It’s always great to see brands trying to push the envelope, and in the case of Asus, it’s hoping to “redefine how you play” with the Asus ROG Mothership…gaming tablet. Yes, it’s a gaming machine in a tablet form factor, and it’s touted by Asus to be the future of desktop replacement.

But retailing at a whopping RM26,999 in Malaysia, I’m inclined to think of the Mothership as a concept product more than anything else, even if you can actually purchase it. If you really are considering to get it, here’s what you need to know about the ROG Mothership.

Under the hood of this gaming tablet is an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GPU. According to Asus, the GPU is factory overclocked, so you should be getting better performance than your typical RTX 2080. Not surprisingly, even the tablet’s Intel Core i9-9980HK octa-core processor is factory overclocked.

In the display department, the ROG Mothership comes with a 17.3-inch 1080p IPS display with a fast 144Hz refresh rate. Of course, it even comes with support for Nvidia’s G-Sync technology, so you won’t have to deal with screen tearing when you’re gaming on this tablet.

Thanks to the high 144Hz refresh rate, everything on the Mothership’s display looks extremely fluid. The high refresh rate also lends to better motion clarity, which will prove to be helpful in fast-paced games.

As impressive as the display is, there is one thing I don’t quite get: it’s not a touch screen. Granted, it’s positioned as a gaming product, but it’s really quite weird for a tablet to not come with a touch display – it’s arguably an inherent characteristic of tablets. Without a touch screen, it might as well be called an AIO PC.

Nonetheless, the Mothership does come with a kickstand design that’s not unlike the one found on Microsoft’s Surface tablet. That in itself makes it a tablet-like machine, and the detachable keyboard completes the look further.

But unlike the Surface’s keyboard, the Mothership’s keyboard can work wirelessly. Alternatively, you can even connect it to the tablet itself with a USB-C cable, especially if you’re concerned about input lag. Naturally, the keyboard comes with RGB lighting too.

Surprisingly enough, the Mothership’s keyboard is really, really good. Even among laptops, it’s one of the best keyboards I’ve ever tried. Key travel is aplenty, the keys are very tactile, and the standard layout is very easy to get accustomed to.

Aside from that, much like other Asus laptops in recent times, the trackpad on the right of the keyboard also doubles as a numpad.

There is only a single variant of the Asus ROG Mothership in Malaysia, which – as mentioned – retails at RM26,999. For that kind of money, you will get a whopping 64GB of DDR4 RAM, as well as three 512GB PCIe NVMe SSDs in Raid 0 configuration.

If you’re keen to get it, the ROG Mothership will be available for purchase on our shores sometime in July next month.