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Revisions of older netbooks, new models and other sleek products within this segment are arriving en masse, and Asus has managed to introduce a small, new device right along with them.
We take a look at Asus’ newest Eee device, which brings new functionality to the small computers. T91MT is the first Eee tablet with multi-gesture technology. The tablet itself is no larger than 8.9 inches and ideal as a student’s right hand. But are the added functions of any practical use? That is what we aim to find out...

The product was kindly lent to us by Asus.com

Specifications

Category
Students/Business

Processor
Intel Atom Z520(PT) - 1.33 GHz - 512 KB L2 cache

Chipset
Intel US15W (Poulsbo UMPC)

RAM
1x 1024 MB DDR2 SDRAM

GPU
Intel GMA 500 onboard graphics

Storage
Asus-JM S41 - 32 GB SSD

Display
8.9 inch LED backlit display  - WSVGA (1024 x 600px)

Audio card
Intel Poulsbo - High Definition Controller

Optical drive
None

Battery
Lithium Ion - 27380 mWh

Connectivity
Atheros AR8132 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller - 100 Mbps
Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter - 54 Mbps

I/Os
2x USB 2.0
1x Disk Expander (SD, MMC, SDHC)
1x Card reader (SD, MMC, SDHC)
1x RJ-45 port
1x VGA port
1x Audio jack-in
1x Audio jack-out
1x DC-in

Operating system
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit (build 7600)

Software included
Asus VIBE
Asus WebStorage
AsusUpdate for Eee PC
Eee Docking Touch
Asus Touch Gate
CyberLink YouCam
Trend Micro Internet Security

Weight and size
Width: 22.5 cm
Depth: 16.4 cm
Height: 2.7 cm
Weight: 0.98 kg (including battery)

Price
About £450

Package contents


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Along with the computer comes all the standard accessories – charger, manuals and recovery media.

Construction & Design

First impression


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The computer is black and white, and looks much like the other models in the Eee series. It weighs just under a kilo and seems to be sturdily built. One of the first things you notice is of course the rotatable display (rotates 180 degrees horizontally and vertically, so you can e.g. place it face-up upon the keyboard). The display is tightly and securely fastened, and the device seems very good in terms of quality as well.
Once I got the computer running and had a chance to move around in Windows, I quickly got the impression that it somewhat weak in terms of performance. It generally takes a while to load programs, and standard close and open dialogues took several seconds to appear. These issues are reflected in the benchmarks, which we will get to later.

The lid


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The lid has a white, reflecting surface with the Asus logo located just above the middle.

The front


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At the front we have the card reader that supports MMC, SD and SDHC formats.

The rear


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At the rear we have a Kensington lock slot, followed by a VGA port.

The bottom


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We only have access to the RAM module at the bottom.

The right side


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From the left we first have the included stylus for the display, audio jack-out for headphones, audio jack-in for a microphone, 1x USB 2.0 and an RJ-45 port for wired LAN.

The left side


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At the left we first have the DC-in jack, followed by 1x USB 2.0 port. Next we have another card reader – in addition to supporting the same formats as the other reader, this one also supports disk expansion modules.

Buttons/Diodes


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At the bottom of the display we first have a switch to power up/down the computer. At the right of it is another button that starts the so-called “TouchSuite”, which is done by pressing the button for a second. If you hold it down for three seconds, the screen rotates.


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The power button has a small, blue diode by its side, which lights up when the computer is on. In the opposite side of the display we have four other diodes, representing battery status, hard drive activity, WLAN status and Capslock.

Keyboard and Touchpad


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I personally find the physical keyboard slightly useless, since the keys are way too small. I keep hitting several keys at once and sometimes the wrong keys, and it is just not comfortable to work with. To properly use the keyboard you need to have relatively small fingers, and even then it still takes some getting used to if you usually work on a larger keyboard. I urge you to try out the keyboard yourself in a store or at a friend’s so you can determine whether it suits your needs.


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But in addition to the physical keyboard, you might also want to use Windows’ virtual keyboard as the device has a touch display. It works well enough when you just have to write a website or jot down something, but lengthier typing gets tedious as there is no place to rest your wrists. In addition to that, you can only press two keys simultaneously, due to hardware limitations of the display. Having said that, it is a very clever feature once you turn the display around.


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Lastly, the computer also features input via handwriting recognition. It works by writing on the display just as you would on paper, and then the computer recognises the letters of your handwriting and inserts them. This works really well in practice – it understands most of what I write, even though I can barely read it myself, and inserts it nicely on the screen. It is not as quick as using a standard keyboard, and you probably cannot uses it for longer texts, but it certainly works as it should!


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The touchpad also features multi-gesture technology, and can be used for scrolling and rotating e.g. pictures. It is quite responsive, and the mouse buttons work well too, despite being integrated into a single button. The “click” sound is slightly loud, but it is bearable.

The display
The display is an 8.9 incher and LED-backlit. It runs a native resolution of 1024 x 600px, corresponding to WSVGA. The display is also capable of running 1024 x 768px, though it pushes down the height. This resolution is required as a minimum for a fair amount of applications, so it is nice they included it. Too bad it still looks less than optimal.


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The computer’s backlighting is homogenous, meaning it is evenly distributed across the display. When you view the display from above it gets brighter, and dimmer if you view it from below (but the contrast between the colours really stands out). View it from the sides and the screen gets very sharp, although the brightness is reduced some.
I/Os

Special Features

Webcam


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The 0.3 pixel webcam can take pictures in a resolution of 320 x 480. CyberLink YouCam software is included, and features a long range of picture effects.

Asus Touch


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Asus Touch is a smaller application that works as a user-friendly starter of favourite programs. There are some predefined programs like FotoFun, Asus@Vibe and so on.

Eee Docklet


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At the top of the screen you can find a small dock, which gives you easy access to tools made for the Eee models. There are shortcuts to applications, chat, online hard drive and more.

Heat evolution
T91MT is one of the most silent computers I have ever reviewed. The device makes no sound at full performance, in part due to a complete lack of mechanical components in the storage unit since it is an SSD. Couple that with a processor that barely needs cooling and you have a very silent device.

Benchmarks

CPU-Z & GPU-Z


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As the Poulsbo platform is relatively new, many programs are unable to recognise and inform as to what exact hardware is in the computer. For example, everything under the SPD tab in CPU-Z is empty in the newest version, so I have omitted posting those screenshots.

Comparison
The computer is pitted against Toshiba’s NB100, which caters to the same consumer group as this one, but offers some slightly different hardware.

Toshiba NB100's specifications:
Intel Atom N270 - 1.6 GHz – 512 KB Cache
Intel 945GSE (Calistoga-GSE) + ICH7-M/U
1x 1024 MB DDR2-SDAM - PC6400
Intel GMA950 128 MB onboard graphics
1x 120 GB SATA HDD - MK1252GSX
8.9" Widescreen - WSGA CSV LED backlit - 1024px  x 600px
SANYO 4 celled battery - 1526 mWh – 7.2V
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3

Toshiba's NB100 costs less than £300.

Read the review here

Windows Experience Index


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The computer obtains a base score of 1.9 points, established by the lowest sub-score which is “Processor – calculations per second”. The highest score obtained was in “Primary hard disk”, due to the SSD storage. All in all not a very impressive picture of performance, but that is not the point of computers in this category anyway.

Boot and out of standby times


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The Eee starts up in about 50 seconds, some 20 seconds slower than the comparable netbook. However, it only takes 2.5 seconds to get out of standby.

Battery life


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Idle test settings
Brightness: 1/16, varying clock frequency between 797.0 MHz to 1331.6 MHz, SSD standby after 10 minutes and WiFi and Bluetooth active.

Classic test settings
Brightness: 16/16, varying clock frequency between 1014.8 MHz and 608.8 MHz, SSD standby after 10 minutes and WiFi and Bluetooth active.

The computer lasts for up to 5 hours and 22 minutes in idle, which is quite alright. It can go at full performance for just under 4 hours, also not bad.

Processor

wPrime 2.0


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The computer takes a whopping 162 seconds to carry out the wPrime test, which is pretty poor compared to others. However, it does use less power at the expense of performance.

SisSandra Processor Arithmetic & Multi-Media


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In the Arithmetic test, the program outputs MIPS (Million instructions per second) and Mega Flops (One million floating point operations per second) in Multi-Media. In both, higher is better.

Toshiba NB100's Intel Atom N270 processor is generally faster than the Atom Z520 in Asus T91MT.  

Graphics

3DMark


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It really has very little to work with in terms of graphics. The scores are incredibly low compared to what they would have been if there was a dedicated graphics card.

RAM


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NB100 is faster in terms of RAM as well. The computer is equipped with 1x DDR2 RAM, but the speed of it is unfortunately unknown.

Overall

PCMark 05


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Not the best results overall, either. It obtains 1109, a rather low score.

Storage


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In this test T91MT comes out on top, since it boasts SSD rather than a conventional hard drive. Not only is it faster, it is also completely silent because there are no mechanical parts. SSDs are also shock-proof in case you drop your notebook. T91MT has a reading speed of almost 72 MB/s.

Conclusion

Asus T91MT is an incredibly fancy computer, with an unbelievable size and clever functions that can impress anyone. The multi-touch display is not something you usually see on such a small computer for such a small price, so that is quite innovative. The craftsmanship is generally great, and the product is quite good overall.
However, once you delve deeper into the device, you will find that there are certain issues. The hardware is generally easy on the battery, but that comes at the expense of performance. Windows generally runs very slowly, and many programs stutter/lag. The only piece of hardware that outweighs this a little is the SSD, but it is sort of unnecessary with this kind of configuration. It does make the computer silent and more shock-proof, though.
The touch-aspect of the device is a handy feature, but just how useful it actually is in the long run is questionable. It is fine if you want to sketch, draw, illustrate and navigate on the computer, but since the programs just do not run as well they should, you do not get the feeling of everything falling into place as hoped.
In the aggregate, I see this device of more as a gadget since it has some clever show-off features, but whether it is a suitable as a workstation is debateable. It has both advantages and disadvantages that one must consider before buying.

Pros:
Multi-touch
Size
SSD storage
Silent

Cons:
Generally slow
Maximum of two simultaneous touch inputs

Battery:	3,5 / 5
Graphics:	1 / 5
Construction:	4 / 5
Mobility:	5 / 5
Software:	2,5 / 5
CPU Performance:	1,5 / 5
Innovation:	3 / 5
Connectionspeed:	4 / 5
Price:	4,5 / 5
Accessories:	3,5 / 5
Design:	3 / 5
Weight:	5 / 5
Performance:	1 / 5
Overall:	3 / 5