ASUS $499 Touchscreen Netbook Arriving Soon in U.S.
While some countries are already taking stock of the ASUS T101MT netbook, it’s not here in the U.S. That’s about to change according to a Liliputing source — Brad Linder says we should see the touchscreen device next month for around $499. At that price, I suspect it’s a base model and not the decked out version folks in Italy can pick up. EeePC.it says you get 2 GB of RAM, Microsoft Windows Home Premium and a 320 GB hard drive for your 499 Euros.
I’m in agreement with Brad — the $499 version we’ll see is likely to have only 1 GB of RAM and Microsoft Windows Starter Edition. This is one time where I hope I’m wrong, since that version of Windows doesn’t include touchscreen support. In fact, I still can’t fathom why any touchscreen PC would be offered with an operating system that can’t take advantage of a touch input. And speaking of touch, there’s been some confusion about the touch solution ASUS is using with the T101MT — while is is capable of multitouch, it’s a resistive display. Here’s an excerpt from an ASUS Press Release on the device:
“Equipped with an advanced display can recognize 256 levels of pressure, Eee PC T101MT provides maximum sensitivity to touch, offering the ability to digitally reproduce even handwriting in an extremely fluid and natural. Thanks to technology multitouch addition, the display of a small tablet on ASUS recognizes the input in several places simultaneously, allowing, among other things, to rotate, enlarge or reduce images and documents, as well as browse web pages simply and intuitive, while moving two fingers on the display, without even having to use the built-in touchpad.”
As soon as I saw the “256 levels of pressure” bit, I knew it wasn’t capacitive. Those screens can’t sense pressure levels like a resistive display can. The alternative is to use a dual digitizer with both capacitive and resistive, but at $499, you’re not going to see that solution. Another option would be for ASUS to use an active digitizer with special pen — those can sense pressure levels too — but again, they’re costly and don’t support multitouch. So for touch navigation, the T101MT should work nicely, provided it has the right operating system. For inking and handwriting — not so much based on the technology used.
Image courtesy of Liliputing
Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):
This actually has palm rejection technology built in. You can choose whether to have it recognize the stylus or your fingers. Don’t know how good it is though. If it works as advertized I’ll be very interested although, after a few tweaks, my SC3 is inking very well – I’m inking this on it.
True, there is a pen mode and a finger mode, so it could offer a reasonable inking experience in the correct mode. Bear in mind that Tablet PC features / ink support are in Windows 7 Home Premium and up, so again — Starter Edition would make that a no go.
Kind of curious about the SC3. I know that Kohjinsha also makes a SX3. From where would someone in the US buy one of these, Conics, Dynamism? I’m researching a replacement for my P1610.
Thanks,
C.
The SC3 has been replaced by the SK3, which can be found on conics.net.
“256 levels of pressure”
Wait just a moment! I knew that resistive multi-touch digitizers existed, but ones with pressure sensitivity beyond simple “on/off”?
If the palm rejection is any good, then Wacom just might have some competition here.
If they make a version with Android, a Android + ChromeOS hybrid, or Linux (esp. EeeBuntu), then I’m in. Maybe for regular ol’ ChromeOS, but maybe not.
But, if as ASUS has been doing with their Eee series lately, they go Windows only … then I have absolutely ZERO interest in this door-stop.
Does it matter what it ships with in that case? You can burn an ISO from Jolicloud or Ubuntu and slap it on there, right? Or is the hardware crippled to only work with Win 7?
Yeah, it does matter. I plan to use such a device as a main productivity device, not as a hobby device. Which means if things go wrong, I want the vendor to be fully engaged on fixing it.
I do also have hobby devices that play around with ubuntu variants and stuff… but my primary devices? no. Has to be a vendor supported, and non-windows, OS.