The likely reason Asus stopped making tablets

You probably know Asus as a PC-oriented brand. Its name appears on laptops, motherboards, monitors, premium Xbox Ally handheld consoles and all sorts of other peripherals, including under its Republic of Gamers brand. There was, however, a short period when the Taiwanese company was best known for its tablets. And there were certainly some unique ideas for what a tablet could be.

In 2011, Asus released the Eee Pad Transformer Book, an Android panel running on an Nvidia Tegra mobile processor that came with a keyboard. The Transformer series, which also had Windows entries, proved an early success for the nascent 2-in-1 category, with some models recording strong sales figures. The party, however, died down, and that was probably because Asus just couldn’t keep up that momentum.

Just as Apple and Samsung have come to dominate the smartphone market, the two brands have also developed a strong hold on the tablet market. Asus’ mobile division, which spanned both phones and tablets, vacillated between the misadventures of phone-tablet hybrids to the Android/Windows tablet hodgepodge. It also resulted in an ill-fated partnership with Intel to run Android on the mobile version of the chipmaker’s x86 processors. Ultimately, Asus quietly abandoned tablets in 2019 following a strategy shift that would focus attention on its Zenfone and ROG Phone products.

Asus began a reorganization of its business in 2018. The company replaced its CEO with two co-CEOs and shifted its focus to artificial intelligence, cloud computing and the Internet of Things. Asus has also repositioned its Zenfone line as a premium product aimed at power users, rather than its former mid-range roots. These Zenfones would be promoted alongside the company’s new range of ROG phones – the first model of which, Asus told investors, has already achieved “#1 mindshare” with gamers. As the transformation plans were being put into place, the company reportedly told its distribution partners that it would no longer produce tablets.

The mobile division, however, continued to flounder. The Zenfone lineup vacillated between different unique selling points, such as a camera that rotated between selfie and landscape mode and an emphasis on one-handed usability. On the other hand, the ROG Phone 2 – which BGR crowned as the most powerful available at the time – delivered strong early results, but several releases aimed at a niche audience of phone gamers were only able to generate a limited number of sales before saturation. Amid stagnant sales in the global smartphone market – and with greater interest in AI – Asus officially discontinued its Android phones in January 2026.

There’s a fun little epilogue here as Asus actually launched a new Android tablet at Computex 2026: the Asus Pad. It features a 12.2-inch OLED display with minimal bezels and can be accessorized with a kickstand, keyboard, and stylus (sold separately). As of this writing, the company has not explained why it started creating tablets again. But given the murky arc of its previous efforts, the Asus Pad still has a lot of work to do to prove itself.