Asus Transformer Book T300FA review – a fanless 2-in-1 with Core M-5Y10 hardware

25 Comments

  1. Fredy

    November 7, 2014 at 9:39 pm

    Thanks for the detail article. I’m a bit hoping that the T300FA will have full HD display as quoted by many sources such as
    tabletmonkeys.com/asus-transformer-book-t300fa-release-november/

    Its hard to justify it with the same screen resolution as the T200, especially the T300 last less hours per charge and gets warmer!

  2. kwvdc

    November 8, 2014 at 2:14 am

    1 ) backlit keyboard?

    2 ) active stylus?

    thanks !!!

  3. Ultrabook11

    November 8, 2014 at 10:28 pm

    Just a tiny correction: The ASUS T200TA uses Intel’s Bay Trail, not Clover Trail.

    “…the T200TA model that includes an Intel CloverTrail platform…”

    —————–

    I’m surprised the gaming performance was so low. I would have expected it to be a considerable improvement over Bay Trail. Could this be due to throttling and/or poor implementation? I still would like to see the ASUS T300 Chi’s performance, considering it was based on Intel’s first Llama Mountain reference design.

    • Andrei Girbea

      November 9, 2014 at 11:09 am

      BayTrail, you’re right. I don’t think it’s throttling badly. yes, the graphics to drop in frequency when dealing with games, but with Intel claiming GPU frequencies between 100 to 800 Mhz for the HD 5300, I can’t tell for sure what would be the “normal” high-load frequency. The T300 Chi is expected to ship in Q1 2015, from what I know right now

  4. Fredy

    November 10, 2014 at 2:31 pm

    Hi Andrei,

    Do you know if Asus has a variant of the T300FA with the 1080p/Full HD display? You mentioned about the T300FA got warm/hot after a while. Did you experience the same thing with the T200, or did the T200 stayed relatively cool compared to the T300FA? I tried to decide if I should wait for the T300FA or just go ahead with the T200 instead. Can you give us a side by side comparison pictures of both T200 and T300FA? I would like to see how much difference the screen size is. Otherwise, if you don’t mind, please let us know the exact measurement of the display (height and wide, only the screens).

    Last question, if you don’t mind (thanks in advance). When you need to undock the tablet, do you need to stop the harddrive first (from the lower right hand corner-Windows Eject Harddrive)?

    • Andrei Girbea

      November 10, 2014 at 5:51 pm

      I’m not aware of any FHD version of the T300FA, but I’ve seen some rumors mentioning it. I’m inclined to believe there won’t be one though, but we’ll see.

      The T200TA remains much cooler than the T300FA under load. I don’t have them both side by side, but I’ll see what I can do about. Might take at least a week though. The screens are 11.6 and 12.5, 16:9. You can find the exact height and width online, they are standard.

      That’s a good question. I haven’t stopped it first, but that might have some negative effects on the long term.

  5. Jackson

    November 10, 2014 at 2:48 pm

    Thank you for the detailed review.I also see your review on yoga 3 pro ,it seems that with a TDP at 4.5 the CPU can maintain around 1300Mhz-1400Mhz,but there isn’t a significant improvement over the Yoga 3 pro according to the benchmarks.I see the test of the reference design from Intel which got 2.6PTS on cinebench r11.5 with 5Y70 on a fanless device and I was confusing over the performance on OEM product.
    BTW,could you do some benchmarks on web browsing,like Sunspider or kraken,testing Java performance,cause it will be a common workload on a tablet.Thank you.

    • Andrei Girbea

      November 10, 2014 at 5:53 pm

      I don’t have any of the units here anymore, so can’t do any other tests. I’m now fairly convinced the Y3P I tested was substandard and performed poorer than it should (and I updated this section in the review). Final release models are reported to be faster, but still don’t match the reference design from what I saw. I haven’t got my hands on a final unit though, so can’t say for sure how it performs.

  6. Jack

    November 10, 2014 at 3:22 pm

    Thank you for the detailed review. BTW, could you do some benchmarks on web browsering,like sunspider or kraken?It will be a common workload on a tablet.
    Still,i’m confused over the Core m platform .Intel got 2.6pts on cinebench r11.5 on the reference tablet using 5y70 on IDF,and it was fanless too.The OEM’s product(yoga 3 pro and t300tf) is far away from that……what’s the problem?

    • Andrei Girbea

      November 10, 2014 at 5:54 pm

      Early immature drivers could be a problem, but it’s too soon to say that for sure. To be frank, I’m fairly disappointed myself and I’m waiting to test some other Core M devices before drawing conclusions.

  7. Bill

    November 23, 2014 at 2:24 am

    Hi Andrei,
    I am looking for a laptop to buy around September of 2015 mainly for school but a little gaming on the side.

    The specs i hope to get:
    i7 haswell or even i5
    at least 6gb RAM
    13in to 15.6in (14 inch would be perfect but 13 or 15.6 would also do)
    Touch Screen (folding would be a plus point)
    Willing to spend up to $700

    I don’t really know if prices will change by then, if they do i hope to go with the decent older models whose prices have depreciated

  8. Maico

    November 25, 2014 at 7:11 am

    Great review!!!

    No rear camera and no LAN port. Do you think it’s better, worse or actually doesn’t matter? I mean, in comparison with T200TA.

    Thanks in advance

    • Andrei Girbea

      November 25, 2014 at 9:10 pm

      Slightly faster, if you need the extra speed. But more expensive and last less on a charge. For the money, I believe the T200 is a better deal

  9. Fredy

    November 26, 2014 at 8:00 pm

    Hi Andrei,

    I ended up buying T200 based on your recommendations. So far quite happy with the performance and it runs relatively cool- I did not feel its that warm at all.
    However, battery life in the T200 does not seem to last up to 8 hrs. I used it for few days and by 4 hrs, 5 hrs max the battery will be depleted. I only used it for normal use, no heavy applications. I have a harddrive installed in the bay. Wish the screen is a bit bigger like in the T300FA, but for the cheaper price, I picked the T200.

    • Andrei Girbea

      November 26, 2014 at 9:52 pm

      Just 4-5? I definitely got better than that. Are you keeping the screen’s brightness all the way up? If you’re using it for browsing, maybe you can try to use IE or Firefox instead of Chrome, that might help as well. Other from that, I don’t know what to say. It should last longer with normal use.

  10. Bobby

    December 13, 2014 at 11:32 pm

    The poor battery life would prevent me from buying this computer. Two years ago bought an Asus Vivotab tf810c, which is an 11.6 inch transformer tablet with a battery in the slate and keyboard. This unit has a dual core Clover Trail Atom chip with 2 gigs of ram. It is good for the everyday word processing and web browsing for which I use it, but it is the battery life, that makes this a good computer. It easily lasts over 10 hours. I charge it and forget it. I never take the charger with me, and I practically never run out of battery life. It is disappointing that a Core M tablet would not at least get similar battery life. I suppose Asus is keeping it cheap by not having a bigger battery in the slate and none in the dock, but it is worth spending more to able to go cordless.

    • Andrei Girbea

      December 14, 2014 at 2:11 pm

      The T300 Chi will get two batteries, one in the dock, one in the slate. It will also be slimmer. It’s expect to launch in Q1 2015, but will be pricey.

  11. Alin

    February 16, 2015 at 12:58 pm

    Hello Andrei,

    I am unable to find the microUSB port. You mention it on the review. Can you pin point it for me?

    • Andrei Girbea

      February 16, 2015 at 3:14 pm

      There isn’t any, not sure why that has slipped in. There’s only a microDHMI port on the tablet. Sry for the confusion.

      • Radu

        March 27, 2015 at 2:18 am

        There is micro usb disconnect tablet and look bottom right opposite to micro sd

      • Andrei Girbea

        March 27, 2015 at 6:14 am

        Hmmm, could you elaborate on that? I don’t understand what you’re saying

  12. Bogdan

    August 31, 2015 at 7:23 am

    Hi Andrei.
    Thanks for the review.
    I saw this CPU is better than an Intel Quad Core Q6600 which I owned a couple of years ago.
    My question is: is this CPU (+GPU) capable of playing 4K movies (mkv compressed) and 3D Blu-Rays?
    I want to buy it just to play movies on my 4K TV and for other business/traveling purposes.
    Thanks in advance,

    Bogdan

    • Andrei Girbea

      August 31, 2015 at 10:30 am

      I’ve tried a few 4K movies and they were not playing smoothly. I haven’t tried any 3D blurays, so can’t comment on that. I did try 48 Mbps 1080p mkvs though and those run well.

  13. mars

    March 14, 2016 at 1:37 am

    Hi. Is the usb-connected sata interface inside the keyboard dock @ usb3 speed? I would like to place a fast sataIII ssd there and wonder if the fast ssd speeds would be utilized. Thanks!

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