Netbook Review – Acer, Asus Netbook Review

ASUS T91 Netbook Review - 4.75/7

The people at ASUS must think they are an undercover espionage agency. It seems that their netbook model numbers carry coded messages. The FULL model number of ASUS’s new netbook is – (take a breath, you’re gonna need it to spew this out) the ASUS Eee PC T91MT-PU17-WT Tablet White Netbook. Getting down to business, the ASUS T91 is a tablet PC and the problem with most tablets of the past was that the touchscreen interface was not superior enough to pose a threat to our current keyboard and mouse setup. However initial interactions with the T91 indicate that ASUS may have managed to cross this barrier.

The T91 is a sleek, goodlooking machine and it feels solid. The swivel motion to put it into touchscreen mode is smooth and not chunky at all. The screen is an 8.9″ and so the keyboard is smaller than average, yet quite comfortable to type on.

ASUS T91 Netbook Review – Top Features

• Attractive Design – The black glossy look goes well with this uber-slim netbook and the silver swivel slot has been incorporated in a very stylish way.
• Decent Touchscreen – The T91 does not disappoint on its USP; the touchscreen takes finger and stylus indents quite easily and there’s four custom apps in the Touch Gate interface. These are Memos, Notepad, IE with touch capability and FotoFun. They’re fun to play around with for a while, but will you ever actually use a stylus and screen keyboard combination to write extensively? We think not.
• Widget Screen – Flicking our finger to the left in the Touch Gate interface pulled up another one; the widget screen. As the name suggests, this brings up a host of pre-installed (but customizable) Yahoo! widgets.

ASUS T91 Netbook Review – Drawbacks and things to keep in mind

• Weak CPU – The processor of choice from ASUS for this not inexpensive netbook is the 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520, which scores below par for the course even against your standard N270 and N280.
• Touchscreen Functionality – The touchscreen works fine. But what are you going to use it for?  At some point of time in the future, when we have some crazy Minority Report type touchscreening to do, this feature will really kick ass. But for now its just a slight shove.
• Glossy chassis – This is both a good and bad thing. Bad because it attracts fingerprints like a moth to flame. OK, bad metaphor, we know. But you get the point.

ASUS T91 Netbook Review -Ratings

1. Price and Value for money – 0.25 Star. We think the T91 is a cool little gadget, but at that price and without much functionality, sorry ASUS, you’re just not cutting it.
2. Speed and Performance – 0.5 Star. The touchscreen interfaces quite smoothly but the chipset and graphics card are below average.
3. Screen – 0.75 Star. The backlit LED screen is a decent one, but as with all ASUS, it suffers from slight dimness.
4. Keyboard, Touchpad, Useability – 0.75 Star. The hardware of the ASUS T91 can’t be faulted. The keyboard is good for its size, touchpad is OK and the touchscreen very good.
5. Portability and Battery Life – 0.75 Star. At 2lbs and only an inch in width, this is a greatly portable machine. It’s battery life stands at about 4 hours.
6. Looks and Design – 1.0 Star. Whatever else you may say about the T91, it’s a winner in the looks department.
7. Connectivity and Extensibility – 0.75 Star. The T91 has got an above-average rating when it comes to the ports department. (see specs)

This gives the T91 an overall rating of 4.75 out of 7 Stars.

ASUS T91 Netbook Review – Our Recommendation

What we don’t understand is the souped down specs. The touchscreen is a nice touch (pun intended), the T91 looks great and if it was coupled with better performance for the same price, may have been an out of the ballpark winner. As it is, we think that it’s not worth shelling out close to $500 purely for touch capabilities. But if you really want a netbook with touch – its not the worst buy.

ASUS T91 Netbook Review – What have buyers on Amazon said?

Pros:

1. “The people that see this product when I show them LOVE IT!! Its something new and something innovative.”
2. “The machine itself is very well made and pretty robust, with a solid pivot for the screen and lot of ports for whatever you need to plug in.”
3. “The keyboard is quite typable. I use the keyboard for taking notes in class, and can touch type very easily. It took a little bit to get used to the tab, caps lock, and backspace keys, but other than that, it’s wonderful and easy to type on at full speed.”

Cons:

1. “This machine comes with basic win XP, and that makes it somewhat hard to use in tablet form, due to the small screen size and relatively slow processor.”
2. “Even at full brightness it’s still a little dim as compared to other netbooks.”
3. “Price is also a weak point; you can buy a faster machine with more storage out there for a lot less without the touch screen.”

The T91 is available in two versions – XP or Windows 7. The Windows 7 version is available for $532 at amazon.

ASUS T91 Netbook Review – Technical Specifications

• OS: Windows XP or Windows 7 Home Premium
• CPU: Intel Atom Z520 1.33GHz processor
• RAM: 1GB DDR2 RAM (2GB max)
• Storage Space: 32GB Solid State Drive + 500GB Free Eee storage
• Screen: 8.9″ Touch LED LCD display, Integrated IGMA 500
• Connectivity: VGA output, 2 USB ports, Ethernet jack, Headphone & microphone slot, Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11b/g/n WiFi
• Battery: 6 cell Li-Ion battery
• Weight: 2.1 lbs