How long will Asus continue to tantalize us with the Asus Eee T91 [Portal page]? It seems like ages ago that we first saw the tablet-netbook that promises to bring the tablet PC experience to the masses. While it seems that the T91 is either already released, or in the process of being released in the UK, we’re still left wondering when it will hit US shores. Regardless of the release date, Asus has seen fit to continue to taunt us by putting up an official product page on their US site. Nothing too exciting here, just some ever tempting images of the (supposedly real) device and some marketing hubbub, and we’re still left wondering if the multi-touch version will ever be released, or if it was just a prototype.

I’ve installed Windows 7 on the Clevo TN70M and it’s working very well. Auto screen rotation isn’t working yet but everything else seems to be. Even tablet features started working fully after I installed the touch drivers. I’ve tested the beta graphics drivers and it even enables Aero.  (But causes problems with Windows Media Player so I rolled back to the standard drivers.)

The fact that Windows 7 works is more significant than with many other devices because you can buy the TN70M without an operating system for just over 400 Euro. This makes the Clevo TN70 with its excellent touchscreen the cheapest tablet PC available today. The wide frame and palm resistance help too so although it’s not the ultimate handwriting pad, it’s a fantastic entry point. Even if you’re not into handwriting, there are some nice features in Windows 7 that help with finger navigation and mobility. I just wish that auto screen-rotate software was working. It hasnt been working under XP either so it is possible I have a faulty unit here.

There’s not much more to say at the moment because it’s early days. I want to upgrade the RAM to 2GB because although Win 7 seems much more gentle on hard drives than Vista, it’s not as gentle as XP is. A fast 32GB SSD would be a better option than the 60GB HDD in my opinion and would really help Win 7.

Optical pointer, webcam, mouse pointer, fingerprint reader, touch, brightness, volume, sleep, sd card, audio, BT, Wifi. Check! Everything working.

What a bargain this is turning into. I have a broken Q1 Ultra here. I wonder if the 1024×600 would swap into it! I’m tempted to buy this little budget baby just to try it out because that’s the only thing that would need changing in order to make this a very compelling little UMPC.

Hands-on first impression and video here.

After seeing the unit get ripped apart by the FCC and go hands on with plenty of people, Asus has just officially announced it via a press release on their site. While the usual marketing mumbo jumbo is present (they are really pushing it by claiming to have 82GB of total* storage space), we are still left without a price or release date. It seems that Asus is trying to push their touch oriented software hard; we’ll see if it is really useful or just shows off the touchscreen, eventually. At least they were kind enough to leave us a nice table of specs, but unfortunately I’m not seeing anything that we didn’t already know about the T91, maybe with the exception of a “well-designed stylus”… I hope they aren’t talking about the same one we saw in a hands on video a few weeks ago. Hopefully the 5 hour battery life statement is accurate (fingers crossed!).

Asus Eee T91:

Model
Eee PC™ T91

Operating System
Genuine Windows® XP Home

Display
8.9″ LED-backlit / Resistive Touch Panel

CPU
Intel® Atom Z520

Chipset
Intel® US15W

LAN
Onboard 10/100 Mbps Fast Ethernet controller

Wireless Data Networking
WLAN: 802.11b/g/n
Bluetooth V2.1

Memory
1GB (DDR2)

Storage
Total 82GB (16GB Solid State Drive + 16GB SD Card + 30GB Portable Hard Disk Drive* + 20GB Eee Storage)

Interface
1 x VGA port (D-sub 15-pin for external monitor)
2 x USB 2.0 ports
1 x LAN RJ-45
2 x audio jacks: Headphone / Mic-in

Camera
0.3 M Pixel

Reader
3-in-1 MMC, SD, SDHC flash card slot

Audio
Hi-definition audio CODEC
Built-in high quality stereo speakers
Digital Array Mic

Battery Life
Li-Polymer battery, 5hrs**

Dimensions
225mm (W) x 164mm (D) x 25.2 ~ 28.4mm (H)

Weight
0.96kg

Optional
GPS, TV Tuner, 3G plus (HSUPA)

Casing Colors / Infusion
White, Black

Miscellaneous
Comes with a well-designed stylus

One element of the Gigabyte Touchnote that I’m starting to get used to now is the gesture support. It’s built into a special set of eGalax drivers that have been included on the device. Originally I wanted to turn them off as they were interfering with selecting text and Grab and Drag under Firefox but after tweaking them a little, removing a few that were clashing with other on-screen actions and getting used to new ones that I have set up, i’m really liking them. Here’s a video showing them in action on the standard XP build. The only thing missing is being able to register your own gestures. Graffiti recognition would be great.

As a side note, the Touchnote has been performing flawlessly. I’m currently restoring it to out-of-the box build using the built-in recovery partition and will copy that over to my Runcore SSD. With the 3G, Draft-N, BT and reasonable battery life (I plan to pick a 6-cell in Taiwan next week to bring it up to 5hrs) I can’t ask for any more. The Asus T101H is tempting me a little but I can’t imaging the 3G antenna being as good as it is on the Touchnote and I won’t compromise on that.

More details on the Touchnote including links to reviews and testing notes, are available in the product database.

I haven’t been through this hands-on in detail yet but I wanted to highlight it ASAP to the readers here.

TechRadar have had time with a pre-production version of the ASUS T91 convertible netbook. This is the netbook that a lot of UMPC fans are looking at. It’s lightweight, very small and has an 8.9” convertible 1024×600 touchscreen.

The first thing I’m looking for on the report is battery life…. three hours and twenty minutes of video playback. I was expecting more considering that the Viliv S5 with it’s 24wh battery, can play video for 6hrs. Maybe the video was CPU-decoded? Maybe it’s just the big screen which will be adding a big drain on the battery.

Full specs and more links here.

I’ll update this post with my thoughts.

Update:
I wouldn’t really call this a review. No mention of screen brightness and battery life under normal use, keyboard quality, mousepad. I suspect this was just a 30 minute hands-on with the device but it gives positive vibes which is a good sign.

This is really worth a read.

If the touch-sensitive surface on a mobile device were on the back instead, gestures like pointing, tapping, and selecting wouldn’t get in the way of the screen. At least, that’s the idea. But that creates a new challenge—seeing where your finger is going. So Baudisch’s team has been experimenting with a variety of approaches, including using transparent screens (which, unfortunately, don’t leave room for the electronic guts of most devices) and attaching a boom with a camera to a device’s backside (which is predictably clunky). Baudisch’s newest prototype, and the one he described yesterday, is called nanoTouch. It’s a squarish little gadget resembling an iPod nano, with a 2.4-inch screen that dominates the front and a capacative trackpad similar to the mousepad on a laptop computer attached to the back.

This rear-touch interface is incredibly interesting and very significant for portable devices but there’s more. Wade Roush, the author of the article,  goes on to highlight dual-screen interfaces too. He highlights two OQO devices hooked up into a dual-screen scenario with additional accelerometers that control screen orientation. It’s right up there with the roll-out screen as a distruptive technology. Don’t expect this to appear too soon though.

“The technology isn’t quite there to put dual-screen devices into production. Indeed, the second-generation OLPC device, while sexy, has all the signs of being vaporware. But Microsoft and other companies have poured too much money into tablet- and pen-based computing to let the technology’s development stop now. As Hinckley put it to me after his talk, “This is eventually going to happen. If Microsoft doesn’t do it, somebody else will. So it’s really important to understand what the issues are.”

The video below (from New Scientist) show the rear-touch interface.

Take a look at the full article: At CHI Meeting, Microsoft Turns Computing Interfaces on Their Head, and Side, and Back | Xconomy.

Credit to Patrick Baudisch, Ken Hinckley and Meredith Ringel Morris of Microsoft Research.

Over the last 48hrs I’ve been focusing on the Gigabyte Touchnote T1028M that has been sent over by Mobilx. 48hrs isn’t a long time but having done the unboxing, a full 3hr live test (recording) with viewer feedback (thanks to the 500+ people that dropped in during the live session) and Q&A along with a full 2-day use as my main PC, I feel that I’m a position to be able to give you the highs and lows.

The Touchnote is a device that falls between, or rather overlaps, the netbook, tabletPC and notebook categories and I have to say, I’m quite impressed with it. It’s a very unique and enjoyable device with some excellent features and very few issues.

The images above sum up some of the features that make it unique. Convertible screen, touch layer and 3G-ready. The Touchnote follows in the steps of the M912M, the 8.9” convertible and in my opinion, fixes all the problems that existed with that device.

Let me quickly run down the main points of note.

• Intel Atom 1.6Ghz ‘netbook’ platform with 1GB RAM and Windows XP Home.
• Large, relatively fast 2.5” SATA drive. (61 / 57 MB/s read/write) split into two (80/65GB) partitions with an additional recovery partition.
• Quite and cool operation (an important improvement over the M912M)
• Average 3.25hrs online, active battery life. (about 30 minutes improvement over the M912)
• Minimum 2.5hrs online batter life with high screen brightness and 3G connectivity.
• Maximum 4hrs battery life (50% screen brightness, radios off)
• Solid screen hinge (better than the M912)
• BT 2.1 and Draft-N wireless support
• Good quality on-screen control panel
• Device-off battery indicator
• Expresscard/34 slot
• Easy access to Wifi and spare PCI-Express-MINI slots, RAM and disk.
• Pre-wired antenna (good quality) and SIM card slot.
• Multi-touch mouse pad (Elantech)
• 3xUSB, VGA, 4-in-one memory card slot, Ethernet, mic and headphone ports
• Bright LED backlit screen with soft touch layer (great for finger operation, not great for handwriting input)
• Touch driver has basic built-in swipe-gesture support for Pg-Up, Pg-Down forward and back.
• Speakers loud. Reasonable (WRT netbooks) quality
• Glossy screen will be an annoyance for outdoor use. (see image below)
• Overall build quality good (no creaking plastic. finishing good.)
• Uses lightweight power supply unit at 12VDC
• A two-pocket neoprene ‘hand’bag’ is included.
• Spare batteries are well-priced. 6-cell battery (150% capacity) is available.

Medion Akoya (same as MSI Wind) next to Gigabyte Touchnote showing slightly larger form factor and glossy screen.

Full Gigabyte Touchnote Gallery available in the gallery.

The Touchnote has been loaned to UMPCPortal by Mobilx who are also taking advantage of the built-in SIM slot, easy PCI-Express Mini slot access and, unique for any device I know of, pre-wired antenna. I’ve done 3G upgrades in the past but antenna reception has always been an issue. With the Touchnote, Gigabyte take all the worry away. The reception on the antenna is excellent. For the first time ever on any device, including a smartphone, that I have owned, I was able to get UMTS connectivity in my cellar studio!

CrystalMark performance test.

In order to highlight the disk performance I’ve run through the CrystalMark 2003 performance test. The result of over 28000 is one of the best I’ve seen for a stock netbook and is attributable to the disk which really does make a noticeable difference in operation.

Summary.

The Touchnote offers a lot more than the average netbook and offers significant improvements over the groundbreaking M912M that came before it. Convertible touchscreen, draft-n WiFi, BT2.1, fast 2.5” drive, easy upgrade possibilities, Expresscard/34 and the well-prepared SIM card and 3G Antenna are a a feature set you won’t find on any other device. The glossy screen and average battery life are really the only two points I could highlight as issues. Oh, and perhaps the fact that an advanced N280-based model is coming soon! Currently Gigabyte stands alone in offering a 10” touchscreen notebook at this price point but they may not have the playground to themselves for long. The ASUS T101H is an obvious competitor and many will be laboring over the choice between the two. Until we get hands-on with the T101H we won’t be able to make a decision but until then, we can certainly say that the Gigabyte Touchnote T1028M is a unique, good value and well thought-out choice in both the prosumer end of the netbook market and the budget notebook market.

Price approx 480 Euro (export price. European price including tax, approx 580 Euros)
More information, specs, links and images in the Touchnote product page. Compare similar, popular devices here.

I had a nice update call from Mobilx this morning where we talked about a number of things. MBook, Aigo and Mifi were discussed (more about those later in the week) but top of the list was the Gigabyte Touchnote shipment which has almost reached Mobilx HQ.

Mobilx have already confirmed easy 3G upgrade possibilities and appear to be impressed with the improvement in quality over the M912. Price is set at around 560 Euros.

As soon as the Touchbook hits the ground at Mobilx HQ it’s being forwarded to us for testing so i’ve reserved Thursday and Friday (European) evenings for a live session. Stay tuned to twitter to keep up with the latest info about the live session. I’ll also post an article here with the final announcement.

Keep up to date with specs and links in the Touchnote product page.

P.S. If you’re at TheNextWeb conference in Amsterdam next week, i’ll have the Touchnote with me and will be happy to let you check it over.

When I think back to the M912, Gigabyte’s first touchscreen netbook, I think about fast hard drive speed, a fun form factor and easy upgrade capability. Unfortuinately I also think about the noise and heat. [M912 Video]

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When hardware and software work together in harmony, beautiful things happen. Take, for example, this video of Streetdeck 2 navigation software running on the upcoming Vilic S5 MID [Portal page]. Try to watch this video and then tell me that you don’t wish you had this as GPS solution for your car.

I’m really impressed with both the hardware and the software in this demo. A few things make this possible, first of which is the fact that the S5 is much more powerful than any standalone GPS unit. Streaming satellite radio while viewing real-time 3D navigation is no problem. Second, is that the Viliv has GPS built in. I might be able to do something similar with my UX180 (which I’m looking to experiment with), but I’ll definitely need to use a Bluetooth GPS device.  This video puts the capabilities of my supposedly ‘gps equipped’ iPhone 3G to shame, and even my dedicated GPS unit.

[jkkmobile]

We might still be waiting to hear more news of the Side Arm 2 rugged UMPC, but in the mean time it seems like we have a different rugged UMPC to take a look at. Have a look at the Yuma rugged UMPC from Trimble.

• 7″ sunlight-readable 1024×600 touchscreen display
• 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270
• Windows Vista
• 32GB SSD
• 802.11b/g WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0
• GPS
• dual-cameras
• USB 2.0 port x 2
• SDIO slot
• ExpressCard slot

It seems to be a pretty large slate-UMPC (read: no keyboard) and weighs 2.6 pounds with the battery. Clearly this device is not for consumer wielding in the local coffee shop, but instead it is designed to stand up to some serious punishment and provide a mobile platform for commercial work. Here are some of the things that Trimble mentioned the device might be useful for while on-the-go:

•  
  • Collect and exchange data – lots of data
  • Transfer data in real time
  • Run reports
  • Receive dispatch orders on the road
  • Take geo-tagged photographs
  • Initiate VOIP communications
  • Add secure memory for sensitive files
  • Send email
  • Write a report
  • Find your way out of the forest

[Rugged PC Reviews] via [GottaBeMobile]

Mobile Computer Mag had a chance to check out a prototype model of the upcoming Asus T91 tablet-netbook [Portal page] and they captured a great hardware overview, with commentary, on camera. Have a look below:

Something interesting that we see in this video is a SIM slot built into the device. As they mentioned, it isn’t clear yet if this is something they are testing, or something that will be available when the unit launches (we’re hoping for the latter). I’m excited to see the convertible tablet form factor making its way down to netbooks. It seems like a low cost tablet-netbook could be a great way to expand the tablet-PC user base. It is also good that one of the first of these that we are seeing is coming from a reputable netbook maker, Asus. It seems like it will still be a balancing act to get a good price:quality ratio compared to current netbooks when you consider the fact that you need to get the touchscreen and swiveling lid on the unit.

If you are interested to see what the software end of the netbook will look like, don’t miss this post.

[Liliputing]

Jkkmobile points out an interesting video from Engadget that shows some interesting multi-touch demos on a resistive touchscreen. Have a look at the video embedded below, but be sure to stick around for some thoughts below.

The demos are definitely neat, but I’m a very big proponent of capacitive touch technology, not because of multi-touch, but because of its consistent recognition of input. Multi-touch and the ability to do gestures is great, but I would argue that it is not the best part of capacitive touch technology. So they have managed to port the multi-touch facet of capacitive touchscreens over to resistive touchscreens, but they stick lack the consistent detection of input. Nothing is more annoying to me than having to click on one item several times because it is easy for a resistive touchscreen to either miss or misinterpret your input. It really ruins the touchscreen experience. Low pressure input resistive screens help to alleviate this to some degree but the issue still remains. Capacitive touch’s ability to extremely consistently recognize touch input is what makes it possible to have a viable on-screen keyboard on a device the size of the iPhone. I’ve tried many other resistive touch phones with OSKs, and the experience is almost embarrassing to the hardware.

As for the pressure sensitivity of the demoed screen: The way it was described is that it recognizes how much pressure you are putting on the screen by how much contact there is with the surface of your finger. If this is the correct explanation of how the technology works, then pressure sensitivity will not be able to be measured with a stylus. When you apply more pressure to a surface with your finger, the skin around the bone presses down with a larger surface area, this obviously doesn’t occur with the tip of a stylus.

This is definitely good for resistive touchscreens and a jump forward for devices that will continue to use them, but in many cases I still feel like capacitive touch offers the best experience.

Sascha of Netbooknews.de and the Ultra Mobile podcast is out in Taiwan at the moment gathering news and info on netbooks and mobile devices direct from the OEMs. He’s managed to get hold of a T91 which is one of the more exciting and most popular devices viewed on UMPCPortal. The demo shows a nice UI layer on top of XP (which suprised me. I thought the T91 UI was going to be on Linux for some reason.) Its Beta software and Sascha’s running through it with one hand but despite that, I think it looks pretty good and wouldn’t mind having it on one or two of the UMPCs around here.

At under 1KG and looking small and slick, i’m sure this going to be a big seller for mobility fans. Especially when it becomes available with 3G.
More details on the T91 in the product database.

Source: netbooknews

I’ve been on vacation for the last week doing some snowboarding in Colorado, but it wasn’t all play. I’ve been doing an accessory review for you, our good readers. For the last week, I’ve been testing the Marmot iTouch Multi gloves for use with capacitive touchscreens.

What Are They?

The iTouch Multi gloves from Marmot are gloves that have a special tip on the index-finger and thumb that allow one to use capacitive touch devices that normally only work with bare fingers. I bought mine at a local ski/snowboard shop for only $35. These gloves aren’t thick (or water-resistant) enough for use as dedicated skiing/snowboarding gloves, but they work great as liners for larger gloves or for stand-alone gloves in brisk weather.

How do they work?

On both gloves are pads on the index-finger and thumb that have a special material that activate the capacitive touch device. The material helps transfer the field that you fingers’ naturally generate which acts to disrupt a field created by a capacitive touchscreen, thus locating the region that the screen has been touched. It seems that these gloves are rather new, as I can’t even locate them on Marmot’s site, so I unfortunately don’t know the exact origin of the material. The special material is flexible, and it goes over top of the regular glove material, so you thumb and index-finger stay just as warm as your other fingers.

How do they perform?

I’m pretty impressed with the gloves. They work about as well as I expected them to. I bought these gloves with the desire to be able to operate the basic functions of my iPhone 3G in the cold without having to remove my gloves. I also wanted them to function as a liner for larger gloves so that I could take my outer gloves off while snowboarding and be able to use my phone on the slopes without my hands freezing off.

The special material on the index-finger and thumb work well to initiate touchscreen input. Of course it isn’t the surface of your real finger, so it is hard to be as accurate as normal, but as long as you are careful, it is possible to touch right where you are trying to. Sometimes it is easiest to use the side of the glove tip where it comes to more of a point to hit exactly what you want. The gloves make it easy to answer and place phone calls without taking your gloves off. Though it might take more time, you can also respond to text messages. When returning texts, it is only practical to type with one finger; you won’t be typing with two thumbs like you might normally.

I only have two issues with these gloves. The first of which is grip. The gloves are covered on the palm side with little rubbery grips that look just like the red logo on the index-finger. While they probably assist your grip somewhat, holding the iPhone is still analogous to holding a wet bar of a soap. Ok that might be a bit of an overstatement, but I would recommend being very careful while holding your electronic device. For me, holding and typing with the same hand was totally out of the question. While I was on the ski lifts, I would hold my iPhone firmly with one hand and use the other to navigate, any other way would just be asking to lose your iPhone to the snow 30 feet under you. Stopping to answer a call on the slopes wasn’t much of an issue. All I had to do was take off my outer glove and slide the slider to answer. I was able to talk on the phone without completely taking off my gloves, which is very nice when you are out in the cold.

My second complaint is build quality. The gloves would probably hold up very well if they were used by themselves. However, a week of being used as liners is already taking its toll. The special pads are already frayed. After prolonged use as liners, it seems like they would degrade fairly quickly. As I said, during stand-alone use, they would probably last much longer.

Overall I’m pretty satisfied with the gloves, and I feel that they are priced fairly. Any glove makers out there think they have a better pair of capacitive touch enabled gloves? Contact me at Ben [at] umpcportal.com if you would like to have them reviewed.

Update: Building a list of the specs and news references in the product database page.

An 8.9″ 2.1lb PC it’s not exactly the type of thing I’d like to have on my car dashboard but it seems that ASUS might be thinking that way. With GPS, touchscreen and an FM transmitter it looks like they’re going for the navigation option.

LaptopMag have a short article with information from the ASUS press event that took place at CES a short while ago.

I have a similar combination of convertible with GPS on my SC3 and I can honestly say that I’ve never ever thought about using it as a PND. There are far better solutions out there. Maybe ASUS will focus on the tablet element of this one though. At 1KG, it will work well for some.

Liliputing have some more pics and are saying that the device is due for launch in the 3-6months timeframe.

Related ASUS convertible item: The T83 from CeBIT in 2007 that never saw the light of day.

Update: Looks like there’s a 10″ version of this. The T101H

Have a look at Phun, the free physics sandbox, available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX. I’m really excited to share this game with any touchscreen users out there because it is really well made and lots of fun if you like to create and tinker.

Phun is not a goal oriented game. It is more of a playground, or a sandbox if you will. You have at your disposal many different tools to create whatever you can think of. You are essentially using these tools to create objects and see how they act and react given the properties that you have specified. Tools range from simple circle and box creation to more complex and interesting mechanics such as the spring tool which allows you to couple objects together with springs that are totally adjustable by the user (things like spring strength, dampening, etcetera).

The great thing about this game, with regards to touchscreen users, is that just about every adjustment can be made on screen using your stylus. The major tools are represented with nicely sized on-screen buttons and it makes them easy to select with the stylus. Right clicking on any object brings up a menu with lots of options that are specific to each object. For example, right clicking on a block will allow you to change its density, friction, color, and lots more. Selecting the object menu from the top bar without having anything selected brings up a small window that will make it really easy for touchscreen users to navigate. See the video-demo below.

continue reading for video-demo, download link and more…

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