Asus Taichi review

Unsurprisingly, the thin chassis means there’s no optical drive, but the Taichi does come with two USB3 ports, a micro HDMI port, an audio jack with adjacent volume control, and what Asus calls a mini VGA port, which you can use to connect to a VGA display with the supplied adaptor. There’s no Ethernet port, but a USB to 10/100 Ethernet adaptor is in the box.

For graphics, the Taichi uses the processor’s integrated Intel Graphics 4000 chipset. This is no gaming chipset, as shown by a stuttering 15.8fps average in our Dirt Showdown test. This makes it less than ideal for gaming, but the graphics are still perfectly good for watching video in HD.

Integrated graphics often bode well for good battery life, but the Taichi only lasted for 5 hours and 13 minutes in our battery test. This is below average – we expect at least six hours from an ultra-portable laptop these days.

The Taichi’s two screens have some sensible features. The inner screen has a matt finish so won’t suffer too much from overhead reflections if you need to work out and about; the keyboard is also backlit so you can work in the dark too. The outer tablet-style screen is a glossy model which gives colours more punch so is better for watching films and playing games.

Our main complaint is the lack of an interior touchscreen. During our test period we repeatedly reached over the keyboard to tap an inviting big tile on the Windows Start screen, only to find that nothing happened and we had to reach for the touchpad. You’ll probably get used to it with time, but we bet you’ll still pine for a touchscreen on both sides.

Both displays also have super-sharp 1080p resolutions, which is plenty of pixels across an 11.6in screen. We did have problems with screen brightness though, with both screens often appearing too dark. Turning off the automatic brightness control fixed this, but left us to set our own levels manually – something we don’t expect to do on a tablet. We can’t be sure if the Taichi’s light sensor is to blame (or was even faulty in our review unit) or whether the problem lies with Windows 8, but we’re looking into it now. Brightness aside they looked pretty impressive with vibrant colours and wide viewing angles.

It’s cleverly designed, and its specifications are impressive, but the Taichi doesn’t quite deliver for us – its battery life is a small let for starters. More importantly, while the two screens are an interesting idea, we’d rather have a single touchscreen with a pivot (such as on the Lenovo Yoga). You may not get the niche bonus of two displays, such as giving ad-hoc presentations, but at least you’ll always have a touchscreen to hand. In this respect the Taichi feels like a compromise and at this price it’s simply not good enough.

To put it in perspective, you could buy one of Asus’s own VivoBook S200E touchscreen laptops, plus a Microsoft Surface tablet, and still have £400 to spare. The Taichi is a nice laptop, but it’s not nice enough to justify its price.