ASUS T91MT Eee PC - Multi-Touch Netbook'ing

I've been doing a lot of research on multitouch technology (which is basically using two or more fingers on a screen or touch-sensitive device) and I came upon an announcement about ASUS's Eee PC T91MT. I read some reviews, which where slightly mixed but for the most part positive.

I ordered one, and I've been using it for about two days now. Honestly, my only bad experience was when I first turned it on... Windows 7 had to do some first-start customizations and I didn't realize the whole thing would probably go faster had I plugged in the AC adapter... (it took over 20 minutes to fully run set-up when I had it unplugged... so if you get one, plug it in until you are done with set up!)

The reason I bought this was really two-fold. This netbook has a hinged screen and converts into a tablet PC in a few seconds. And it's multi-touch (in this case up to two fingers) so it can use, among other things, most of the multitouch gestures I'm accustomed to on the iPhone. So the first reason I wanted it was to get a feel for what tablet computing might be like should Apple release a tablet.

The second reason was my main web stats application is Windows-only (sadly) but it has a really great visual-hyperlink system to help me understand my data. The application was great with a mouse, but it's completely terrific as a touch or stylus app.

As for how I feel about the T91MT in itself... as far as a touch tablet goes, it's a little thick and heavy... as far as a netbook goes, it's quite light and usable, although I'm not a fan of the smaller keyboard. I imagine if ASUS releases a larger model (this one is 8.9 inches) I would hope the keyboard is slightly larger. It's not that it's a bad keyboard, I just prefer having a little more room when I'm typing. If you're looking into this model, go test typing at a store on 8.9 inch netbooks and see if the keyboard suits your needs.

As far as technology goes, this device is pretty great. I hooked it to my 23-inch LCD (high-def 1920x1080) and it worked fine. I'm not planning to play 3D games in high-def so the ability to run high-def from this netbook for researching was more important to me than actual performance.

One of my favorite things about this device is battery. I keep putting it to sleep on the counter but it looks like I'll consistently get over 4.5 hours use with the proper power save setting.

Outside of the compressed physical keyboard, I'm very pleased with this netbook. I knew getting into it it'd be smaller so I won't say I'm disappointed. I will be using it pretty much every day from now on. You can check out some other reviews here at Amazon.com.