help it keep up with the latest rivals, such as the Microsoft Surface 3. However, we feel not all the changes have been successful, and it’s these questionable updates that sadly unseat the new T100 from its throne.

The 10.1in Transformer Book Chi T100 uses the same basic design as the old model, with the tablet section of the device easily detachable from the keyboard base. However, although the old T100 connected to its keyboard through physical ports, the Chi dumps these connectors in favour of Bluetooth pairing.

At first, this seems like a sensible step. The keyboard base has a toggle switch that turns it on, off and into discoverable mode so you can pair it with other devices. The prongs that hook it into the tablet have no electronic components and are instead purely magnetic. This means the tablet portion is firmly connected to the keyboard base and can be detached by simply pulling the tablet away without any need for a release button.

This works well, but the lack of a physical connection is a strange feature that might cause annoyance. Most notably, the keyboard charges separately from the tablet, which means when it eventually runs low, you’ll need to use a Micro USB charger to ensure you can carry on using the device effectively. The second problem, which is admittedly more niche, is that if you’re stickler to in-flight safety rules on some airlines, you won’t be able to use the keyboard at all since it requires a Bluetooth connection at all times.

There are other design decisions that affect practicality, including the loss of the full-size USB connector on the keyboard base. Instead, your only USB host connection comes in the form of a USB3 Micro-B connector, and there’s no adaptor in the box. This means you’ll struggle to connect more than one wired peripheral to your Transformer Book Chi T100 at the same time. It’s a shame this connector has been removed as it only makes the new device slightly slimmer than the old one – 22mm compared to 24mm.

Aside from the impractical USB connector, you also get a 3.5mm headset jack, a Micro HDMI port and a microSD card slot, all on the tablet unit. All is not lost if you want to use a proper mouse with your tablet when you’re at a desk, but it’ll have to be a more expensive, battery-powered Bluetooth unit instead of a conventional wired mouse. If you want to get work done, though, the small keyboard feels a bit cheap and isn’t brilliant for long periods of typing.

The tablet weighs 571g by itself, making it lighter than the Surface 3, but the keyboard adds another 536g to the overall weight for a total over a kilogram. This makes the Transformer Book Chi feel pretty hefty by comparison when you’re carrying it around in your bag. Still, as a tablet, it’s perfectly usable, and the included Bluetooth stylus is a big help when it comes to precision tasks.

Practicality issues aside, the Transformer Book Chi has a decent screen for such a small and relatively inexpensive hybrid. You get a 10in 1,900×1,200-pixel display, which makes everything look very sharp, and its pixel density of 224 pixels per inch beats the Surface 3’s ppi of 213. However, it won’t do your eyes any good as smaller objects onscreen don’t scale particularly well in Windows 8.1. This shouldn’t be a problem if you’re using well-supported applications such as Google Chrome and Microsoft Office, but it might be a problem with software packages that don’t have well-optimised display scaling features.

While the resolution impresses, actual colour accuracy is only average, with the 69% sRGB gamut coverage, 742:1 contrast ratio and 0.34cd/m2 black level contributing to an adequate but not particularly punchy overall image. Viewing angles are wide, which is a relief as there’s very little hinge adjustment for the screen, meaning the display won’t always be at the perfect angle when you’re trying to get some work done.

Despite the £50 price increase, performance hasn’t increased significantly over the old model. We ran our old Windows application benchmarks to see if the Transformer Book Chi’s quad-core 1.46GHz Intel Atom Z3775 processor is much of a step up from the 1.3GHz chip in the 2013 model. It’s a modest improvement, scoring 27 overall where the old model scored 22. While the numbers look reasonable, actual day-to-day performance was a mixed bag. Often we found applications hanging, and web pages taking an age to load.

Battery life in our video playback benchmark was average for a Windows tablet at just under nine hours. Getting through a full day of media consumption or work on one charge is questionable, but the Micro USB power supply is light and compact so you should keep it with you at all times just in case.

You get 64GB of storage, of which around 40GB is free with a Windows 8.1 install – the same as on the entry-level Surface 3. This should be enough if you don’t have a huge photo or video collection, although you can expand the storage with a microSD card.

We’re a little underwhelmed by the Asus Transformer Book Chi T100. It’s not particularly light or compact, and it lacks the ports that would make it a legitimately useful laptop, which seems like a step backwards to us compared to the previous Transformer Book. Moreover, the basic model of the Microsoft Surface 3, which also has 64GB of storage, costs just £20 more and has a full-sized USB port, a better screen and a faster chipset. Admittedly, the Surface 3 doesn’t come with a keyboard (this will cost another £110 if you don’t already have a Bluetooth one), but is still a more useful and appealing Windows hybrid. If that’s not for you either then check out our Best Laptops and Best Tablets articles.