Looking for an hybrid

Posted by augustofretes on November 10, 2012 06:14 am 26

I'm thinking about buying a 11.6" Macbook Air, but I'm really interested in some of the recent hybrids. But I can't find any "perfect" mix. For instance, the Acer Iconia W700

Looks beautiful, if a little thick. It has nice specs, good screen, aluminium casing (I don't know if it has a proper digitizer). But... it lacks a keyboard dock, instead Acer built this travesty

Well, let's keep looking.

The Samsung ATIV Pro has everything: Micro-SD check, Full HD check, Core i5 or better check, Keyboard dock, check, Wacom Digitizer check... and so on. The problem is that is made of the cheapest ugliest plastic on earth (the same polycarbonate ("hyper-glazing") they use in the SGS3) and its design can induce nausea

Again, let's keep looking. The next one in the list is the Asus Transformer Book, again, save for the lack of digitizer, it seems perfect, nice specs and a good design

Finally, right? Well no, because the 11.6" version seems to have been cancelled, or at least something weird is happening because not even Asus' site has it listed, and a 13.3" detachable tablet is absolutely useless. Price? Anyone's guess.

And then there's the Asus Taichi 11.6", which has two screens. It's not exactly usable as a tablet because is rather thick (for a tablet, it's as thin as the Macbook Air) and heavy (1.25 Kg, 25% more than a Macbook Air, try using one as a tablet for more than 5 minutes). It's not precisely cheap either (starts at $1,299), obviously because it has two screens

Well, then there's the Yoga, which didn't get a good score from The Verge, and, well, the 11.6" is not yet available, although the price seems good (starts at 799), I'm not sure if I really want to hold a tablet (specially a heavy tablet, 1.27 Kg) with a keyboard in the back, but it's probably the most reasonable option. The design and build quality doesn't seem as good as the Air, and I'm not sure if the being able to rotate the screen is an actual useful feature (because of how heavy it is).

Is there any other option I'm unaware of?