Asus T300CHI 12.5-Inch Convertible Touchscreen Notebook (Intel Core M-5Y71 1.2 GHz, 8 GB RAM, 128 GB SSD,Webcam, Integrated Graphics, Windows 8.1)

My previous portable device was the Asus Vivobook S200E (i3-3217U version) – a regular laptop format with touchscreen, regular 512GB hard drive, and 4GB RAM, which cost about the same 3 years ago as the Chi does today (~£470). In looking for an upgrade, I could have gone for a much more powerful machine, or one with a longer battery life, but my goal was to go for a little better performance and more portability than what I had. With the T300chi, the 8GB RAM/128SSD with Core M 5Y71 handles the improved performance, while the 2-in-1 format takes care of portability.

On receiving my T300 CHI, I was surprised to find a stylus in the box. Some suppliers have actually stated that you don’t get one so that was one surprising plus point before even looking at the Chi.

When I came to charging the 2-in-1, though, I found the first problem. In order to charge the keyboard section, you’re apparently supposed to use the USB-out from the tablet section with the supplied adapter and cable (the adapter turns the micro-USB3 port into a full-size USB3 port). This would be fine, except that the cable to plug it into the keyboard was micro-USB at both ends (it needs to be full-size USB at one end to connect to the USB3 adapter, or micro-USB3 at one end to connect direct to the tablet). So there’s actually no physical way of plugging the USB-in on the keyboard to the USB-out from the tablet. I found a couple of cables here that have the right connectors (I use them to charge my phone from a USB plug) but, for some reason, the keyboard didn’t register as charging. Maybe the tablet section was too drained out-of-the-box to charge, or maybe there’s something else going on.

Anyway, I found another micro-USB charger to charge the keyboard from the mains. I’ll probably be charging the keyboard this way in the future anyway because the tablet’s battery isn’t the most capacious. It is a pity this “one device charging the other” doesn’t work the other way around. Fitting a larger battery into the keyboard section and having that able to charge the tablet section would have been a huge boon. Sadly, that’s not an option here.

I upgraded to Windows 10 immediately on arrival. There seems no point in sticking with Windows 8.1 on a new machine when I’ve already upgraded everything else here to Windows 10. The upgrade took some time, but it was quite a bit quicker on this machine than on my Atom-powered tablets. The trick with Windows 10’s upgrade is not to think it’s crashed when the upgrade appears to freeze. It hasn’t crashed, it just takes its own good time.

The lack of ports has meant that I’ve had to ensure that any device I have with network capability is on the network – I don’t want to be plugging any of them in to the single USB port unless I really have to. Fortunately, my scanner will work via the network as well.

Estimating battery life is very tricky. Recently, on dropping to 49%, the estimate said I had 55 minutes remaining. Shortly thereafter, it dropped to 44% and said I had 4 hours remaining. That’s the nature of the mobile processor, I guess. It fluctuates from 0.8GHz to 2.9GHz depending on what the machine is doing, making it very difficult to estimate battery life remaining. In daily use, it’ll probably last longer than you think it will, but less than Asus say it should. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see 4-6 hours from casual use, and under 4 hours from intensive use.

When running at 2.9GHz, the Chi gets quite hot at the bottom right corner. The temperature probably makes it throttle back, so you’re not going to be running it at that kind of speed for long. My Vivobook had a 1.80GHz processor that dropped down to half-speed whenever running on battery. On mains power, it would vary between half-speed and full-speed, but it didn’t have the kind of speed fluctuation that the Chi has. Of course while the tablet section gets hot, the keyboard section remains cool (the opposite of a regular laptop).

The 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD helps things move along quickly, and it certainly feels faster than my previous machine.

With everything in the tablet portion of the Chi, it does take getting used to the weight distribution, but it’s not nearly so cumbersome as those cheaper chunky tablets with featherweight keyboard options. When in “laptop” mode, the Chi does look very much like a thin laptop. The tablet portion doesn’t look much thicker than the screen on my old Vivobook, but the keyboard section is significantly thinner. The tablet doesn’t angle back very far, presumably to prevent it from tipping over in laptop-mode, which can lead to neck pain if the Chi is used as a laptop on your lap. I would have preferred to be able to push it back further, perhaps having a kickstand of some kind to support it. On a desk at regular height, it’s not such a concern. At least you do have the advantage of detaching the screen and propping it up at a better angle/height while keeping the keyboard on your lap. The keyboard is bluetooth which means, at times, it’ll take a while to “wake up” from sleep if you haven’t been using it for a bit. This delay seems to be quite common in other bluetooth keyboards I’ve used with previous devices (which is why I tend to use a 2.4GHz wireless option with those devices when working at my desk). It’s nothing more than annoying, however. I also have a bluetooth mouse that I use for convenience sake on my desk. The trackpad on the Chi is a lot smaller than on my previous Vivobook, making the mouse invaluable for productivity purposes.

I previously thought that I had a great screen with the Vivobook’s 1366×768 11.7″ screen, but the Chi’s 2560×1440 12.5″ is just a whole new world of smoothness. Pictures (even 1366×768 backgrounds that I use on my Vivobook) look fabulous. Some programmes/apps don’t scale too well to this resolution, making them look a little clunky, but it’s no deal-breaker.

The 128GB SSD doesn’t leave you with a huge amount of space to work with. Even though we’re all supposed to work in the cloud these days, you do need local storage space for the files you’re working on. The Windows 10 upgrade leaves 20GB+ in the “Windows.old” folder (which can be reclaimed later) – there’s also over 4GB in the $Windows.~BT folder, and about 2.5GB in the “eSupport” folder. Added with Windows itself and over 5GB for pagefile/hibernate, that’s about 45GB of your 128GB (which appears to only have 102GB available anyway) used up – leaving you down to 57GB before you put anything of your own on there. 128GB is still a huge step up from the 32GB of my smaller tablets, but being left with about 57GB of space is not a lot if you’re going to use the Chi as a main machine/productivity machine when you need a chunk of your 1TB Onedrive available locally (such as shame that Microsoft got rid of smart files). I’m going to fit a 128GB microSD card to help mitigate the lack of storage a bit, but it’s worth knowing before you buy. 128GB might seem like a fair bit, but it’s not really a lot (but it is iSSD, which means no moving parts).

The magnetic attachments that keep the tablet section connected to the keyboard are strong which is a good thing, but it does make me want to handle opening and detaching with care – I feel the magnetic hinges are stronger than the tablet’s ability to handle them at times.

In short, the Chi is a good upgrade from my Vivobook. It looks sleeker, and performs better. Not a massive upgrade, but its advantages outweigh its negatives. And who doesn’t want to be able to walk around with a 12.5″ tablet? I don’t think I would have wanted to pay the RRP of £799, but under £500 seems to be just the right price point given that it’s effectively a proper full computer with tablet functionality.

I’d really like to rate this 5/5, but there are areas that can be improved so it’s not perfect. It should really be 4.5/5 but that isn’t an option, so 4/5 it has to be.