We’re in Germany for a couple of days for IFA, one of Europe’s most important consumer electronics shows, and the first big announcement of the event has just taken place. At its press conference at the Hotel de Rome in Berlin, ASUS has been showing off its latest Transformer series notebook-cum-laptop products.

I have a soft spot for the Transformers: I’ve owned two to date and am farly sure my next laptop will be one too.

It may be this. The new Asus Transformer Pad. It’s another Android one, with an all metal design and a back-up battery in the keyboard dock. What makes it special, though, is the display. In its tiny 10inch screen, ASUS has made room for 2560×1600 pixels – the same as a standard 30inch desktop monitor. It’s powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra 4 CPU, running at 1.9GHz, which gives it 72 graphics cores for gaming and native 4K output for playback to an Ultra HD TV.

The screen has a 170 degree viewing ang le and comes in 32 and 64GB variants. There’s no word on price or availability yet, but if previous models are anything to go for, we’d guess around R5 000 when it lands.

What do we think of it?

Honestly, the tablet half is a thing of beauty, but just like the up and coming Transformer Pad Trio – another innovative tablet that dual boots Windows 8 and Android – I’m disappointed that the keyboard half is plastic. It’s a weird mismatch with the elegant aluminium tablet that doesn’t feel right and is a let down coming from the Transformer Prime. On the other hand, it’s blazingly quick and the screen is astounding. Also, by doing away with the code number in the branding (technically this is a TF701T, I think) it makes it very confusing for consumers.

Price and release dates haven’t been confirmed yet, watch this space.

Gallery below: