(www.pcmag.com)The Transformer Book T100TA's stereo speakers are loud enough to fill a small quiet room, and they surprisingly don't clip out all the bass notes. Sound effects on movies like Marvel's The Avengers came in much clearer than expected for a tablet. Streaming video from several online services played smoothly and largely stutter-free. Between the screen and the more than adequate built in speakers, the Transformer Book T100TA looks and sounds like it costs much more than its sub-$400 price tag.
The tablet portion of the Transformer Book T100TA has a micro-USB port that can be used for both charging (with the included AC adapter) and as a regular USB port (with an optional adapter). The Transformer Book T100TA's microUSB charging can even be done from your tablet's USB charger or another PC or a Mac's USB port, which means you never have to look for a proprietary charging brick. Note that if you use a lower powered USB port, it may take the better part of a day to recharge the tablet, so use a 10W/2.1Amp USB adapter for best results (we tested with the included adapter, a low powered USB adapter for a smartphone, and another high powered USB adapter designed for recharging tablets). The tablet also has a micro-HDMI port, microSD card reader, volume control, power button, headset jack, and a physical Windows/Start button on its edge. Dual band (2.4GHz and 5GHz) 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 are the Transformer Book T100TA's built-in wireless protocols. The keyboard dock doesn't have a built-in extended battery pack, but as we'll see below, that capability isn't entirely necessary. The keyboard dock isn't backlit, but the compact keyboard is comfortable to use, and the dock has a full sized USB 3.0 port built in.
The system's multi-touch trackpad was one semi-serious drawback: It had intermittent trouble registering swipes as calls to the Charms menu and sometimes had a delay in tracking initial touches. This shortcoming is negligible if you hook up an external mouse or bypass the trackpad and use the five-point touch screen most of the time. You can use the microSD card reader to supplement the included 64GB SSD, and that's recommended, since the system only has about 31GB free after you activate the included Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013. You can supplement the storage with a 64GB microSD card, or use the included "unlimited" Asus WebStorage (nominally 1TB, free for one year) for storage online.
Asus included the Home and Student version of the Office suite with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, but not Outlook. This just about matches the Office RT version included with tablets like the Microsoft Surface 2, further pushing Windows RT toward the edge of irrelevancy. Along with this full version of Office, the Transformer Book T100TA has Amazon's Kindle app, Netflix, Skype, and a few Asus apps pre-installed. On the whole, it's a good mix, and a welcome one.
The Transformer Book T100TA automatically changes the screen color balance toward a more yellow/sepia tone while using the built in Windows 8.1 Mail, Reader, and News apps. This is Asus' Reading Mode setting, to which you can add other apps or can be turned off entirely for a consistent color palette. Reading Mode may make it easier to read text-based communication by toning down the blue/white cast of the screen. The Transformer Book T100TA comes with a standard one-year warranty and a 30-day zero bright dot display guarantee. With the zero bright dot guarantee, you can exchange the Transformer Book T100TA for a new one if you detect a bright, stuck pixel anywhere on your display.
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