Asus Tablet 600, Tablet 810, and Transformer Book pictures and hands-on

Computex 2012: Up close and personal
The Tablet 600

Asus has embraced the Windows 8 tablet with force at this year's Computex in Taipei and Pocket-lint was on hand to enhale the Win8 tablet love with gusto.

At the top of the new range is the Transformer Book, with the Transformer Tablet 810 in the middle and the Transformer Tablet 600 being the underdog is some ways.

Asus Tablet 600

Starting with Transformer Tablet 600, we’re looking at a Windows RT tablet - or, as it were known until recently, Windows on ARM. This Nvidia Tegra 3-powered convertible sports 2GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage, as well as an 8-megapixel camera at the rear and a 2-megapixel unit at the front.

It also sports a micro HDMI port and a microSD card slot hidden away in the top left-hand side corner of the tablet part. Finally it comes with NFC support, which may or may not be useful, depending on where you live.

The design here is much nicer compared to its Intel-powered siblings, least not because the release switch for the keyboard dock is part of the tablet and when the two parts are docked, you can’t really see that they come apart.

It just looks and feels like a much more refined product than the other Transformer products that Asus announced which is quite strange, as it should be the most affordable one out of the lot.

Asus Tablet 810

The Transformer Tablet 810 isn’t very exciting in terms of hardware, as it will sport an unspecified Atom CPU and although Intel has started to do a better job with its Atom processors in terms of what you get for your money, the performance is still fairly mediocre.

The selling point in this case is support for a Wacom digitizer pen, ie, the 810 has very sophisticated stylus input compared to most tablets today and it could potentially be an interesting tool for certain niche markets.

As with the 610, the 800 sports NFC and 2GB of RAM, but it has twice the storage memory at 64GB.

Keep in mind that the 800 comes with the full fat version of Windows 8 rather than Windows RT as found on the 610, so the extra storage space is most likely needed.

The 800 sports a similar release mechanism to the 610 which is a move in the right direction, unlike the Transformer Book that uses the same release mechanism as the current Transformer products.

Asus Transformer Book

The Transformer Book is the product for those who want a more fully featured device. as it sports an Ultrabook processor. Asus showed off only the 11.6-inch model but the company said it will deliver 13 and 14-inch versions as well.

The design is similar the Asus Zenbooks and it has similar connectivity options, but we really struggle imaging using a 14-inch tablet on the sofa.

It’s pretty clear that Asus is targeting the Transformer Book towards the Zenbook buyer who is also considering a tablet, although we still have our doubts about Windows 8 as the perfect tablet OS/ And let’s not forget that small issue of battery life.

It’s generally a nice-looking product, but not our first choice out of everything Asus announced today.

Tags: Tablets Windows 8 Asus Asus Tablet 600 Asus Tablet 810 Asus Transformer Book Computex2012