ASUS Eee PC T101MT headed to US in April for $499
By Joanna Stern 
posted March 27th 2010 6:10PM
posted March 27th 2010 6:10PM
posted March 27th 2010 6:10PM
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I'm liking that price.
@Luffy no it's too high for a tablet no way a device with flash can compete with the iPad at the same price point
/Sarcasm
@University of Pi
And who would want to type on a real keyboard? Yech!
@Luffy
Yes, this is the ultimate Windows 7 tablet computer that is just going to crush iPad sales because it has everything geeks look for in a convertible computer. It's amazing how geeks can turn a bottom feeding netvertible into some sort of super-mobile computing platform. I can just imagine the huge sales this puppy is going to generate from low-tech consumers.
So, this is the paradigm shift the world has been waiting for and all the publishing companies are jumping on board with ASUS. Take my content, please. Twist me, bend me, fold me, break me.
@MosesusedaniPad
Wtf man, he just said he liked the price...
Or are you afraid of something?
@MosesusedaniPad
If this Eee had the kind of hype and marketing $ as the ipad has it would definitely outsell that overgrown itouch.
@MosesusedaniPad
Pretty sure the specs on this device crush the iPad. If this is a bottom feeding netvertible what does that make the iPad?
For me, the prices need to drop another $100. At $399 I would take the plunge. That's a $100 tax for a touchscreen on a decent netbook. Seems like a reasonable cost trade off. At $200 above current netbook pricing, it's still a little steep.
@ConradOBrien You joking? There have tons of tablets like this in the past... And guess what? Yep you guessed none sold that well. I like Asus but this concept is a proven fail.
@dxdragon
And how many of them had a full scale media marketing blitz? Late night shows? The Oscars? Half hour prime time TV product placement? Constant, unrelenting coverage on every gadget blog on the internet?
See, the amazing thing about marketing is it actually works.
I'm liking that design.
@OCEAN CLAK
Yeah it's got some real chunkiness to it ; p
@OCEAN CLAK It's just chunky enough for me, just like my 30GB Zune (Which is a great media player by the way).
@benjgvps I agree, I still love my brown 30gb zune. I need to find a way too fix the audio jack though or I may have to break down and get a new one.
I'm liking the comments before me
@Alexpeegs
Agreed. I've been waiting for the Eee 1201PN. Is there any chance this has ION2? If so, I'm buying. I'd trade a 12 inch standard screen for a 10 inch multitouch any day.
@Luke
Nevermind, checked the read link. By the way, can you have a capacitive resistive touchscreen?
Why oh why can't they put a Wacom digitizer on this thing? I understand they're trying to ride the multitouch fad, but this would actually be practical (and a potential purchase for me) if it had stylus input with pressure sensitivity rather than forcing me to poke at an OS designed for mouse input with my fingers.
In other words, this could be an affordable, portable digital sketchbook. But instead, it's an overpriced netbook with a touchscreen that amounts to little more than a marketing gimmick.
@Feuervogel
You think multitouch is going away? Hmm, you willing to bet on that?
......
How much?
@nate345
No, but neither will active digitizers which are far more useful on a convertible tablet.
Convertible implies drawing/writing of some kind and doing that with a passive digitizer just sucks. If they had included a Wacom Digitizer + the Resistive screen, this thing would be a hit amongst college students at least.
@nate345 It won't be going anywhere, but it is nothing more than a buzzword on a product like this which runs software that really isn't designed for multitouch.
Apple made a device with software that has a symbiotic relationship with multitouch, everyone loved it, and now people are slapping the technology onto devices as an afterthought just to be able to say it has multitouch.
Maybe fad isn't exactly the right term, since multitouch itself won't just disappear, but the sloppy, impractical, "me too!" implementation of it will. Hopefully.
@Feuervogel the problem is that the demographic for artist who want a sketch pad like this is somewhat small, i'm assuming that most artist who draw with a Wacom pad use a desktop. I think there'd have to be a startup company who will run with this idea.
@Firehazel
I think you may be underestimating the demographic a bit. I would love to be able to takes notes in class with both a keyboard and have the option to quickly switch to a stylus and draw diagrams or write equations. I imagine that there are many other students out there that would be interested in the same.
However, I don't see a 'netvertible' being able to do that task well. The Lenovo X201t looks like a badass tablet, but it's also like 4 times the price of the T101MT. Personally, I still don't see a use for these multitouch netbooks or slate PC's which would be worth the $500 price.
@Feuervogel
Yep. I use an old model p4/centrino tablet from Motion Computing. I'd really like a Wacom digitizer on an atom platform and form factor for school.
@crayjay
Yeah, I'm and engineering student and I'd been waiting for a netvertible with a Wacom digitizer, but it didn't look like one was coming. So I bought the next best thing which was the HP TM2 and I'm quite satisifed with my purchase. However, I'd still love a $500 tablet with a physical keyboard. It'd be so practical using it to annotate lecture notes and draw diagrams etc. and the small form factor would make it easy to carry around uni.
@Feuervogel
Methinks you may be more in the market for an HP TOUCHSMART 2 convertible.....
I'll be honest....it is the most full featured out there.....if they hadn't botched screwing over all the original TX1000 owners so bad....they would probably have tons of return customers instead of losing tons of them. All in all it is still an impressive machine.
@GoonieGooGoo
The Fujitsu T4310 is nicer than the HP TM2.
netvertible? really?
:/
@fel you got a better made up buzzword?
@kojo87 Bob.
You forgot to mention that, though it looked like a documentary, everyone in the ads were actors.
@capnwalrus
And the dancing black silhouettes were hired dancers... your point?
At UK and need new netbook. Do I go euro or us? My us bought And was good to ship. Any experience?
@matknny sorry USA bought n1
its a shame it probably wont be powerful enough to run hulu
is this thing still a usual pc with its usual problems in a convertible costume? and what is the target audience of such a convertible?
okay let me see...
mobile gamers? ...
intel gma 3150! ok negative!
ebook reader audience? ...
cheap led glare type display! also negative!
and for those "flash nerds" and farmville addicts? ...
windows 7 os + intel atom n450 + ddr"2" ram +gma 3150? ok that's an ultra negative.
so yeah, a great and sophisticated product -.-
@kojo87 i think there's no need to get personal kojo!
other than that i expect nothing, it was just a simple evaluation of the hardfacts so far :)
@shizzledmg
It'd be no more difficult to read an ebook on one of these than it would be on an iPad.
@archkron
Not really. The problem is it is a heavier and thicker. If people don't have any problem on these two issues, they are fine using this to read ebooks.
@shizzledmg If the reviews look good, I'll buy one to test out as an all purpose office note taking/meeting device; Install Onenote and link the documents to a sharepoint.
If that works well, I'll be issuing one to each worker as their new 'office companion' to complement their CAD workstations. Paper pads will no longer be ordered and we'll make a heavy push towards a more organized, digital/indexed and paper free workplace. The amount of paper a typical office churns through is atrocious.
Put Ion2 in this and I'm sold.
I wonder if this will be underclocked in tablet mode like the t91's? That was the real dealbreaker on the t91 series.
Why do PC vendors insist on releasing Win 7 tablets/convertibles? It's a DESKTOP OS that was design for kb/mouse input with multitouch thrown in as an afterthought, attempting to click on tiny boxes on a low quality resistive LCD is about as enjoyable as getting kicked in the nuts.
@alex2792 Because people buy them. I know several people with convertible tablets, and not one of them bought them without knowing that they could be used as a tablet. Sure most of them spend their time being used as a traditional laptop, but on occasion most people I know that have them do actually switch them into tablet mode, and as long as they do that and actually use it that way and enjoy it who am I to say it shouldn't be an option.
I have never met a person with a tablet that has told me that they would rather just have a normal laptop. Although i don;t know a lot of people that are 100% satisfied with every aspect of their tablet, I don't know a one that is willing to make the switch back to a traditional laptop, they all just want improved tablets.
@alex2792: An afterthought? You do know they first introduced XP - tablet edition in 2003, and there were large improvements for tablet input made in the jump to Vista, and Windows 7 is a more polished version of that.
Vista Tablet features:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/features/tablet-pc.aspx
Win 7 tablet improvements over Vista:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/tablet-pc
To say its an afterthought makes it pretty obvious you've never used these features.
@Feuervogel What would be the point? The Wacom digitizer will get the price way too high, and good luck with using some more serious soft like Photoshop on an Atom processor. Just buy a Lenovo tablet.
Asus is 6 months too late on this one. Delaying this model has made this a flop. Needs an Ion; get with the program. I was waiting to buy this 6 months ago. Now, not so much.
I was excited to hear about this model when it was unveiled last year.....but as more reviews of the european model have come out and user experiences......It may be better to wait for the 2nd revision of this model.....the one with N450s and ION Graphics and an HDMI Port.
This would be brilliant for school, one of the reasons I don't use my old Acer Aspire One in class is because of the odd diagram or something that would be a pain in the ass to draw on a small touchpad.
Its out now from a couple online retailers! I ordered one on Friday! Hope it not as disappointing as the HP Touchsmart Tm2 I just returned....