ASUS Taichi21-DH71 11.6" Touchscreen Convertible Ultrabook

Pros: Notebook is great

Cons: Just bought the Taichi 21 not even for two months yet and already the ac adapter is acting up. The led light doesn't light up when I plug it in nor does it even charge. I contacted ASUS service center and their representatives were horrible! Absolute worst. On top of that they wouldn't even give me free shipping for their defective product! I'm completely shocked at how their company handle this. I'd hope for better services since ASUS is so well known and a reputation to live up too.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

I apologize for the issues that you have encountered with the laptop and I am especially sorry for your experience with customer support. Although there are exceptions sometime, the warranty policy states that we do not provide shipping for the items on the first RMA. This usually relates to the entire unit, but usually we can ship can ship out a charger. Again, I apologize for the bad experience. Hopefully your new charger works 100% and you can enjoy the Taichi again. If you have any other questions, concerns or comments, please feel free to forward them my way. I can be reached at cl-tien@asus.com.

Best Regards,

Tien
ASUS Customer Loyalty

Pros: Fast, very solid feeling in my hands, lots of storage. It runs all my games fine, and with 2 usb ports, it allows for a mouse, and something else to be plugged in.

Cons: None that I can see, possibly battery life,but 3 and a half hours normal use is pretty solid as far as battery life goes. I do wish it had more RAM, 4GB is a little low for laptops these days.

Other Thoughts: Internal Wireless card doesn't seem to work with my router after a while, but i had a USB wireless card and it works just fine.

Pros: Build Quality
Sleek Design
Keyboards Real and Virtual
Included Accessories

Cons: Battery Life
Adapting to Windows 8

Other Thoughts: At about six weeks in, I have mixed feelings about the Taichi. It is drop-dead gorgeous, slim and well put together. Both displays work well. It is light and well balanced enough to use as a tablet and is a wonderful travel companion -- better than a laptop or a tablet as it fuflfills both missions.
Mine came with a case, stylus, cleaning cloths, along with an inner case holding network and VGA dongles.
The issue, as the computer press reported, is that it is not a touchscreen laptop--to save thickness or cost, or perhaps battery life, the inner screen is not touch controlled and this forces you into using Windows 8 in a non touch screen environment - which is less than ideal. Loading Classic Shell is helpful, but I would have preferred it if Windows 8 had been designed to provide a Windows 7 experience when installed on a non-touch enabled device. I bought a Logitech 650 touchpad to use with the laptop side, but that is not a real solution.
I find that I am using the tablet side more, and enjoy the split virtual keyboard. The stylus also works well.
Wireless performance is very good, unlike the Transformer Prime. While boot time is pretty quick, WIndows 8 apps and some programs take a long time to load. This could be due to the limited RAM, I am used to machines I build with 16GB of RAM.
I have not blown out the ASUS partition and bloatware, which many reviewers recommend. I am not certain whether I could recover the programs if I change my mind-there is no rescue disk so I will be making a disk image when I get it set up to my liking and may try a re-install of Windows 8.
I have the variant with the Core I7 and 256GB SSD. The Core I7 is a battery hog-I get only 4 hours before plug-in. It gets slighly warm, but nowhere near as hot as my last tablet pc, the HP TM2 Touchsmart.
I picked this over the Yoga and the Dell XPS 12, and I do not regret my choice, but I wish both screens were touch enabled. If you are considering this I recommend you try to get your hands on first to see if it's for you.

Pros: Probably best in it's class when it comes to design. The keyboard is outstanding. It's the only ultrabook/convirtable that has two screens and a 256 Gb SSD - large SSDs adds to the price, but are finally coming down in price. 11.1" screen, 64-bit o.s., writing stylus - all make this a strong machine. Networking is dual band; has BT 4.0, 2 USB 3.0 ports, 3rd gen i7 processor, and comes with several nice accessories - stylus, USB Ethernet connector, USB VGA connector, and a soft cover.

Cons: Asus missed the mark for a couple of reasons - both displays rate only 215 Nits in brightness - Asus has laptop displays that are very bright at 400 Nits and great for out door reading. The other downside is that it only comes with 4 Gb of RAM; they should have offered 8 Gb of RAM. One key thing to understand is that you cannot upgrade the RAM or SSD because all of the components are soldered directly onto the motherboard. There's no way to upgrade these devices. Also, Asus advertises a case for the Asus Taichi called the Taichi Suit, which looks like a definite accessory the you would want to purchase to protect the hefty cost of this machine - but, try to find one - you can't buy them. Even Asus cannot sell you one or tell you who actually has them. Another issue with the Asus Taichi is that you cannot find one to actually touch and feel to see if you would like or be able to tolerate the keyboard for your typing pleasure - which you might use a lot of the time if you are replacing your desktop or taptop with this device. The battery life is poor as it is with all the ultrabook laptops. Trying to get information from the Asus website or even trying to find out how to contact them is very difficult. Optional accessories are very difficut to locate and purchase right now. Asus also makes mention of a Asus Taichi machine with a 13" display, which is what I wanted, but there's no clue when or if this will ever be available.

Other Thoughts: It's a nice machine, but better ones are coming out - larger SSDs, larger amount of RAM, brighter displays with higher NIT ratings, newer low voltage/wattage processors.