Yesterday, we had the opportunity to walk by the ASUS floor space over in the South Hall of the CES exhibit where we spotted a plethora of new devices spanning several market segments and targeting a large variety of consumer audiences.
One of the more anticipated devices from ASUS at this year's showroom flow, however, was the display of the company’s very first multi-touch EeePC netbook. In fact, those who attended CES 2009 should remember this device quite well as it was previewed to the mass public over a year ago. Over the past year, however, it has undergone a noticeable facelift and minor hardware specification changes. The device is officially dubbed the ASUS EeePC T101MT, where “101” stands for “10.1-inch screen” and “MT” signifies it’s a “multi-touch capable” device.
When a portable device manufacturer lists the word “multi-touch” in its specifications, a large majority of press, analysts and consumers are usually inclined to believe that the device supports two-finger gestures just like the Apple iPhone. In fact, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to say that the word “multi-touch” in general is a major attention grabber, even when it sadly only means that a device has a “multi-touch trackpad”. All in all, we have come to the conclusion that partial spec information can be very deceiving, and this is exactly what ASUS has done to an audience of very patient, enthusiastic customers.
When we received the chance to experiment with the ASUS EeePC T101MT tablet running Windows 7 Starter Edition, we immediately opened up Paint and attempted to draw two lines using two fingers at the same time. Sure enough, it simply did not work. We then glanced at the specs and device description only to read “10.1 LED Backlight / Resistive Multi-Touch Panel (1024x600).” Keep in mind that "capacitive multi-touch" is the technology to look for when it comes to multiple finger gestures.
Other than the majorly unfortunate display letdown, the device is based on Intel’s fan-less Pine Trail platform and is equipped with a new Atom N450 1.60GHz, 1GB of DDR2 667MHz memory, a 160GB hard drive and 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi + Bluetooth. In addition, there will be a higher-end model equipped with 2GB of memory and a 320GB hard drive. ASUS claims that the device is good for up to 6.5 hours of run time.
Pricing and availability have yet to be announced, but we are expecting a release sometime soon due to the unveiling at CES 2010. Stay tuned for more updates.