Asus Eee PC T91 reviewed in the UK: "genuinely moves things forwards" for netbook market

Asus' Eee PC T91 has gotten its first review ahead of the reported late May / early June UK launch, and those cats at TechRadar seem quite smitten with the swivel-proficient touchscreen netbook. Battery life is said to be solid, though points are deducted for not being replaceable. Some issues with the resistive touchscreen also plagued the pre-production model, and while the company assures those kinks are being worked out, we can't help but worry they'll invariably still find their way into the finished product, and that glossy display will no doubt keep the memories of fingerprints long after you want it to. Despite these concerns, the review gives much love for the overall performance, video playback, build quality, and keyboard. At £449 ($688), it ain't the cheapest option on the market, but we do appreciate Asus straying a bit from its tried and true netbook formula. Now how about news on a stateside release, eh?

[Paul Corlatan @ May 18th 2009 10:38PM]

niiiice

[Information Central @ May 18th 2009 11:41PM]

Except for the idiotic glossy screen, perhaps.

[Schweppes @ May 18th 2009 11:43PM]

If you think this is "Niiiiiiice"

then the new iClap netbook (from Apple) will blow your socks off!!

iClap features

-Glossy screen
-Anodized aluminum unibody construction
-Sealed High capacity Battery ($99 for Apple Care)
-Comes in 2 models 32GB SSD and 64GB SSD
-integrated iDock for your iProducts
-iTunes for your Muzic
-ii
-Starbucks
-Cowbell
-$199 option to upgrade to the 128 Gigabyte Jiggabyte model (Black only)
-Only $899 for the 32GB and $999 for the 64GB


AHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jakem @ May 19th 2009 4:36AM]

A good quality screen protector will sort out the glossy screen and the fingerprints and would be a necessity on a screen like this.

[jay @ May 18th 2009 10:51PM]

Ehhhh. For 700 clams, I'd take the HP tablet. More horsepower, bigger screen, etc. What happened to NETBOOK pricing. Bring this sucker (and the upcoming t101h) down to about 300 and I'm in for one.

[StammesOpfer @ May 18th 2009 10:49PM]

Considering that you can pick up hp tx series tablets on sale regularly in the 600 dollar price range and they are full fledged notebook/tablets with real processing power a graphics chip worth while and 3-4gb ram and a wacom digitizer all in a 12" screen and a respectable weight and battery life.... Why would anyone get one of these?????

[iofthestorm @ May 18th 2009 11:21PM]

Exactly, the only reason I can see is battery life and maybe weight, but the tx series laptops are much more powerful and a passive digitizer really sucks for taking notes, because if you just touch a random part of the screen at the same time as you're using the stylus, you mess up whatever you were writing.

[Anticrawl @ May 18th 2009 11:26PM]

Yes the newish HP 12" multi-touch tablets are small, lightweight, good battery life and come with 4gbs of ram and a duo core centrino CPU in em. They run 6-900 bucks depending on what retailer you buy from. They are super nice, probably the only HP product I'd purchase other than the HP Mini 2140.

[Anticrawl @ May 18th 2009 11:27PM]

I just purchased one for my father to replace his Dell Mini 9 and he couldn't be happier. He is a sucker for the netbook size computers but his eyesight is too bad for the Mini 9. This was a perfect upgrade.

[MeowR- @ May 19th 2009 1:23AM]

*pantsburn* ? hp tx tablet....

[ShadowMaker @ May 19th 2009 4:27AM]

I have a TX2500 from HP. And I love it. It's also almost 2 kilos (4 lbs) and pretty big to shove in a bag.
Now to have a full color 9 inch e-reader that I can actually use as a computer if need arises is a very worthy addition to this.
Add Onenote and you're good to go.

[matt @ May 19th 2009 12:59PM]

You have to put this in perspective, cheap tablets don't exist in the UK, the cheapest you will find is around £700-800.

[yopladas @ May 18th 2009 10:50PM]

Is that a Pentax DSLR of some kind?

[maveric101 @ May 18th 2009 10:50PM]

finally! now how about a T101H for the US? that's what i'm waiting for.

[Brent2475 @ May 18th 2009 10:54PM]

I can seeeeee you

[Kamil @ May 18th 2009 11:34PM]

i see you Toooooooo

[Virtuous @ May 18th 2009 11:01PM]

More and more companies are introducing products with non user-replaceable batteries. Wonder where they got that idea from?

[urdaddy @ May 19th 2009 1:01AM]

Ur mom?

[jakem @ May 19th 2009 4:39AM]

Who cares? It's a bad idea regardless.

[Argot @ May 19th 2009 6:39AM]

The 19th century?

[keatonreckard @ May 18th 2009 11:02PM]

latitude xt ftw.

3.57 lbs 12.1 inch capacitive touch screen.

why wouldnt you?

(1.33ghz 3gb ram 80gb hdd for 650)

[Shyam D @ May 18th 2009 11:16PM]

Given how bad the battery life is on the XT's, I'd rather go for a refurb X61 Tablet. None the less, the point is that ~$650 and you're edging into Tablet PC territory with much better CPUs, possibly battery life, 3G WWAN, and most importantly Active Digitizers. Passive is nice and all for the finger touch, but no passive digitizer compares to a Wacom.

[Mark @ May 18th 2009 11:11PM]

No, I don't do high glare screens. I hate them. Get a flat matte screen on this and maybe we'll talk

Boycott high glare screens

T
www.tunajuice.com
Get ready for the release PARTY on May 22, 2009!!!!

[digitallysick @ May 18th 2009 11:16PM]

In a short time the price will come down on these, and it will be the cheapest tablet you can buy new (i think it is already)

Have you seen the tablet prices? Hp makes the cheapest, but they also over heat and have a huge list of problems , fujitsu makes tablets but they are far to expensive for the quality.

So Asus might have a winner at the $500.00 mark for this

[Randomness @ May 18th 2009 11:29PM]

Glare screen = no chance for me to ever buy. How about making a screen that reduces glare? It's such a simple idea I bet it just escapes everyone :)

[Gad Get @ May 18th 2009 11:33PM]

But everyone likes glare. It's cool.

[aznofazns @ May 19th 2009 12:01AM]

*glare*

[aznofazns @ May 19th 2009 12:00AM]

Don't like the fact that's its got slightly slower performance than older N270 based netbooks... if anything it should be faster.

[Benjamin @ May 19th 2009 12:17AM]

why dont we all just buy an hp tx2z multi touch high resolution 12 inch screen with probably 5 times the performance and the same battery life time with an 8 cell (not much more expensive). if you want the gps part of the laptop you can buy an i.trek-m5+ wireless gps adapter for less than 60 dlrs....

without the long battery and the gps adapter (bought completely separately) its 650 dlrs with the current deal that is going around...

for me to choose the t101h (or t91) over that hp tx2z for 650 dlrs... the netbook tablet would have to get a very big price cut... maybe go down to 400 dlrs... because as it is its not beating the offer from hp at the moment...

[MeowR- @ May 19th 2009 1:23AM]

Because we don't want to bake our ****s or scorch our arms. But I do agree with you about the price.

Weight, heat, battery life, and hp (joking about the last one)

But yeah.

[Peter R. @ May 19th 2009 5:56AM]

I was considering the HP tx2z for painting/image editing in photoshop. But it so happens the tx2z has a N-Trig digitizer, not wacom, and and N-Trig digitizers don't give pressure sensitivity in photoshop (Painter doesn't work with it either). N-trig still hasn't provided a driver to support pressure sensitivity in these applications, that just means a no buy for me. Besides HP tablets run ridiculously hot, I would've liked to have a outdoor paint session with one, but having one in my lap might endanger my future generations.

It's not like I would consider buying the T91 either, since it probably can't run photoshop pass 2 layers. If that's how it's gonna be, I might as well be content with my graphire4 tablet and brushes on an ipod touch.

[RigvedMad @ May 19th 2009 1:51AM]

does asus products have no end. i get to know about a new asus product just every other day ahhh...

[MikeWard1701 @ May 19th 2009 2:42AM]

Not bad, but as many have said, the price is too high for the spec you're getting. But with it being the only ‘net-tablet’ at the moment, Asus are in a position to take liberties and call the shots.

The problem is tablet PCs are still mainly a business market. Hopefully this will change with Windows 7s multitouch features, meaning more manufacturers will release consumer tablet PCs, in varying sizes and specifications.

HP's tx2 series are the only consumer focussed tablets (that I know of) currently available are, the £650-£800 price is good value for a tablet PC, but the tx2 is plagued with heat/noise/weight/motherboard/keyboard/CPU issues. Issues HP are in no hurry to address because there’s no one competing against them in this market.

So those of us who want a tablet PC have to either; put up with the HP and its many faults, or shell out £1,100+ on a business tablet with integrated graphics and subsequent poor gaming/multimedia performance.

[Buis @ May 19th 2009 3:01AM]

It's glossy! kill it! KILL IT!

[CreepinJesus @ May 19th 2009 3:36AM]

Too expensive... I just got myself an Acer Aspire AOD150 for 500CHF (less than half the price of this thing ^^), stuck Windows 7 RC on it (Ubuntu was, as usual, causing problems), and it flies. Nice peice of kit :)

[CreepinJesus @ May 19th 2009 4:06AM]

And yes, I'm aware that none of you care.

[Angus Hedger @ May 19th 2009 4:30AM]

I CARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Cory @ May 19th 2009 9:50AM]

Why are you comparing your Acer to this pricewise when this has a touchscreen and yours doesn't. Way to read the article...

[superhobo @ May 19th 2009 4:42AM]

I wish they'd stray from the logo.

[Bad Cyborg @ May 19th 2009 7:04AM]

They may "moves things forwards" a little but they always "stays behinds" with the Microsoft Paint program featuring the robust EGA color palette. That's tradition.

[htd @ May 19th 2009 8:19AM]

staples had compaq 2710p 12" tablet with u7700 2G RAM for $599

[Alzheimers @ May 19th 2009 12:17PM]

At $499, this thing would be the perfect guilty pleasure.

At almost $700, it's a product that's lost it's audience.

[Jeff Lewis @ May 19th 2009 2:03PM]

Hi there - Gigabyte M1028 has been out for a month.

Better specs - although a bit more expensive - but includes an ExpressCard34 slot.

AND a removable battery.

http://www.giga-byte.ca/Products/Notebook/Products_Spec.aspx?ProductID=3027