The ASUS Transformer Book Trio is not your ordinary laptop/tablet hybrid

Recently over at Computex 2013 in Taiwan, ASUS unveiled a different kind of laptop/tablet hybrid system. The ASUS Transformer Book Trio at first glance looks like your typical laptop with a detachable display for tablet use. Well it’s more than that. This device is a hybrid that runs on dual OS and a dual system.

The tablet portion of the Transformer Book Trio has a Full HD 11.6-inch display that runs on Android Jelly Bean OS with a 2GHz Intel Atom Z2580 powering it along with a 64GB internal storage. That’s an impressive Android tablet by itself.

However, once docked to the keyboard it transforms itself to a Windows 8 system with another processor of its own. In laptop mode, the Transformer Book Trio is powered by a 4th generation Intel Core i7-4500U processor to go with 1TB of disk space, while the tablet’s own storage will show up as a separate drive inside Windows. You can still switch to Android even in this mode by toggling a hotkey.

Now if the screen size is too small for your needs, you can definitely hook up the keyboard to an external monitor to get some decent work done.

No price has been disclosed yet for the Transformer Book Trio but the ASUS is planning to launch it this Q3.

So what do you think of such hybrid system/laptop?

The ASUS Transformer Book Trio is not your ordinary laptop/tablet hybrid

A sneak peek at the new ASUS Z87 motherboards

Last month in Singapore, Asus unveiled their latest Z87 motherboards for the TUF, ROG and Workstation series, featuring updated design as well as interface adjustments. We’ll give you a rundown of the notable ones.

The Z87 Series

The Z87 series motherboards have eight variations, led by the Deluxe, and now sport gold heat sinks instead of blue for the past models. The new boards feature Asus’s dual-intelligent processors (with 4-way optimization) that allow users to control settings that optimize the performance of their boards and CPUs, for improved gaming, entertainment and productivity. It will support Intel’s 4th generation processors and will not be backwards compatible with other processors.

WiFi features has been expanded for the board and they also updated the UEFI BIOS with a new look and additional functionalities. You can easily adjust time and fan settings, as well as save notes, a My Favorites panel, create shortcuts with the press of the F4 button and a log for all the modifications you made to the BIOS.

The Deluxe also received design tweaks such as more voltage regulators, an extra fan header, support for up to six SATA 6Gb/s ports, an upright WiFi module that supports the new 802.11ac, a new slot design and more clearance for the processor to accommodate cooling solutions.

The Sabertooth Z87 and Gryphon features TUF components that fortify your motherboard and its components against damage or warping. The Gryphon has an optional TUF armor that you can purchase separately.

ROG Motherboards

The Republic of Gamers line of motherboards features several enhancements to give gamers an edge over their rivals. It now has Sonic Radar, which is an application that overlays itself on your game that maps the direction of the sounds that you hear in the game. You can tune it to detect gunfire or footsteps; they demoed it using Counter Strike and it seemed to work as described (the player demoing it wasn’t as good though, hehehe).

Details are scant at the moment, but we’ll give you updates as soon as they come.

A sneak peek at the new ASUS Z87 motherboards