Update: we've now published a full Asus Eee PC T91 review.
Asus' plans to flood the market with so many Eee-branded products that consumers end up forgetting there are any other letters of the alphabet received another boost when the touchscreen T91 Eee PC was shown off at CES 2009.
The touch mode launcher is a lovely touch, but the proof of any touchscreen is in the accuracy of the screen's response to the users' fingers / stylus, and TechRadar can confirm that this model certainly ticks that box.
During a hands on with the T91, repeated presses of different elements of the screen, including a number of attempts at hitting the Windows Start button, were all successful.
Even dragging items around the 8.9 inch screen provided no problems, which is usually a problematic area for a tablet PC.
There obviously wasn't a chance to test the battery life on this model, but we would expect a slight drop.
Asus was left with a slightly red face when demonstrations of the touch interface, running on Windows XP, decided to stop working when attempting to access the photo viewer, forcing the program to shut down, so TechRadar never got a chance to see how the new and improved interface really made things different with a touchscreen. We imagine pretty similar to a mouse... but with your fingers instead. Wow.
Flinging an Eee
The two pound model was certainly easy to fling about (not that we tried... we would have probably been thrown out) but certainly fitted into the Eee PC mantra of being easy to carry around in a relatively small bag.
The extra options, mobile TV and GPS, were obviously a nice touch, but weren't on display at Asus' press conference. We can't imagine the mobile TV will be available in the UK, and the GPS proves that Asus is looking at emulating the mobile phone model for netbooks as well.
Overall, we were impressed with the efforts from Asus to try and crack the difficult tablet PC formula. A glossy chassis (that attracted fingerprints like a legion of moths to football floodlights) seemed to say that the new model will be a little more pricey that other Eee efforts, but given there's been no word on pricing and availability we'll just sit here quietly and hold our breath.
From CES 2009
