It’s time for a much needed clarification on the Asus Transformer Book T200, the 11.6-inch 2-in-1 detachable tablet with Windows 8.1.

Officially released US version: http://www.amazon.com/Transformer-T200TA

The T200 tablet was officially released in Europe during the summer, but it took a while before we saw it in the US. And then when the third party imports became available, they were priced higher than in Europe, where the 32GB models could be had for under €399 even.

So here are all the new facts.
The Asus Transformer Book T200 was officially released in the US on October 6.
Now, on to the story behind the price, and some other confusing issues.

The first model to be officially released by Asus in the US, is a different version than what you’d be able to find elsewhere up until now. And the difference lies in the hardware.

Because where first generation Asus Transformer Book T200 tablets up until now have been powered by a 1.46 GHz Intel Z3775 processor with 2GB RAM, the already upgraded second generation Asus Transformer Book T200 is now powered by a faster 64-bit 1.59 GHz Intel Z3795 processor, and it now has twice the RAM too with 4GB LPDDR3 SDRAM on board.

The third hardware difference is that the first Asus Transformer Book T200 model to be officially released by Asus in the US also has 64GB storage, as opposed to the 32GB found on entry level models.

So naturally all these spec bumps upwards account for the price bump upwards to $499 too. And for the Z3795 Asus Transformer Book T200TA with 4GB RAM and 64GB memory, $499 is the official MSRP Asus have told Tabletmonkeys.

But apart from these changes, the Asus Transformer Book T200 have all the same specifications as before, which includes Windows 8.1, an 11.6-inch screen with a 1366 x 768 pixel resolution IPS display and 16:9 aspect ratio, a 2MP front camera and a 5MP rear camera, dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooh 4.0, a USB 3.0 port, a USB 2.0 port, two micro-USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet LAN jack for good old cable broadband, a micro-HDMI port, a microSD card slot, and the innovative removable hard drive underneath the keyboard dock which supports 1TB of storage!

On top of that Asus is giving away free unlimited cloud storage for one year with this tablet.
The 38 Whrs battery have a battery life of between 8.5 and 9 hours.

The keyboard dock have a wide multi-touch touchpad with gesture support even.

Various model additions to the Asus Transformer Book T200 family will trickle down over the winter, which may include color variations, but as we have seen, releases can take a while.

– Tom Bowen