Remember that hot upcoming touchscreen swivel netbook that was totally going to bring forth the era of the tablet-netbook? Yeah, you know that one that was topping the Portal popularity charts for some time several months back? Yeah, that one! The Asus Eee T91. This device is nearing the anniversary of its announcement and has yet to hit the market in sufficient numbers (we reported on the T91 back at the beginning of January!). Not because of lack of demand, mind you, but because of lack of supply, it would seem. This once hot device has since fizzled and according to the portal, has lost much of the popularity that it had previously acquired.So what happened? It’s hard to say exactly, but the links section on the T91’s Portal page can help us reconstruct the story.

As I mentioned, we first reported on the T91 back on January the 7th, where it was announced at CES during an Asus event. As early as February, we saw some pretty detailed hands-on information, but presumably, this was still a pre-production model. We watched as the T91 passed through the FCC in April. Three months later, the T91 got an official product page on Asus’ site. Also in July, Asus UK told us that there would be three versions of the T91!

At this point, anticipation is really ramping up for the device.

Production model reviews start showing up from major sites around mid-July. But after all of this media attention, hands-on’s, and reviews from many websites, the T91 seemed to be released in a very limited quantity, and never hit the market with enough force to satiate the demand, or the attention that the T91 was being given at the time. A shame too because it seemed as though a lot of people were looking forward to this device. We reported on the 1st of August that T91 shipments were delayed to distributors (in our comments alone you can see that people were upset by this news), and the new shipment date should be sometime in September, but it isn’t even clear if that date was ever met with additional supply — if it was, it was too little, too late.

While the T91 did pop up for sale on Amazon and a few other sites, it quickly sold out and hasn’t been in stock since. So what’s the deal Asus, why was there such a lack of supply at the release of the T91? It really seems like they missed a good opportunity to capitalize on the anticipation of a product that people were actually looking forward to. The T91 had the distinction of being different than just another model number in the Eee line-up. Search popularity was well in line with a model that Asus is still selling plenty of, as seen by the following Google Trends chart in which ‘Eee T91’ search term is represented by blue, and ‘Eee 1008HA’ in red:Demand was there, but we don’t really have any explanation for the lack of supply. Much of what I’m seeing could be mostly from a US perspective, but I believe that the missing T91 is a world-wide phenomenon (correct me if I’m wrong). I’ve dispatched some questions to Asus to see if we can officially get to the bottom of this, and I’ll let everyone know as soon as I get any word back.

I’m no expert on e-book reading but I’m a big e-reader. What I mean by that is that I read electronic content all day long but I don’t read many books. I’ve been working my way through the Adventures of Tom Sawyer on the SmartQ7 and have tried to continue on the Archos 5 but I don’t get very far before I’m distracted by an email or twitter notification and then I’m off into one of those enjoyable but never-ending web journeys.

Based on my experience with the Archos 5, its form factor, hours of using Google Reader (Android formatted) and the web browser I’d say that the form factor lends itself perfectly to 1hr reading sessions and that due to the weight (smartphone weight) and screen characteristics (200 ppi and well-aliased fonts and adjustable back-lighting) many people will end up doing more. What effect that has on your eyes is unknown to me but it certainly feels more comfortable than smaller screens I’ve tried.

I can’t really show you the quality of the screen on a video but you might get an idea of how you might use this device to read e-book content in the video I’ve prepared for you below. You’ll see FbreaderJ with a mobipocket-formatted e-book and Aldiko and an epub-formatted book with online download. One thing missing is commercial content. It is possible to convert encrypted and even DRM-protected content but I’d like to be able to link directly into books from commercial stores like Amazon and Mobipocket without all that hassle.

Don’t forget to watch in full-screen and hit the ‘HQ’ button for the higher quality version.

I’ve shown you Social Messaging, HD video playback and now Ebook reading on the Archos 5 IT but there are at least two other usage scenarios that I want to show you. Next week i’ll be highlighting the Web browsing experience and the navigation experience and that will probably round-up the Archos 5 IT coverage for a while.

If you have experience with dedicated e-book readers, let us know how you feel about this LCD reading experience. How would you feel if the Amazon Kindle software was ported to the Archos Tablet?

P.S. Anyone know if there are commercial audiobook apps for Android? An Audible app would be awesome!

More info on the Archos 5 Internet Tablet here.

The Archos 5 Internet Media Tablet is a 4.8 inch 800×480 tablet device running Android and Archos Media Player software. Prices start at 230 Euro (8GB) but I’ve got the 32GB version here (bought myself) and I’ve had been pounding it hard since I got it last Friday. So far I’m loving its capability and excited by its potential but am frustrated by the amount of crashes and lock-ups I’m experiencing. At this stage I’d advise customers to hold-off on a purchase and take the time to do some more research and to monitor my ongoing experiences with the device before diving in.

Read on for an extended first-impressions post.

Archos 5 gallery.

If you didn’t catch the unboxing video or the live session on Friday

, I recommend taking a look because so far the device has been really interesting. One word of warning though, it’s very unstable and buggy right now. I’m experiencing at least one software problem per hour of use. Version 1.022 of the firmware desperately needs an upgrade and I’d go so far as to say, DONT BUY THIS DEVICE YET if you’re thinking of using it for business or if you’re the sort of person that gets frustrated at unfinished products. Archos have clearly skimped on testing. Even as I type this paragraph, a notification has come in but I can’t unlock the device to get to it. I’m going to have to reboot. Not good enough Archos.

Chippy has a nice photoset of the upcoming Viliv S10 here in the ultra mobile PC gallery. Take a look. These were taken during Computex.

Update: Hands-on video and full specifications.

The title says most of what you need to know. Archos has announced the official launch for the Archos 9, which will be on October 22nd in two colors (white and black), and the unit will run $499! Here are the specs:

• Atom Z510 1.1GHz CPU
• 1024×600 9 inch resistive touchscreen
• 1GB of RAM
• 60GB HDD
• Windows 7 Starter
• 4 hours of battery life
• 800 grams

I have to say that I’m really impressed with that price. I couldn’t see the Archos 9 going anywhere if it were $600+, and $499 is a great surprise.

Check out Chippy’s recent hands-on with the 16mm thin device.

Update: Viliv S10 Specifications and latest information.

I’ve had some hands-on with the Viliv S10. It’s slick, well designed, well finished and impressive. Viliv are talking about a 10-hour battery life on this which would probably translate to around 6-8hrs on-net usage. The big question is of course, price. Are we going to see it come in below the Gigabyte Touchnote T1028? And what about the T91?

Here’s a video I took during my MIDMoves IDF tour this week.

One correction on the video. The S10 is due to be launched in Q4 2009, not 2010.

Source: MidMoves

Chippy’s spent a lot of time bringing us some quality IDF 2009 coverage. In addition to a video-overview of each of these devices, he’s been able to sneak away and snap some nice pictures of each. Full Archos 9 set on MIDMoves

Full UMID M2 set on MIDMoves

One of the more intriguing devices that we’ve been waiting to find out more about is the Archos 9 slate ultra mobile PC [Portal page]. Have a look at Chippy’s hands on, straight from IDF 2009:

Looks pretty darn slick if you ask me. I’m really happy to see the optical mouse; it will definitely improve usability over having just the touchscreen for input. Don’t forget this thing is running Windows 7. I’m pretty disappointed to see a lack of physical keyboard on the Archos 9. No keyboard physical means some seriously reduced usability for normal computing applications, but the nice inline stand could make this a nice table-top media device. If you carried this puppy around with a foldable BT keyboard, you’d have a very slick piece of kit for mobile computing.

I think I’d personally rather see this device running a custom OS with polished touch based software and a reasonable price. The price hasn’t been announced yet, but Chippy puts the unit around 600 Euros, available pretty soon. More info as we get it.