Friday, June 8, 2012

Asus tablets I am actually excited about

As some of you probably know, I am not a fan of those tablets like the iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. However, I have seen at least 2 tablets announced at Computex this year. Both of which are from Asus. The one which I am most excited about is this one:


Asus 810 (photo from Anandtech)

This is the Asus 810 tablet. It's a new tablet developed by Asus. It's similar to their transformer tablets with their detachable keyboard. The tablet features a 11.6" Super IPS+ display with a resolution of 1366x768, 2GB of RAM, a 64GB SSD, 8MP rear and 2MP front facing camera, NFC and a dual core Atom processor called "Clovertrail" (basically a Medfield processor but with maybe slightly higher clocks) . The tablet is 8.7mm thin (for comparison, the iPad gen 3 is 9.5mm) but the weight is, as far as I know, unknown.
The tablet has all the usually stuff like GPS, WiFi, gyro but it also has a Wacom dual digitizer, which means that you can use your finger with it, but also a stylus from Wacom (not sure if it is pressure sensitive).
Another interesting thing is that since the tablet uses an x86 processor, and uses a SoC very similar to what is used in some Android phones, we might be able to dual boot Android on it.
It looks really nice, but the drawback I see is that SoC. I am not sure I'll enjoy using an Atom processor on a laptop which will probably cost ~500 USD (which will probably be more like 700 USD when it ends up in Sweden). 

It would be nice with a more powerful processor, which is where the next tablet comes in.

Asus 11.6" Taichi (photo from The Verge)

This is another tablet/laptop hybrid but unlike the 810, this one has an Ivy Bridge i7 processor, 4GB of RAM, an SSD (presumably 64 or 128GB), 5MP rear camera, HD front facing camera, lots of stuff like gyro, GPS, USB 3.0 ports and stuff like that.
Something very unique about this, which I think is a drawback, is that it has 2 screens. One on the front like a normal laptop, but also one at the back (as you can see in the picture). The one on the back is touch sensitive and supports up to 10 finger multitouch. Something nice about those screens is that both of them are IPS screens with resolution of 1920x1080 (yes, both of them have that resolution). The screen is permanently attached to the laptop/tablet, most likely because the actual guys are in the base. There will be two versions. With 13.3" screens, and one with 11.6" screens.
The drawback is that the price will most likely be insanely high. It "transforms" into a tablet when you close the lid, and it seems like it's thin enough to still not feel clunky, because the screen is very thin.

Here is a video demonstrating the Asus Taichi: ASUS Taichi dual screen Windows 8 notebook - Computex 2012


Asus Transformer Book (photo from Engadget)


Asus actually announced something called the "Asus Transformer books" line which are pretty much beefed up versions of the Asus 810 I talked about earlier. 11.6", 13" or 14" screens (depending on the model) with i7 Ivy Bridge processors, 4GBs of RAM, SSD or HDD storage (depending on model) as well as discrete graphics (in the dock). 5MP camera at the back, some unknown webcam at the front as well as a touch screen with a resolution of 1920x1080 (not sure if all models will have this resolution). It also has two batteries just like for example the Transformer Prime has.
With a bit of luck, it won't be that much more expensive than other Ultrabooks. This is by far the most appealing tablet I have ever seen.

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