Asus Transformer Book Flip TP550LA – Performance

We were surprised to see this mid-range notebook sport a Core i7-4500U processor, but there’s not much difference between this low-power part and the Core i5 silicon inside the HP laptop: both are Hyper-Threaded and dual-core. The i7 only outpaces its rival thanks to a 1.8GHz stock speed and 3GHz Turbo Boost peak – the Core i5 part tops out at 1.7GHz and 2.7GHz respectively – and with a little extra cache.

Consequently, there’s little to choose between the two chips in benchmarks. The Asus’ PC Mark 7 score of 3033 was only a couple of hundred points ahead of the HP machine, and in Geekbench the Flip returned a 5739-point result – less than 1000 points behind its rival.

The Asus was further ahead of the Toshiba, which has an Intel Pentium processor that scored 1592 in the PC Mark 7 test.

Intel’s HD Graphics 4400 fall in line with rival systems and ensure that the Asus won’t handle much gaming – this machine will play casual titles and old games, but little else.

The 750GB hard disk falls between its rivals when it comes to capacity, but the Samsung unit used doesn’t have impressive specifications – its 5400rpm spindle speed and 8MB of cache are both low-end.

That means mixed underwhelming. Its sequential read and write results of 95MB/s and 90MB/s are comparable to the other systems we’ve mentioned, but the Flip’s 47-second boot time is slower. Thankfully, the Flip wakes from sleep in a couple of seconds – a better result.

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Asus Transformer Book Flip TP550LA – Heat and Noise

The Flip has good thermal design. When running less demanding tasks we couldn’t hear any significant noise from the system, and its CPU temperatures remained modest.

The situation was just as good when we ran the CPU and integrated graphics core at 100% load. We could only hear the internal fans with our ears close to the chassis, and the chip hit a maximum temperature of 73°C – far short of its thermal limits.

The heat didn’t prove uncomfortable elsewhere, either; most of the chassis remained cool and, while the base became warm, it’s not hot enough to dissuade us from using the Flip on our laps.

Asus Transformer Book Flip TP550LA – Battery Life

The Flip’s 38Wh battery lasted for just over five hours in our standard longevity benchmark, which configures the screen at 40% brightness while simulating web browsing and video chat.

That result couldn’t keep up with other hybrids. HP’s 15.6in system managed almost ninety minutes more than the Asus, and the cheaper Toshiba lasted for forty minutes more than the Flip.

Charging the Flip for thirty minutes regained 29% of its battery, which is enough for 1hr and 19mins of usage at 40% screen brightness. That’s still not as good as the Toshiba, which could last for over two hours on the same thirty-minute charge.