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How would you change ASUS' Transformer Book TX300?
Dana Wollman is so well known as Engadget's in-house laptop expert that, during Q&A sessions on the Engadget Podcast, people would call her "Laptop Lady." Points off for not learning her name, but the honorific still stands to this day, and her opinion on all things portable is one of the most revered in the business. When we placed ASUS' Transformer Book TX300 on her desk (before running away to a safe distance), she found that there wasn't much point to owning one. For a start, a 13-inch slate-plus-keyboard combo isn't really better than a transforming laptop like the Yoga 13 or XPS 12. The lack of a Wacom digitizer means that pen input was a no-go and launching just before Haswell seemed like bad timing. Still, the question we'd like to put to you is simple: if you bought one, what would you change about it?
ASUS Transformer Book shows sudden sign of life: 13-inch Core i5 model coming to Japan this week
The Transformer Book's entry into the world has been hampered by a couple of things: high pre-order prices for the Core i7 version, plus a degree of forgetfulness with respect to actually coming to market. News out of Japan hints at both of those hold-ups being overcome, however, with a cheaper Core i5 version officially due to arrive this week with a 119,800 price tag (that's $1,280 in a currency conversion, though a US price would very likely be less.) The Windows 8 hybrid will be known as the "TransBook" in the streets and alleys of Tokyo and will include a 1080p 13.3-inch touchscreen display, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD and microSD expansion all housed in the 950 gram tablet. Hooking up to the keyboard dock will double that weight but provide an additional 500GB HDD, a full-sized SD card slot, two USB 3.0 ports, more video-out options and an extra hour of battery life (six hours instead of five). The Core i7 version will also be available in Japan by the end of March for around $350 extra, with similar basic credentials and the addition of MS Office. Assuming the Transformer Book ever moseys on over to our manor, we'll be sure to submit it to a review. In the meantime, you'll find full specs in the machine-translated PR after the break.%Gallery-156823%
