Transformer Book T100 and Why I Bought a Tablet Without 3G/LTE

I've now used the T100 a little bit more and I can say that the machine is good value for money indeed. There haven't been any major letdowns and the versatility has been a definite plus. While all the solutions are not as elegant as they could be, I still appreciate the fact that I can for example hook up my multifunction printer also to the tablet part (with a USB OTG cable), scan documents, and do whatever I need to do to documents before archiving or uploading them.

I've also claimed that I wouldn't buy another tablet without built-in 3G/LTE support, so how come I still bought the T100? The answer is capabilities in Windows 8.1 and the fact that I carry also a Windows Phone with me. The major gripe I had with the wifi-only iPad 2 I had before my 3G-equipped iPad 3 was that it was too much of a hassle to get tablet connectivity on the road. I had to take out my iPhone, activate hotspot in it, and connect to the hotspot from my iPad. After putting my iPad away, I had to go to my phone to shut down the hotspot in order to prevent unnecessary battery drain. So typically when I needed connectivity on the road, I just used my phone since using the tablet was too cumbersome. However, with Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8 Update 3 I just need to have my Windows Phone 8 device paired with the T100 over Bluetooth and the T100 can tell the phone to activate its hotspot and connect to it. If I just have Bluetooth enabled on my phone, I don't even have to take the phone out to initiate the connection, so when the only drawback compared to built-in 3G or LTE is the little wait while the connection is initialized, it seems like a wifi-only tablet is once again usable to me. As an added bonus, the phone seems to notice when the connection is no longer in use and disables the hotspot within a few minutes of me putting the tablet away.

Of course there's still the other downside to tethering, i.e. battery draining on two devices instead of just one, but for me that's currently not an issue since I have also my Lumia 620 lying around, so I can just pop in the additional SIM (which I would need for 3G/LTE tablet anyway) into the 620 and toss it into whatever bag I carry my T100 in. That way my 620 becomes a 3G modem with a dedicated battery while also serving as a backup phone. Neat.