The big brother to the 10.1in Transformer Book T100, the T200TA sees Asus deliver yet another cracking budget Windows 8.1 hybrid. The free copy of Microsoft Office has fallen by the wayside, but the bigger 11.6in IPS screen, Windows 8.1 and Intel's capable quad-core Atom processor make a fantastic all-round partnership.
The larger keyboard and display make the T200TA far more usable as an everyday laptop than the dinky T100, and although both RAM and overall power are limited, the keyboard dock adds a generous 500GB hard disk for storing movies, music and oodles of everyday data and documents.
If there are flaws to be found, we'd point the finger at the spongy keyboard and overall weight - at 1.64kg, the T200TA is a little portly - but for £350, we're inclined to forgive the T200TA. At this price, it's a cracker.
Asus Transformer Book T200TA: design
At such a low price, you’d expect all manner of compromises, such as ropy build quality and chunky, thickset looks – but the T200TA is surprisingly handsome. The tablet’s rear is finished with a handsome dark blue swirl which curves around and tapers into the thick black bezels circling the screen; the keyboard dock combines a black matte-plastic base with a silver keyboard surround.
Despite this all-plastic construction, the T200TA feels nice and solid, and there’s little flex in either the tablet or the dock. The whole assembly is a little on the portly side, however: the tablet measures 12.7mm thick and weighs 781g, and the keyboard dock swells the weight to 1.64kg.
This solid construction has its benefits. The tablet doesn’t slot into the dock with a particularly enthusiastic click, but it held firm throughout our testing, and it’s possible to angle the display back without the whole caboodle rocking backwards. Unexpectedly, part of the weight of the base is down to a replaceable 2.5in 500GB hard drive, which supplements the tablet’s modest 32GB of flash storage. It’s great to have that kind of storage on hand – the downside being that, of course, the tablet needs to be docked in order to access it.
Asus Transformer Book T200TA: connectivity & ergonomics
On the tablet itself, there’s a decent range of features and connectivity. There’s dual-band 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4, as well as micro-HDMI and OTG-compatible micro-USB ports, and a microSD slot lets you supplement the tablet’s built-in storage. We’d certainly recommend shelling out for a card, since the OS and recovery partition swallow up most of the 32GB drive – we were left with around 8GB of free space before we’d even installed our benchmarks.
The dock, meanwhile, adds a full-sized USB 2 port, one USB 3 port and a Gigabit Ethernet socket. Using the T200TA in docked mode is perfectly agreeable, too, thanks to a good-sized keyboard and touchpad. Admittedly, there isn’t much feel to the keyboard – the keys are rather limp and unresponsive – but it’s not cramped.
Asus has also furnished the T200TA with a 5-megapixel rear-facing snapper and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. The rear-facing camera dredges up just enough detail for posting quick snaps to social networks and the like, but the resulting images are anything but refined - all of our test shots were dogged with noise and ugly compression artefacts.
Asus Transformer Book T200TA: display & performance
The T200TA’s 11.6in display has a low resolution of 1,366 x 768, but Asus has spent the cash where it really matters, shelling out for a good-quality IPS panel. Although brightness tops out at a modest 215cd/m[sup]2[/sup], a contrast ratio of 836:1 ensures that images have plenty of detail, from the darkest shadows to the brightest highlights, and viewing angles are wide too. If we had to make a criticism, we’d note that the panel fails to reproduce the richest, most saturated colours, as it covers only 63.9% of the sRGB colour gamut, but overall it’s still an attractive display.
With one of Intel’s quad-core Bay Trail CPUs powering the whole show, the T200TA feels pretty spritely most of the time, and an Overall score of 0.37 in our Real World Benchmarks reflects more than enough poke for everyday office and internet applications. However, if you were hoping to use that 11.6in screen for multitasking, you may be disappointed. Asus has trimmed costs by partnering a 32-bit installation of Windows 8.1 with a frugal 2GB of RAM, and there’s no way to add extra memory. As a result, the system can easily get bogged down, resulting in performance that’s sluggish even by Atom standards.
On the upside, battery life is as good as you’d expect for an Atom-powered device. With the screen dimmed to 75cd/m[sup]2[/sup] and the Wi-Fi turned off, the T200TA flicked through a variety of web pages and documents for 10hrs 40mins before needing a trip back to the mains. Unlike the T100, the T200TA charges only via the supplied mains charger – charging over USB isn’t supported.
Details | |
|---|---|
Warranty | |
| Warranty | 1 yr return to base |
Physical specifications | |
| Dimensions | 305 x 200 x 26mm (WDH) |
| Weight | 1.640kg |
Processor and memory | |
| Processor | Intel Atom Z3775 |
| RAM capacity | 2.00GB |
| Memory type | DDR3 |
| SODIMM sockets free | 0 |
| SODIMM sockets total | 0 |
Screen and video | |
| Screen size | 11.6in |
| Resolution screen horizontal | 1,366 |
| Resolution screen vertical | 768 |
| Resolution | 1366 x 768 |
| HDMI outputs | 1 |
Drives | |
| Capacity | 32GB |
| Replacement battery price inc VAT | £0 |
Networking | |
| 802.11a support | yes |
| 802.11b support | yes |
| 802.11g support | yes |
| 802.11 draft-n support | yes |
| Integrated 3G adapter | no |
| Bluetooth support | yes |
Other Features | |
| USB ports (downstream) | 1 |
| 3.5mm audio jacks | 1 |
| SD card reader | yes |
| Pointing device type | Touchpad/touchscreen |
| Integrated microphone? | yes |
| Camera megapixel rating | 5.0mp |
Battery and performance tests | |
| Battery life, light use | 10hr 40min |
| Overall Real World Benchmark score | 0.37 |
| Responsiveness score | 0.51 |
| Media score | 0.36 |
| Multitasking score | 0.24 |
