So very close to perfect for the price category. Plenty close enough that I am considering getting one even through I already have a first generation 64GB T100 that works great. The fact that the first T100 charges from standard USB port is one of the best features in practice because everywhere has USB ports/chargers now. All it needs to make it perfect for the price is if they put a second type-c port on the other side so you can charge from either side. That way instead of having a cable wrap around the device when you have to charge at the same time you use it, you could always have it on the correct side no matter where you sit relative to your charger.
chord kôrd/ noun 1. a group of (typically three or more) notes sounded together, as a basis of harmony.
What an unhelpful comment. I personally agree with Thrawn. As we start moving into the USB-C charging era, it would be great to be able to charge devices from either side. It's not so much a matter of "wah my cord isn't long enough" as not putting undue stress on ports, connectors and cables. Also, you don't really want the charging cable in the same side that you might use a mouse, and there are both right and left handed people in the world…
I'm going to consider that. The chord that chomes with the T100TA by default is barely over a metre long, making it a pain in the arse to charge sometimes. It's just a USB-to-micro-USB.
Considering the T100 Chi and the older T100, it would be nice if they offered a model with a 1200p display and the x7 cherry trail processor in the $399 price range. If they can do 800p and x5 for $299, I'd imagine a nicer panel and nicer processor wouldn't cost Asus $100 in BOM. Till then, no thank you.
I think it's a great machine for the money, but I also agree that it would be nice to have a step up as you suggest (x7, 128GB, 1200p screen) for an additional $100 and then even a Core-M, 256GB, 8GB RAM, 1440p screen for another $100-$200 on top of that.
If that's what you want, Lenovo's got you covered with the Yoga 3 11" for the exact specs you mentioned. They also are running a discount to match the price you want as well.
Oh, I agree. I think it is great value for the money. Just personally having the original T100, a downgrade in screen resolution (might be better or worse quality, but I have no serious complaints about the 768p display on my T100), I realize it is 16:10, but 1280x800 is slightly lower density than 1366x768 16:9. The x5 also isn't a MASSIVE jump in CPU performance over the z3740 in my T100 (a fair jump), though the GPU performance jump should be very substantial. The 4GB of storage is nice. The longer battery life is also nice. I'll certainly take a look at it, but more of a "hmmm, maybe if the price drops to $250 in a few months if there isn't a higher end option available".
It would also be nice to try it out to see the screen quality, the pixel density change isn't much (10% less) and the other improved bits would be nice. Reading a more detailed hands on review of the new model, it looks like the panel quality itself is pretty good with 83% sRGB coverage, great viewing angles and good color calibration (a bit cool) from the factory, which I think beats what is in my T100 some (IIRC in the 70's range on sRGB coverage, though viewing angles are excellent).
One of my concerns though is that review also mentioned an 802.11n Broadcom Wifi solution. The 802.11n Broadcom SDIO adapter in my current T100 sucks horribly. I half expect it is the same adapter and even if not, it is a 1:1 11n adapter. Those need to die horribly. A minimum for a current tablet, even a budget one, should be a 1:1 802.11ac adapter and 2:2 would be better.
So I am interested and the price is very good, but just seems like too many compromises and I would much rather pay $100 more for the step up processor, a step up screen and a step up on the Wifi.
I have an AMD E350 (Llano). Understandably, there's no comparison between current CPUs and a 6 years-old CPU in terms of efficiency, but it would really be useful for who is thinking of upgrading, to have a reference with "old" CPUs, to see where do the new ones stand. The E350 is not fast, by any means, but is it a 4W modern CPU better performing than an old 18W one. Possibly (also because of other improvements), still, I would be curious to know ...
I have no benchmarks to support this but my anecdotal experience is that my first generation T100 with eMMC and my e450 based HTPC with a low end SATA SSD are extremely similar in performance. It really surprised me because of the wattage drop over the years but that fits with Intel's manufacturing advantage.
The performance is roughly on par. Silvermont / Airmont gain a significant advantage if they get all 4 cores and turbo up to 2.4 or 2.6 GHz, like on the older 10 W Silvermont models. But Airmont seems to top out at 2.2 GHz in favor of lower power.
That x5-Z8500 has just 2 W to work with (less than high end phones!) and won't be faster than your E350. Just consuming far less power.
Mmmm. I have an HP DM1Z with the E350. Not the speediest of the bunch, but it got the job done. My issue is that some HD videos don't play smoothly. It would be nice to do a noticeable jump in performance. Energy efficiency is nice, but I prefer another 18W part with 2X performance, and it is impossible to find at a decent price, in a 11.6" form factor.
Anemic processors, battery life not even that impressive. Convertibles (and tablets) are overpriced garbage imo :) I'm not even sure it's fast enough for decent web browsing and all. Maybe am wrong though.
So that means you haven't used a Bay Trail or Cherry Trail based machine before then. Yes, plenty fine for decent web browsing. My T100 with a Bay Trail in it certainly is. About the only times I notice it is a tablet chip and not something more powerful is when doing very computationally intensive tasks. It'll run older games just fine. Web browsing is just fine. Crap, it'll run Kerbal Space Program at lower settings and >5hrs of battery life. I get regularly 11-12hrs on its "10hrs of battery", so I'd half guess that the "12hrs" of battery on the new T100 here is probably more like 13-14hrs if you keep the screen brightness at reasonable levels doing something like watching movies.
That is a heck of a lot longer than most laptops currently, and way beyond most phones. Better than most other tablets too, though not all.
I don't see how $299 is overpriced garbage. Explain to me how that is expensive? I'd rather the faster Cherry Trail processor and a 1200p screen even if it ran $399, but that is still massively below an iPad Air 2. Those things run $499 with 16GB of storage, this T100 would have around 38GB of storage with a clean install of Windows 10 (that iPad is more like 12GB clean), has a dock that comes with it, a lot more ports and tips the scales at 60% of the price. The iPad Air 2 sure has some other perks over the new T100 here, but "overpriced" is not something this T100 has.
I have a Toshiba Click Mini with Baytrail 3735, 2GB ram, 32GB eMMC. Works plenty fast enough, streams netflix nicely and the S-IPS 1920x1200 display is pretty good. Very good device for the price.
I had the Bay Trail model and it wasn't bad. I ended up returning it to go for a Zenbook UX303LN instead ( I know a big price jump but quality over price) . The issues I found with the previous model was that two different models i bought and returned, had stuck pixels on day 1, the screen didn't get very bright, EMMC is ssslllooowww but otherwise, the processor is actually pretty decent. Atom has finally gotten pretty cool. You won't be gaming on it but it can run other tasks quit smoothly. This chipset with a small SSD and a 1080P screen would actually hit a nice spot but since they are always aimed to cheap devices, isn't common. In retrospect, I guess the new Surface 3 pretty much hits those specs though...
Problem with the Surface 3 is it is extremely expensive, even for what you get and the eMMC in it is painfully slow even compared to most other eMMC on the market. Include the type cover with the base price and at least double up on the eMMC performance and MS would have my interest, but for the 4GB of RAM version and type cover it tips the scales at over $700...that is just too much to me for a convertible or tablet. $600 might be steep, but I'd at least consider it. $500 to me is the sweet spot.
I'm a proud owner of the Surface 3, and while I do love it and use it more often than my actual laptop now, I do agree that its two weaknesses are the eMMC NAND and the steep price. I personally went in for the keyboard, and I also bought the Surface Pen, but I ended up not using the Pen as much as I thought I would, so I definitely wasted some money there. The NAND speed definitely leaves a lot to be desired as I'm used to full fledged SSDs and even a normal HDD in this day and age flies faster than the eMMC solution used in the Surface.
In the end though, it was a big step up from the Acer Iconia W4 (Bay Trail) that I had. Other than the NAND, I do feel it was worth the money that I spent. It has a great screen, more than good enough performance for day to day tasks, and it lasts forever on a single charge. Of course, paying less would have been desirable, but right now, the quality of the Surface 3 can't be beat by these other Cherry Trail 2-in-1s that OEMs are now putting out. Granted, the OEMs are aiming at a much lower price point, but with that, there are obvious sacrifices: ASUS's new T100HA, for example, with 64 GB storage only, 1280x800 instead of the 1920x1280 of the Surface 3, and using the slightly weaker Atom x5 instead of the x7. For the Surface 3, if I could pay $50 more for a full blown 128 GB SSD like in the Surface Pro 3 and Core M tablets that popped up earlier this year, I would jump on that right away, but I wasn't going to spend $200 more for a Surface Pro when the only thing missing was faster storage. I was actually really close to picking a Dell Venue 11 Pro 7140 (Core M), but the price difference for a device I wasn't really going to be using for power hungry tasks was not worth it. And here I am with my Surface 3. Probably not the best choice, but it was definitely one that I'm satisfied with.
I keep waiting for Asus to come out with a premium Cherry Trail 2-in-1. I almost wonder if it is seemingly delayed because they released the T100 Chi, the premium bay trail 2-in-1 rather late, in May I think was it's first actual availability. I'd really like to see what they can do with Cherry Trail in it (and preferably 802.11ac finally). The T100 Chi is a rather nice step up from the T100 in most ways. The T100 eMMC (originally T100) was pretty decent for eMMC and the T100 Chi's eMMC is easily twice as fast in most respects (well over 2x as fast as the Surface 3 in sequential write, about 3x as fast in random read and write and about 1.5x faster in sequential read speeds).
So if Asus could just take the T100 Chi, offer it with the X7 processor, 4GB of RAM and swap the micro USB3 port with a USB-c type port and 802.11ac wifi and call it a day, it would be pretty much perfect.
I own a T100TA-C1-GR and use it as my main laptop whenever I'm not at a workstation, for most work it's just fine. I wish there was a UK keyboard available though. Also I managed to crack the touchscreen (need to repair that), so the build quality on the screen part isn't perfect - there's a lot of flex if it gets any twisting force and you can crack it by chucking it in a bag too carelessly.
...but the ~8 hour battery life, tiny 10" size and touchscreen is amazing for $299. The other disadvantage to watch out for is that mouse trackpad doesn't have separated buttons. There are clickable areas but they rely on bending the whole plastic surface, which feels odd. So you should be happy with using the touchscreen or trackpad tapping to use this. I see the new model still has the clickable areas part of the plastic pad and not separate unfortunately.
4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of flash is a good step in the right direction. The screen could use a better resolution, especially since the competition (Acer, Lenovo, etc) can bring 1920x1200 IPS to the table.
I have an Acer Switch 10, last generation (manufactured in jan. 2015) with Z3735F, 2 GB RAM, 64 GB flash + 500 GB HDD in dock which has a great 1920x1200 IPS screen that costed about the same (if you don't add my 24% VAT). Also it came with a active Pen (Surface 3 style) which is very decent. The only downside of it is the cpu, although good enough for web surfing and Store games, but painfully slow if you want to unzip a 7z file or install a lot of Windows updates...
Surface 3 may be great, but the price is too high for a 10" with Atom, no matter the other specs.
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Thrawn - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
So very close to perfect for the price category. Plenty close enough that I am considering getting one even through I already have a first generation 64GB T100 that works great. The fact that the first T100 charges from standard USB port is one of the best features in practice because everywhere has USB ports/chargers now.All it needs to make it perfect for the price is if they put a second type-c port on the other side so you can charge from either side. That way instead of having a cable wrap around the device when you have to charge at the same time you use it, you could always have it on the correct side no matter where you sit relative to your charger.
Hrel - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Dude, buy a longer chord.[-Stash-] - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Dude, learn to spell.chord
kôrd/
noun
1.
a group of (typically three or more) notes sounded together, as a basis of harmony.
What an unhelpful comment. I personally agree with Thrawn. As we start moving into the USB-C charging era, it would be great to be able to charge devices from either side. It's not so much a matter of "wah my cord isn't long enough" as not putting undue stress on ports, connectors and cables. Also, you don't really want the charging cable in the same side that you might use a mouse, and there are both right and left handed people in the world…
fokka - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
absolutely agree.stephenbrooks - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
I'm going to consider that. The chord that chomes with the T100TA by default is barely over a metre long, making it a pain in the arse to charge sometimes. It's just a USB-to-micro-USB.azazel1024 - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Considering the T100 Chi and the older T100, it would be nice if they offered a model with a 1200p display and the x7 cherry trail processor in the $399 price range. If they can do 800p and x5 for $299, I'd imagine a nicer panel and nicer processor wouldn't cost Asus $100 in BOM. Till then, no thank you.[-Stash-] - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
I think it's a great machine for the money, but I also agree that it would be nice to have a step up as you suggest (x7, 128GB, 1200p screen) for an additional $100 and then even a Core-M, 256GB, 8GB RAM, 1440p screen for another $100-$200 on top of that.lilmoe - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
If that's what you want, Lenovo's got you covered with the Yoga 3 11" for the exact specs you mentioned. They also are running a discount to match the price you want as well.http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/yoga-l...
This isn't the point of these tablets. It's all about the ~$300 price range. For that, these device are quite good.
azazel1024 - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Oh, I agree. I think it is great value for the money. Just personally having the original T100, a downgrade in screen resolution (might be better or worse quality, but I have no serious complaints about the 768p display on my T100), I realize it is 16:10, but 1280x800 is slightly lower density than 1366x768 16:9. The x5 also isn't a MASSIVE jump in CPU performance over the z3740 in my T100 (a fair jump), though the GPU performance jump should be very substantial. The 4GB of storage is nice. The longer battery life is also nice. I'll certainly take a look at it, but more of a "hmmm, maybe if the price drops to $250 in a few months if there isn't a higher end option available".It would also be nice to try it out to see the screen quality, the pixel density change isn't much (10% less) and the other improved bits would be nice. Reading a more detailed hands on review of the new model, it looks like the panel quality itself is pretty good with 83% sRGB coverage, great viewing angles and good color calibration (a bit cool) from the factory, which I think beats what is in my T100 some (IIRC in the 70's range on sRGB coverage, though viewing angles are excellent).
One of my concerns though is that review also mentioned an 802.11n Broadcom Wifi solution. The 802.11n Broadcom SDIO adapter in my current T100 sucks horribly. I half expect it is the same adapter and even if not, it is a 1:1 11n adapter. Those need to die horribly. A minimum for a current tablet, even a budget one, should be a 1:1 802.11ac adapter and 2:2 would be better.
So I am interested and the price is very good, but just seems like too many compromises and I would much rather pay $100 more for the step up processor, a step up screen and a step up on the Wifi.
speculatrix - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
yes, even a 1080p display would be a great option.yankeeDDL - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
I have an AMD E350 (Llano). Understandably, there's no comparison between current CPUs and a 6 years-old CPU in terms of efficiency, but it would really be useful for who is thinking of upgrading, to have a reference with "old" CPUs, to see where do the new ones stand.The E350 is not fast, by any means, but is it a 4W modern CPU better performing than an old 18W one. Possibly (also because of other improvements), still, I would be curious to know ...
yankeeDDL - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
I meant Brazos ...Thrawn - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
I have no benchmarks to support this but my anecdotal experience is that my first generation T100 with eMMC and my e450 based HTPC with a low end SATA SSD are extremely similar in performance. It really surprised me because of the wattage drop over the years but that fits with Intel's manufacturing advantage.MrSpadge - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
The performance is roughly on par. Silvermont / Airmont gain a significant advantage if they get all 4 cores and turbo up to 2.4 or 2.6 GHz, like on the older 10 W Silvermont models. But Airmont seems to top out at 2.2 GHz in favor of lower power.That x5-Z8500 has just 2 W to work with (less than high end phones!) and won't be faster than your E350. Just consuming far less power.
yankeeDDL - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Mmmm. I have an HP DM1Z with the E350. Not the speediest of the bunch, but it got the job done. My issue is that some HD videos don't play smoothly.It would be nice to do a noticeable jump in performance. Energy efficiency is nice, but I prefer another 18W part with 2X performance, and it is impossible to find at a decent price, in a 11.6" form factor.
doggface - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
Probably because an 18w part would melt a hole in it/firebomb your desk/lap/couch. That or it would sound like an airplane engine.takeship - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Dual channel ram? Not much point in having 4gb if you'll be memory bottle-necked all day long regardless.digiguy - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
What a pity that the T200 cannot be split, it could have made a decent light-weight 11.6 inch tablet...kallogan - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Anemic processors, battery life not even that impressive. Convertibles (and tablets) are overpriced garbage imo :) I'm not even sure it's fast enough for decent web browsing and all. Maybe am wrong though.azazel1024 - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
So that means you haven't used a Bay Trail or Cherry Trail based machine before then. Yes, plenty fine for decent web browsing. My T100 with a Bay Trail in it certainly is. About the only times I notice it is a tablet chip and not something more powerful is when doing very computationally intensive tasks. It'll run older games just fine. Web browsing is just fine. Crap, it'll run Kerbal Space Program at lower settings and >5hrs of battery life. I get regularly 11-12hrs on its "10hrs of battery", so I'd half guess that the "12hrs" of battery on the new T100 here is probably more like 13-14hrs if you keep the screen brightness at reasonable levels doing something like watching movies.That is a heck of a lot longer than most laptops currently, and way beyond most phones. Better than most other tablets too, though not all.
I don't see how $299 is overpriced garbage. Explain to me how that is expensive? I'd rather the faster Cherry Trail processor and a 1200p screen even if it ran $399, but that is still massively below an iPad Air 2. Those things run $499 with 16GB of storage, this T100 would have around 38GB of storage with a clean install of Windows 10 (that iPad is more like 12GB clean), has a dock that comes with it, a lot more ports and tips the scales at 60% of the price. The iPad Air 2 sure has some other perks over the new T100 here, but "overpriced" is not something this T100 has.
vladx - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Dude, he's obviously a troll spreading FUD for newbies.speculatrix - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
I have a Toshiba Click Mini with Baytrail 3735, 2GB ram, 32GB eMMC. Works plenty fast enough, streams netflix nicely and the S-IPS 1920x1200 display is pretty good. Very good device for the price.vladx - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
What a trollketacdx - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
I had the Bay Trail model and it wasn't bad. I ended up returning it to go for a Zenbook UX303LN instead ( I know a big price jump but quality over price) . The issues I found with the previous model was that two different models i bought and returned, had stuck pixels on day 1, the screen didn't get very bright, EMMC is ssslllooowww but otherwise, the processor is actually pretty decent. Atom has finally gotten pretty cool. You won't be gaming on it but it can run other tasks quit smoothly. This chipset with a small SSD and a 1080P screen would actually hit a nice spot but since they are always aimed to cheap devices, isn't common. In retrospect, I guess the new Surface 3 pretty much hits those specs though...azazel1024 - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Problem with the Surface 3 is it is extremely expensive, even for what you get and the eMMC in it is painfully slow even compared to most other eMMC on the market. Include the type cover with the base price and at least double up on the eMMC performance and MS would have my interest, but for the 4GB of RAM version and type cover it tips the scales at over $700...that is just too much to me for a convertible or tablet. $600 might be steep, but I'd at least consider it. $500 to me is the sweet spot.metayoshi - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
I'm a proud owner of the Surface 3, and while I do love it and use it more often than my actual laptop now, I do agree that its two weaknesses are the eMMC NAND and the steep price. I personally went in for the keyboard, and I also bought the Surface Pen, but I ended up not using the Pen as much as I thought I would, so I definitely wasted some money there. The NAND speed definitely leaves a lot to be desired as I'm used to full fledged SSDs and even a normal HDD in this day and age flies faster than the eMMC solution used in the Surface.In the end though, it was a big step up from the Acer Iconia W4 (Bay Trail) that I had. Other than the NAND, I do feel it was worth the money that I spent. It has a great screen, more than good enough performance for day to day tasks, and it lasts forever on a single charge. Of course, paying less would have been desirable, but right now, the quality of the Surface 3 can't be beat by these other Cherry Trail 2-in-1s that OEMs are now putting out. Granted, the OEMs are aiming at a much lower price point, but with that, there are obvious sacrifices: ASUS's new T100HA, for example, with 64 GB storage only, 1280x800 instead of the 1920x1280 of the Surface 3, and using the slightly weaker Atom x5 instead of the x7. For the Surface 3, if I could pay $50 more for a full blown 128 GB SSD like in the Surface Pro 3 and Core M tablets that popped up earlier this year, I would jump on that right away, but I wasn't going to spend $200 more for a Surface Pro when the only thing missing was faster storage. I was actually really close to picking a Dell Venue 11 Pro 7140 (Core M), but the price difference for a device I wasn't really going to be using for power hungry tasks was not worth it. And here I am with my Surface 3. Probably not the best choice, but it was definitely one that I'm satisfied with.
azazel1024 - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
I keep waiting for Asus to come out with a premium Cherry Trail 2-in-1. I almost wonder if it is seemingly delayed because they released the T100 Chi, the premium bay trail 2-in-1 rather late, in May I think was it's first actual availability. I'd really like to see what they can do with Cherry Trail in it (and preferably 802.11ac finally). The T100 Chi is a rather nice step up from the T100 in most ways. The T100 eMMC (originally T100) was pretty decent for eMMC and the T100 Chi's eMMC is easily twice as fast in most respects (well over 2x as fast as the Surface 3 in sequential write, about 3x as fast in random read and write and about 1.5x faster in sequential read speeds).So if Asus could just take the T100 Chi, offer it with the X7 processor, 4GB of RAM and swap the micro USB3 port with a USB-c type port and 802.11ac wifi and call it a day, it would be pretty much perfect.
stephenbrooks - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
I own a T100TA-C1-GR and use it as my main laptop whenever I'm not at a workstation, for most work it's just fine. I wish there was a UK keyboard available though. Also I managed to crack the touchscreen (need to repair that), so the build quality on the screen part isn't perfect - there's a lot of flex if it gets any twisting force and you can crack it by chucking it in a bag too carelessly.stephenbrooks - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
...but the ~8 hour battery life, tiny 10" size and touchscreen is amazing for $299. The other disadvantage to watch out for is that mouse trackpad doesn't have separated buttons. There are clickable areas but they rely on bending the whole plastic surface, which feels odd. So you should be happy with using the touchscreen or trackpad tapping to use this. I see the new model still has the clickable areas part of the plastic pad and not separate unfortunately.zodiacfml - Wednesday, September 23, 2015 - link
finally,decent RAM on these types. unfortunately, i went to a traditional 15.6 just to get that i5-5200u for cheap.Mugur - Monday, September 28, 2015 - link
4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of flash is a good step in the right direction. The screen could use a better resolution, especially since the competition (Acer, Lenovo, etc) can bring 1920x1200 IPS to the table.I have an Acer Switch 10, last generation (manufactured in jan. 2015) with Z3735F, 2 GB RAM, 64 GB flash + 500 GB HDD in dock which has a great 1920x1200 IPS screen that costed about the same (if you don't add my 24% VAT). Also it came with a active Pen (Surface 3 style) which is very decent. The only downside of it is the cpu, although good enough for web surfing and Store games, but painfully slow if you want to unzip a 7z file or install a lot of Windows updates...
Surface 3 may be great, but the price is too high for a 10" with Atom, no matter the other specs.