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Asus Taichi 21 Review

Introduction
Windows 8 has certainly ushered in a renaissance in hybrid or convertible laptop/tablet designs. In the last several months we've seen a screen that spins (Dell's XPS 12$1,099.99 at Dell), a screen that slides (Sony's VAIO Duo 11), a screen that folds all the way around (Lenovo's IdeaPad Yoga$899.00 at B&H Photo-Video), and a screen that twists (Lenovo's ThinkPad Twist$752.99 at antonline.com). Asus X52F Battery

All of these variations certainly make the job of evaluating PCs more interesting. But none of the above systems earned our Editors' Choice seal of approval, due to some mix of high prices, poor battery life, or design issues that make a product feel a bit funky in use.

With the Taichi 21, Asus aims to deliver a better hybrid device by negating the need for a fancy hinge. The company's solution: slap a second screen on the back of the lid. This way, you get a well-designed, familiar ultrabook in laptop mode, and a heavy but powerful tablet when you close the lid. Acer Aspire 5750G Battery

This approach also allows for novel uses, like mirroring the two displays for close-quarter presentations. But the extra screen and Gorilla Glass-covered lid push the 11.6-inch laptop's weight up to nearly three pounds. And the lack of touch input on the inner display makes the Taichi feel clunky when used in laptop mode with Windows 8.

That, combined with short battery life and a high $1,599 price tag for our review model, leaves Computer Shopper still looking for its first hybrid Editors' Choice. But for those who can make good use of both screens, the Taichi gets a lot of the ultrabook basics right while delivering a premium design that we quite like. Asus K50I battery

Dual-Screen Details
Switched off, the Taichi 21 looks like a premium ultrabook with a glass lid, like last year's HP Envy 14 Spectre. But under a sheet of Gorilla Glass on the lid hides a 1,920x1,080-pixel multi-touch display. Lift up the lid and you'll see a second 1080p display right where you'd expect to find one on any laptop.

Both displays are 11.6 inches, and both are surrounded by fairly substantial bezels. Both are also in-plane switching (IPS) panels with impressive viewing angles and vivid colors. Asus definitely didn't skimp on the quality of either screen. DELL Latitude E6220 battery

The problem is, as we've found ourselves writing repeatedly lately, Windows 8 was built for touch navigation. Once you've gotten used to tapping, swiping, and using gestures on screen, you won't want to live without it. That goes for both tablet mode and laptop mode. But the Taichi's internal laptop screen doesn't have touch.

And we'd be willing to bet that, once you've used the pleasingly responsive touch screen on the outside of the device in tablet mode, you'll find yourself frequently prodding the inner screen, forgetting that it doesn't respond to touch. You can, of course, use the Asus' touch pad to swipe between running programs or bring up the Charms bar. Samsung series 5 ChromeBook battery But that's a lot less intuitive than reaching out to the screen, especially once you get used to doing so (which doesn't take long).

The two displays also complicate things like, say, what happens when you close the lid. To control this and other dual-screen issues, you tap a button on the top row of the keyboard, just to the right of the F12 key. Doing this brings up a Taichi-specific control panel, with four display modes illustrated in the upper right.

Here you can toggle among laptop mode, tablet mode, mirror mode (both screens on, showing the same content), and dual-screen mode.HP COMPAQ NX9005 battery The last is a bit confusing, as it makes Windows think the outer screen is to the right of the inner. You can drag or snap windows from one to the other, but you won't, of course, be able to see the apps you've moved to the outer screen unless you spin the laptop around. This could be handy for presentations or, say, letting your kids watch a video while you try and get some work done. But other than that, the appeal of this mode is probably pretty limited. (It will, of course, drain the battery pretty quickly as well.) HP HSTNN-LB60

Much of the settings for how the two screens work is handled in software. But oddly, to keep the external screen from turning on when the laptop closes, there's a toggle switch you have to flick on the left side of the laptop.

The Taichi also comes with a battery-powered, pressure-sensitive N-trig stylus that worked quite well when we took it for a spin in the preinstalled FreshPaint app. There's no slot on the Taichi to store the pen, but Asus at least includes a pouch for the laptop, which does include a slot for the stylus. IBM ThinkPad Z60m battery

Overall, managing the two screens takes a bit of getting used to, but Asus handles the required settings pretty well—even though we fumbled a bit at first, after a few days, the process started to feel intuitive. And the company puts a shortcut to tutorials for these settings, along with similar lessons for Windows 8 basics such as shutting down and installing apps, right on the desktop. Lenovo ThinkPad SL500 battery

Design & Features
Dual screens aside, the Taichi is a well-designed system with a premium feel. Asus knows how to make a first-class laptop, and that expertise isn't spared here. The all-metal shell looks and feels good, though again, there's a fairly thick bezel around the interior screen (a bit less than an inch on the sides and a little less on the top). For an 11-inch ultrabook, though, the Taichi's 2.8 pounds feel a bit heavy. Several similarly sized single-screen ultrabooks weigh about a half-pound less. Lenovo 3000 N500 battery

Port selection is okay, although there's no flash-memory card slot; it seems the latter was done away with to make room for the toggle switch for the top screen. On the right side of the Taichi, you'll find the power connector, a USB 3.0 port, a Mini HDMI port, and the spring-loaded power switch:

The silver power switch is on the side because you need a way to turn the laptop on (or wake it from sleep) when the lid is closed. But we'd be happy to have an SD card slot or another USB port in its place. The left edge of the laptop houses a headphone jack, the second USB 3.0 port, a Mini DisplayPort connector, a volume rocker, and the aforementioned toggle switch that keeps the top screen from turning on when you close the lid: Lenovo ASM 42T4756

It's a bit odd that the Taichi has both HDMI and DisplayPort miniature connectors, especially when the port space is so cramped. DisplayPort can be converted to HDMI, VGA, or DVI with fairly inexpensive adapters. Asus at least includes an adapter for VGA as well as a USB-to-Ethernet adapter in the box. But we still wish the designers had nixed the HDMI port and somehow found room for a media-card slot instead. Toshiba PA3589U-1BAS

The keyboard is quite good by ultrabook standards and considering the Taichi's size. The keys are backlit (with three adjustable light levels), key travel is good (again, for an ultrabook), and the keys aren't bunched up on one another. The top row of keys and the arrow keys, though, are half the size of their letter-clad counterparts. Overall, we'd say the Taichi offers up one of the better typing experiences on an ultrabook of this size. Dell Latitude C640 battery

The buttonless touch pad is quite roomy, at about 4.75 inches diagonally, and pleasingly flush with the wrist rest. The feel of clicking the pad is also pleasingly tactile with a good amount of resistance. The pad performed pretty flawlessly in our testing, other than the single time it interpreted our attempt to move the cursor across the screen as a swipe to move between open apps. This, though, seems to be an issue with Windows 8 in general, and not really a fault with this specific touch pad. DELL Vostro 3550 battery

Still, while the touch pad here is pretty great, we frequently wanted to reach out and tap or swipe the screen. More than a few times, we found ourselves doing so out of instinct.

Components & Performance
Our $1,599 review model of the Taichi came with a 1.9GHz Intel Core i7-3517U processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 256GB solid-state drive. Those looking to spend a little less can opt for a lesser Core i5-3317U model that also cuts the solid-state storage in half for $1,299.

Those who plan on editing video or doing other time-intensive, CPU-centric tasks may want to pay for the Core i7 version. But provided you can live with 128GB of storage space, we suspect most users will find the lower-priced model sufficiently powerful. HP Probook 4730s Battery

Of course, we didn't bemoan our lot in having to benchmark the faster model. In our PCMark 7 test, which measures a system's overall performance potential, the Taichi edged out other convertible and touch-screen laptops we've seen lately:

Compared to the Core i5- and i3-equipped hybrids here, the Taichi is better equipped to tackle high-end productivity tasks like image and video editing. This extra potential shows in our Adobe Photoshop CS6 test, in which we apply a set of demanding filters and effects to a large image: The dual-screen system easily bests a trio of Core i5 hybrids, with the Core i3-based Asus VivoBook X202E$399.00 at B&H Photo-Video far behind. IBM 92P1087

The Dell XPS 12 and Lenovo Yoga were a bit closer here, but the Taichi still finished first. Its speed advantage will, naturally, be greater when converting a full-length movie.

Graphics & Gaming Tests
While the Taichi may have an edge in CPU horsepower, the systems here share the same Intel HD Graphics 4000 integrated graphics. As a result, their scores are pretty similar in our 3DMark 11 benchmark, which measures a machine's overall gaming potential:

These scores have "casual gaming only," or at most "moderately demanding games at low resolution and detail settings," written all over them. Unigine's Heaven 3.0 bears that out: Even dialed down to 1,366x768 pixels, the Taichi can't quite make it halfway to the 30 frames per second threshold for smooth gameplay. Lenovo ThinkPad L420 Battery

Battery Life & Conclusion
Greater processing power generally results in shorter battery life. It's no real surprise, then, that the Core i7-equipped Taichi falls behind the machines here with lesser Core i5 and Core i3 processors. Still, we were disappointed that the Asus couldn't even get close to four hours in our video rundown tests.

To be sure, our video rundown test is harder on batteries than most productivity work, but it only uses one display. Giving a presentation to someone seated across from you with the Taichi, with both screens illuminated, will likely render PowerPoint powerless before you know it. Dell Inspiron N5010 battery

Conclusion
There's little arguing the fact that the Taichi is a well-built premium laptop. And both of its screens are of excellent quality. But like pretty much every hybrid or convertible we've seen so far, its split personality results in a compromised experience on both sides.

As a tablet, the Taichi is powerful and responsive, but it's also about twice as heavy as most similarly sized dedicated tablets. And battery life is also pretty short by tablet standards.

As a laptop, the Asus fares a bit better. The keyboard and touch pad are pretty great and the interior screen, while it lacks touch, offers terrific viewing angles. HP 593553-001

But you lose valuable port space to make room for two extra switches on the edges of the device, so there's no room for a card reader. And battery life isn't as good as it could be, because extra weight that could go to a bigger battery is instead taken up by an extra screen and the protective Gorilla Glass that's necessary when you put a display on the outside of the lid. ASUS G72GX Battery

And, not to beat the point into the ground too much, but Windows 8 feels hobbled without a touch screen. The more time you spend using the Taichi as a laptop, the more you're going to miss the touch controls that are a world away, right on the other side of the lid.

At this point, we're not wildly enthused about any Windows 8 convertible device. The Taichi is one of the best-built of the handful we've seen. But for the asking price, you could get a nice single-screen ultrabook with better battery life and have money left over for a mobile tablet. Asus A32-K53 battery Unless you have a specific use for the Taichi's two screens, that's probably a better option.