Holy Convertibles! Internetpilot goes Win8.1 with an Asus T100!

NTFS also provides more ability to recover files if I remember.

 

I accidentally abandoned this thread, but thought it might be time for an update. I'm still loving this T100 tablet!

Ever since I got it, I have been using it more than any other device -- be it my phone, Android tablet, desktop PC, etc. It's just ridiculously convenient, useful, and powerful. I'm using it for email/web browsing, minor to moderate photo editing, minor video editing, movie watching, and actually quite a few games. I love that it has a real operating system, to the point that I've become completely disillusioned with Android as a tablet OS. If a full featured desktop OS can run on a tablet, why use a what is basically a stretched phone OS?

On a bit of a side note/rant, my rather sweet Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 tablet has been relegated to purely a backup device, and I basically just keep it charged and the apps updated. Samsung did FINALLY update it to Lollipop, but again, that's a big part of my disillusionment with Android tablets -- my top-of-the-line Samsung tablet only finally received a Lollipop update over a year after its release and only after numerous phones already had Marshmallow. That's just ridiculous in my opinion. The T100 was a fraction of the price of the Note 10.1 2014 (even when directly comparing MSRP), but the T100 is simply a better supported device, as it received the latest Windows operating system relatively soon after the official rollout, and Asus was ready to go with all the necessary drivers.

Speaking of the Windows 10 update, the upgrade went smoother than with any of my other Windows devices. About the only problem I was having with my T100 was the occasional bluescreen error of "IRQ not less than or equal to", which apparently had to do with drivers for the keyboard dock. That was only happening with Windows 8.1 and has not happened since the Windows 10 update, so hopefully it's resolved.

I bought a 128GB micro SD card for it, and it's now well loaded with movies. I still have 18GB of the internal 64GB free, so the system is still fast with plenty of room to do its job. Battery life has been excellent, both before and after the Win 10 update. It's actually a lot better battery life than either my previous Acer Iconia A500 tablet or my Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 tablet, which is actually saying a lot because I use the T100 more than I ever used either Android tablet.

I find it rather amusing that one of the few devices I bought purely on a whim is now my go-to device. Usually, I research the heck out of everything before I buy it, but I was either lucky or this is just an excellent device or maybe a bit of both.

 

Hmmm....what does that say about your research skills? I always buy on impulse: if the device sucks, it's the fault of the manufacturer; if it's great, it's because I'm brilliant.

 

One more little brag session about this wonderful little convertible. We're down in Florida (we moved to Fairfax, VA this past Summer) getting the Florida hacienda ready for spring break and summer vacations. We moved our DirecTV up to Fairfax with us, so we have not television service here, but do have internet and still have a pretty nice plasma TV hanging on the wall. So for entertainment, I just hooked up the Asus T100 to the HDMI connection, and had access to a bunch of movies that I have on the 128GB micro SD. When the dear wife quickly objected to my movie collection, I simply switched over to Netflix.

I've had a bluetooth portable keyboard/trackball combo leftover from my mediaPC days that works perfectly for controlling the T100 from the comfort of the couch. I was just surprised that the graphics in the T100 can actually support full HD resolution, even though the built-in display can't. I had a very slight overscan issue and couldn't figure out a way to correct it, but everything was still accessible on the screen.

The separate micro (or is it mini?) HDMI port was nice. I could've done all this with my Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 tablet, too, but it would've required using the HDMI adapter out of the USB charge port, which never seems to keep the tablet charged at the same time even though it's supposed to.

 

Just FYI I was at Office Depot the other day for completely different non-techie reasons, and for a second I thought they actually had the Asus T100 in stock when I saw the Trio Pro Book 2-in-1 tablet on display. When I saw the specs and saw it was on sale for $159, it made me stop for quite a bit more than a second. I feel my Asus T100 to be slightly better build quality, keyboard quality, etc., but sheesh... $159 for 32GB (+64GB via MicroSD), Intel Atom processor, Windows 10, etc! That's a sweet deal, and I thought my Asus was a sweet deal!

http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/285204/Trio-PRO-Book-101-Windows-2/

FYI, the online sale is $179, but the in-store price is still $159 as of this posting. Your local store pricing could vary....

 

That is tempting. My Toshiba laptop is running Vista. Google is no longer supporting the Chrome browser on Vista. My Window use is small - but still needed at this time since there are a couple of things I can't do through Google's Office. The price of this unit is barely above the cost of a Windows 10 license.

I looked for decent reviews for this unit-but couldn't find much. Any thoughts or opinions?

 

They seem to be a rather low end but fairly stable company that was recently bought out by Inspire Technology. I think they used to be sold under the Mach Speed brand, but they've always been called Trio and have been around for a while with both Android and Windows tablets. They're sold at Walmart, Target, Sears, Kmart, Radio Shack, Office Depot, etc., so they seem to know their place/role as a low end, inexpensive option, and go with that. All the reviews I've seen have usually been 5 stars with the lowest being 4 stars.

Like I said, it seems to be slightly less build quality than the Asus T100, but I'm seriously considering buying it for my youngest son, who only uses tablets to watch YouTube and is having nothing but issues with the YouTube app crashing all the time on both his Samsung Galaxy Tab A and iPad. I can't do much about the iPad, but I haven't been able to get the Tab A to be more reliable. I don't really feel like rooting it and dealing with all that knox BS, so short of uninstalling/reinstalling the app, clear cache/data on the app, clearing cache on the whole device, etc., there's not much else I can do. But since these Windows tablets don't use apps, he wouldn't have this problem and he get all the full features of YouTube.

The only reason I wouldn't consider it for replacement of my Asus T100 if it ever dies is because I really want to move up to the 12" size, which Trio doesn't make (but Asus does).

 

Thank IP. My son and wife sure like their T100's. I absolutely can't use that size of a screen without putting on reading glasses. I don't have to do that with my Acer C7 Chromebook (11.6 inch screen size) or my Lenovo Tab 2 A10 (10 inch size - kind of obvious by the name I guess). I haven't spent enough time to on the T100's to try to change font size.

Last night I was actually looking up on Amazon at T100's and they are still available. IP, (and anyone else), which laptop do you think is better right now - the T100 or this Trio Pro Book?

Sent from my Lenovo TAB 2 A10-70F using Tapatalk

 

FWIW, enjoy it now. Our gravy train is winding down. There won't be any further Atom generations as Intel slims down and focuses on more profitable lines and businesses. It really was too good and too cheap as far as Bay Trail and Cherry Trail go. Now that Core M is spinning up nicely, they were also doubtless losing some higher margin Core M3 sales to Atom devices.

Things have always gotten better and cheaper as they go, but I really don't see how we'll have better/cheaper options one generation from now without Atom. This might actually be the end of a golden age for cheap fully functional computing.

 

I think the T200 is better than both the T100 or Trio Pro Book. The T200 has a 12" display, 32GB storage, 2GB RAM, has multiple USB ports and an ethernet port on the dock, as well as a 2.5" hard drive bay. The one in the link below is $255, which is about what I paid for my T100. I'm thinking I might by the T200 for me, and give my son the T100.

http://www.amazon.com/Transformer-1...UTF8&qid=1462130708&sr=8-3&keywords=t200+asus