Asus Transformer Pro T304UA Review

Microsoft's classification characterizing Surface Pro has brought forth a heap of good clones—to the point where that pontoon takes after Gericault's The Raft of The Medusa in its edginess and swarming. The powerless get pushed aside in a jiffy; just the solid remain.

Take the Acer Switch Alpha 12$622.53 at Amazon. At that point the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 TabletBest Price at Amazon. What about the Huawei MateBook$449.99 at Amazon, and the Samsung Galaxy TabPro SBest Price at Amazon? They're all sufficiently convincing, in their own specific manners, that it has turned out to be remarkably hard to emerge in the packed field of 2-in-1 detachables. Adding to the test: Microsoft continues enhancing with every cycle of its own Surface Pro. The last one we formally inspected, the Surface Pro 4$1,049.00 at Amazon, earned itself an Editors' Choice honor, and we plan to have the 2017 version close by soon.

In any case, meanwhile, pack another on the pontoon—and this one with a greater number of guts and stamina than most.

The Pro version of Asus T304UA Transformer is a Surface Microsoft Pro clone that may entice you far from the first with a lower cost and a bigger show. It likewise has the best console of any Surface-style "tablet first" separable on which this commentator has had the joy of writing. With its direct estimating, ample show, and stellar console, it's an awesome decision on the off chance that you need a Windows 10 tablet that you'll utilize basically as a tablet, however doesn't constrain you to forfeit when you need to utilize it as a workstation. (All things considered, on the off chance that you intend to utilize your 2-in-1 machine in workstation mode more often than not, we'd recommend a Yoga-style turning 2-in-1 with a firmer base.)

Our Transformer Pro T304UA test framework, credited to us by Asus, is a Best Buy-particular model that shimmies under the $1,000 value bar. For $1000, it supplies an Intel Core i7-7500U cntral processing unit, 8GB of memory, a 256GB strong state drive (and that a genuine SSD, not moderate eMMC memory), and coordinated Intel illustrations. Any last-age Surface Microsoft Pro 4 display you will see for under $1,000 will include a Core i5 chipset, while Core i7 is based on Surface Pro 4 setups begin at $1,500. (The 2017 adaptation of the Surface Pro has one $1000 form with a Core i5, and the Core i7 ones begin at $1,600.) The Transformer Pro T304UA likewise gives a marginally bigger show, at 12.6 crawls on the corner to corner, to the Surface Pro 4's and 2017 Surface Pro's 12.3-inch show, in spite of the fact that it doesn't pack in the same number of pixels.

The other Editors' Choice honor winning Surface Pro clone in the running is the Acer Switch Alpha 12, which takes the spending course to 2-in-1 separable brilliance. It cost $799.99 in the model we tried yet included a marginally littler (12-inch) show board with a lower 1080p determination. In our testing, it showed shorter battery life, and a less touchy pen than the opposition.

The Asus Pro T304UA Transformer sits separately in the Goldilocks area between these. This "without flaw" convertible merits its own particular Editors' Choice honor for its appealing blend of civilities at an agreeable cost.

Outline

The tablet side of the Transformer Pro T304UA highlights a strong combination assortment of aluminum and magnesium, with a silver, brushed-aluminum back board...

Asus Transformer Pro T304U (Lid)

...furthermore, a glass layer securing the show on the front.

At 1.75 pounds, the tablet bit of this 2-in-1 measures a touch more than the around-1.7-pound Microsoft Surface Pro 4 and 2017 Surface Pro, yet not as much as the 1.98-pound Acer Switch Alpha 12. That it weighs just an ounce or so more than the Surface Pros is honorable on the grounds that it's somewhat more and more extensive to suit its bigger, 12.6-inch show.

The show itself is an IPS board with a 2,160x1,440-pixel local determination. The determination places it between the most recent Surface Pros (whose local determination spec is 2,736x1,824) and the Acer Switch Alpha 12 (1,920x1,080). Content and symbols looked sharp and intelligible, while hues looked rich and distinctive. What's more, because of IPS innovation, the review edges were amazingly wide from all sides, as you ought to expect these days on anything planning to fill in as a Windows tablet.

This is a fine show for a separable PC that may end up in various utilization situations and positions. In PC mode, for instance, the flip-out kickstand effortlessly holds any edge at which you position the show, and it gives you a chance to crease back the show until it's almost flat, at 170 degrees.

The tablet's two stereo speakers wouldn't supplant your stereo framework (or even a sensibly effective Bluetooth speaker), yet they surprised us with their reasonable, boisterous yield. To support the sound, Asus utilizes a product arrangement it calls SonicMaster Premium, which is supplemented by Harman Kardon sound innovation at the speaker end. Together, they appear to work. Other than the absence of bass, which is a pragmatic given in any tablet or workstation that does not have a subwoofer, the Transformer Pro T304UA turns out more-than-acceptable sound for recordings and podcasts. Also, in the event that you are situated sufficiently close to the framework, music isn't half awful.

Asus offers two unique consoles for the Transformer Pro T304UA, and not at all like with the Surface Pros, your decision is incorporated into the cost of the framework. (Microsoft charges $130 or $160 additional for the discretionary Type Cover consoles that most clients will esteem basic adornments for its late-display Surface Pro detachables.) The Transformer Pro T304UA comes furnished with a silver or charcoal console that snaps attractively to the tablet effortlessly. The model of the Transformer Pro we checked on is a Best Buy-particular one, and it comes packaged with the charcoal console. Other than shading, the contrast between the two console flavors is backdrop illumination: The charcoal board has illuminated keys.

Lit or not, the keys on either console offer long, 1.4mm travel for a happy with composing knowledge. Numerous separable consoles, in light of their outrageous slimness, experience the ill effects of clacky as well as level feeling keys with short travel. Not so with the Transformer Pro T304UA, which craves writing on a true blue thin PC.

Underneath the keys is a liberally proportioned touch cushion that feels precise and responsive. It underpins four-finger, multi-touch motions. As indicated by Asus, it's 17 percent bigger than the Type Cover's touch cushion.

The included pen feels normal for tapping and jotting on the Transformer Pro T304UA's touch screen with its 1,024 levels of affectability. Specialists will need to note, however that the new-for-2017 Surface Pro's embellishment pen, the $100 Surface Pen, is appraised for four times that, at 4,096 levels of weight. It's four fold the amount of as the Switch Alpha Acer 12's Active Pen yet a large portion of the affectability of the pens you will get with the or HP Elite x2 G1 1012 and Lenovo X1 ThinkPad Tablet.

Similarly as with the pen for the Switch Alpha 12 and Surface Pros, the Transformer Pro T304UA's pen doesn't utilize a rechargable battery however an AAAA battery; you'll need to keep one for possible later use so you don't wind up without the utilization of the pen when its battery runs out. AAAA cells are not found in each drugstore.

Ports are dependably at a premium on a conservative tablet, however Asus offers a restricted yet brilliant accumulation of development alternatives on this one. On the tablet's correct edge, you'll discover a USB 3.0 port, a USB 3.1 Type-C port, a full-measure HDMI port, and the power connector...

It's advantageous to have one of each sort of USB port, since it implies you don't have to convey a Type-A-to-C connector with you. So, despite everything you'll require the Asus-particular attachment; this unit revives through the standard power connector, not Type-C.

On the left edge is a MicroSD card space, an earphone jack, and a volume rocker. The power catch sits on the best edge, and it serves as a unique finger impression peruser...

The pen has a clasp on it that you'll have to utilize to store the pen with the framework. There aren't any magnets on the tablet to store the pen, and you won't discover a circle in favor of the console, either. Rather, Asus expects that you cut the pen into the little hole on either side of the attractive connector on the console when the console is shut against the tablet. It's not as exquisite as the Surface Pro models' attractive association, or the pen circle on the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Tablet's console, since you are compelled to expel the pen when you open the Transformer Pro T304UA into PC mode. However, it's superior to nothing.

Execution, Battery Life and Conclusion

The $999.99 Best Buy design of the Transformer Pro T304UA we tried highlights the Intel Core i7-7500U, a CPU from Intel's seventh era "Kaby Lake" family. The Core i7-7500U highlights two centers and four strings with a base recurrence of 2.7GHz and a Turbo recurrence of 3.5GHz.

The 7500U is a low-voltage chip with a TDP of just 15 watts, yet the Asus Transformer Pro T304UA still utilizes a cooling fan to hold the framework's thermals under tight restraints. (You have to decide on a framework with a ultra-low-voltage Core M chip for a fanless outline, with the uncommon exemption of the Acer Aspire Switch 12, which pulls off the trap of utilizing detached cooling with its Core i5-6200U CPU.) The Transformer Pro T304UA's fan once in a while connected with, be that as it may, amid our tests and was genuinely tranquil when it did. Adjusting the center specs is 8GB of DDR3 memory, a 256GB PCI Express x4 strong state drive, and the Core CPU's incorporated Intel HD Graphics 620.

For our benchmark correlations, we coordinated the Transformer Pro T304UA against two other Kaby Lake-based detachables three past age Intel "Skylake" ones (the Acer Aspire Switch Alpha 12, the Lenovo Miix 510$900 at Lenovo, and the Microsoft Surface Pro 4), and one Core M-based framework, as the HP Specter x2$478.11 at Amazon. This is a blend of current-gen and past gen equipment; here's an outline of how the CPUs and the designs arrangements (the last all incorporated) shake out in these correlations with come...

Engineered Tests

PCMark 8 is an all encompassing execution suite created by the PC benchmark experts at Futuremark. It contains a few presets that reproduce distinctive genuine efficiency and substance creation work processes. We utilize the Work Conventional situation to evaluate general framework execution for office-driven undertakings, for example, word preparing, spreadsheeting, Web perusing, and videoconferencing. The test creates a restrictive numeric score; higher numbers are better.

The Transformer Pro completed right where we anticipated that it would on PCMark 8, between the Dell Latitude 5285 (and its marginally speedier Kaby Lake Core i7 chip) and the Samsung Galaxy Book (and its slower Kaby Lake Core i5). These three Kaby Lake-based frameworks were a stage in front of the past age, Skylake-based frameworks. Higher local screen resolutions likewise have a tendency to stifle the scores on this test, adding to the progression behind score from the Surface.

Next is Maxon's CPU-crunching Cinebench R15 test, which is completely strung to make utilization of all accessible processor centers and strings while utilizing the CPU instead of GPU to render a mind boggling picture. The outcome is a restrictive score showing a PC's appropriateness for processor-concentrated workloads.

The Transformer Pro turned in a somewhat low score on Cinebench, given its Kaby Lake Core i7. We anticipated that it would score lower than the Dell Latitude 5285, which is timed somewhat higher, however not behind the Samsung Galaxy Book and the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 and their i5 chips. In any case, the contrasts between them were slight.

Sight and sound Tests

Cinebench is frequently a decent indicator of our Handbrake video-altering test, another extreme, strung exercise that is exceptionally CPU-subordinate. In it, we put a stopwatch on test frameworks as they transcode a standard five-minute clasp of 1080p video to a cell phone arrange. Since this is a planned test, bring down outcomes are better.

In the event that the Transformer Pro T304UA stumbled up a bit on Cinebench, the outing was to a greater extent a pratfall on our Handbrake test. It completed well off the pace set by the other two Kaby Lake-based frameworks and furthermore behind two Skylake Core i5-based frameworks, the Acer Aspire Switch Alpha 12 and the Microsoft Surface Pro 4. This recommends for supported substantial preparing assignments, we might see a touch of throttling.

We likewise run a custom Adobe Photoshop picture altering benchmark. Utilizing Photoshop form CS6, we apply a progression of 11 complex channels and impacts to a standard JPEG test picture. We time every task and, toward the end, include the aggregate execution time. Likewise with Handbrake, bring down circumstances are better here.

Asus Transformer Pro T304U (Photoshop)

The Transformer Pro came back to shape on Photoshop, completing between the Samsung Galaxy Book and Dell Latitude 5285. The Microsoft Surface Pro 4 punched over its weight class on our Photoshop test, in any case, and bested the Transformer Pro T304UA by a solid edge. This is a bursty, begin and-stop sort of test, so the warm difficulties are diverse here.

Illustrations and Gaming Tests

Our first illustrations test is 3DMark, which measures relative designs muscle by rendering groupings of exceedingly itemized, gaming-style 3D illustrations that underscore particles and lighting. The low-end Cloud of Gate preset (meaning for parts level PCs) is not quite a little of an exam for the present frameworks, yet the Fire Extreme Strike preset makes even top of the line gaming frameworks start to sweat.

No curve balls with 3DMark, where the Transformer Pro completed second behind the Dell Latitude 5285. The holes between the three Kaby Lake-based frameworks and the Skylake-based frameworks demonstrates the additional realistic muscle of the up and coming age of coordinated Intel designs, yet none of these performed outside of expected shape. Intel HD Graphics is truly unsurprising.

Next come two exhausting DirectX 11 gaming reproductions, Heaven 4.0 and Valley 1.0. Unigine's prominent tests stretch designs processors as far as possible in complex flyovers of a skyborne steampunk town (Heaven) and a stormy nature scene (Valley), both loaded with molecule and lighting impacts. We test frameworks at medium picture quality settings at 1,366x768 determination and again at top or ultra quality settings at 1,920x1,080 determination (for work areas) or local screen determination (for workstations).

Before you get excessively amped up for the most recent age of incorporated Intel illustrations, we should disclose to you that they don't mysteriously turn the Transformer Pro or some other workstation or 2-in-1 into a gaming framework. You may squeeze out a few additional edges for every second contrasted with the last age, however the Transformer Pro neglected to achieve the base edge of 30 outlines for each second on even the mid-range quality tests for Heaven and Valley. This is a profitability tablet or one for devouring media; genuine gaming, no.

Battery Life

After completely energizing the workstation, we set up the machine in control spare mode (rather than adjusted or elite mode) and make a couple of other battery-saving changes in anticipation of our unplugged video-rundown test. In this test, we circle a video—a privately put away MP4 record containing the full The Lord of the Rings set of three—with screen shine set at 50 percent and volume at 100 percent until the point when the framework conks out.

The Transformer Pro's two-cell, 39-watt-hour battery had a respectable keep running on our battery-deplete test, coming extremely close to the 10-hour check. That is 20 minutes shorter than the runtime we saw with the Microsoft Surface Pro 4, and almost four hours not as much as the 12-inch Samsung Galaxy Book's battery result, yet sufficiently long to get you through generally workdays. 

Conclusion 

Asus has a champ staring its in the face with the Transformer Pro T304UA. It offers a marginally bigger screen and better parts at a lower cost than the most recent two Microsoft Surface Pros, and its console and pen don't beef up the bill. 

What's more, about that console: With the most profound travel of any separable console we've experienced, the keys have a vibe that is nearer to writing on a genuine workstation console than any 2-in-1 separable mixture framework we've tried. 

Adding to its rundown of attractions is a shrewd, valuable gathering of development ports, featured by the two kinds of USB ports and a full-measure HDMI yield. We likewise like the smart power catch that serves as a unique mark peruser. The framework's sound yield, as well, inspired us with moderately enormous, clear solid. 

We would have jumped at the chance to have seen better outcomes on a couple of our media-crunching benchmarks, however the Transformer Pro T304UA felt enthusiastic in episodic testing, and no thin, tablet-essential 2-in-1 is probably going to be a media-changing over creature; it's simply not in the qualities of these machines. Unless you intend to make or alter media, the framework is more than up to the assignment of giving a pleasingly smooth, slack free Windows 10 encounter.