ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime - Notebook killing tablet

Intel is worried about tablets cannibalizing personal computer sales and had pushed Ultrabooks to counter this threat. Many felt tablets do not threaten laptops. Asus now shows you the reasons for Intel apprehensions. Apple iPad will eat into laptop purchases, but is really a complimentary device. Asus Eee Pad Transformer is really a laptop replacement in waiting, and the waiting is now over. 

Asus Eee Pad Transformer featured an detachable keyboard that when integrated converted the tablet into a laptop. The tablet can be folded over a keyboard dock and be carried just like a laptop. Other tablet makers have a desktop type keyboard dock which seem to assume you will only use the keyboard at home or in the office. Other  integrate the keyboard into the carry case which limits your ability to tilt the display. The Asus Eee Pad Transformer keyboard even has a touchpad. In other words it works like a tablet when undocked and a laptop when the keyboard is docked. 

Now you have the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime. All the same attributes, in a slimmer more powerful package. 

Power. Inside you have the quad core Tegra 3 which will provide 2-5x more power than the older Tegra 2. At the same time, it is more energy efficient as it uses a single core, two cores or all four cores depending on the needs, each of which runs 1.3GHz. There is actually a fifth, Companion Core which runs at 500MHz which is used to play music, video or while on standby. Still, best to wait for the reviews before commenting too much on performance and battery life but the Tegra 3 is an amazing piece of technology.

However fast the Tegra turns out to be, it is closing the gap with desktop mobile processors.

Endurance.  In tablet mode Asus promises up to 12 hours of battery life, which is extended to up 18 hours in "laptop mode".

Package. With the dock and tablet combined the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime is all of 0.74 inches thick and weighs in at 2.48 pounds. A very decent weight for a 10.1-inch ultraportable with an 18 hour battery life. A large portion of the weight is due to the Gorilla Glass protected display.

Storage. The Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime comes in a 32GB variant and a 64GB variant. In addition it comes with a MicroSD slot in the tablet and a full SD card slot in the dock. This means it can give you 96GB to 128GB or storage. Pretty much what you get from a 11-inch MacBook Air.

Price. All this comes as US$499 for the tablet plus, another US$149 for the dock for the 32GB model. The 64GB model comes in a US$599 for the tablet. At US$648 or US$748, it is very reasonably priced by Utlrabook standards. 

It will be out by December. Intel beware, ARM just got into the laptop business and it has got me thinking that my MacBook Air, might be my last pure laptop.