14 DAY TRIAL // Asus has announced that its innovative 3-in-1 hybrid Transformer Book Trio will officially arrive in Japan starting November 2. On top of that, the device will also make its way to Europe.
The Trio packs some powerful specs, but its biggest selling point will probably turn out to be that it can be used in three different manners. Leave the keyboard at home and the device turns into a stand-alone Android tablet.
When you’re ready to go back to work, connect the keyboard and, voila, you now have a Windows 8 notebook. The same keyboard can be attached to an external monitor, thus offering a solid desktop experience on top of everything else.
The Trio features an 11.6-inch screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. In tablet mode, power comes from an Intel Atom Clover Trail+ processor with 2GB or RAM. Users also get up to 54GB of storage, two cameras, microSD slot, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth adapters.
In laptop mode, Asus has carefully hidden an Intel Haswell processor coupled with 4GB of RAM within the keyboard section. 1TB of storage is provided and of course Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB, audio and video ports.
As a tablet, the Trio weighs just 680 grams / 1.5 pounds, while as a PC it bulks up to 1.8 kg / 4 pounds.
The Transformer Book Trio 3-in-1 is already available in France for $1,240 / €899, but more countries will probably be added soon. NotebookItalia says that when it goes on sale in Japan on November 2, it’s going to sport a price tag of JPY 139,800 / $1,430 / €1,034.