ASUS Transformer Book Trio Pro Reviews

The Asus Transformer Book Trio is an intriguing concept that weds an Android tablet and a Windows PC, but the ambitious 3-in-1 design falls short.

Great value hybrid with powerful hardware, excellent screen, but average battery life

Fusing an Android tablet with a Windows 8 Ultrabook is an impressive feat of engineering, but it's far from an ideal partnership

The Asus Transformer Book Trio attempts to combine Windows 8 and Android. Is this a match made inThe Trio is the result of three years of creative thinking and innovation from Asus, and in some ways it’s an excellent device. Transitioning from Android to Windows is easy, and the hardware paired with each OS is quick enough to provide an enjoyable experience. Yet there are significant problems. The skittish, unreliable touchpad is the biggest among them, and it can make using Windows a real chore. Weight and thickness are too plentiful for a system of this size. The Android experience, though okay, is not as fast or comfortable as what you’d get from a normal 10-inch tablet. These issues are compounded by the Trio’s $1,499 as-tested MSRP. All of this means that the Trio is a device we respect more than we like. Asus deserves applause for painlessly pairing Android with Windows, and the company’s experience designing 2-in-1s pays off with a system that, in notebook form, feels barely different from a normal laptop. But the system’s flaws mean that as much as we admire the Trio, it’s tough to recommend it.

As a versatile piece of hardware, the Asus Transformer Book Trio is impressively well designed. Asus has crafted an attractive device that runs both Windows for (mostly) productivity and Android for media consumption and apps. And the two operating systems play pretty well side by side. But the device is also relatively heavy, and its battery life is disappointing, especially for the tablet alone. And the Trio is pricey considering its limitations—no solid-state storage on the Windows side, no keyboard backlighting, a tiny and lackluster touch pad, and an outdated CPU for the Android tablet. If Asus updated the Trio with an SSD in the base and a Bay Trail chip in the tablet, it could very well be one of the best convertibles we've seen, especially for those interested in both Android and Windows.

Before you go out thinking that this is the dream setup, you’ll want to know its pricing first. Considering that this is stuffed with hardware that’s akin to some high-end laptops, its price reflects that to the teeth, as the Asus Transformer Book Trio retails normally for around $1,500 right now. Yikes! That’s one steep cost, even though it’s a hybrid device running both Android and Windows. It’s a power house for sure, but at that cost, it’s going to be difficult convincing consumers. Power users, though, will especially drool over the flexibility of running two operating systems, but sheesh, you can still probably pick up separately an Android tablet and Windows 8.1 laptop for cheaper.