Asus Eee T91 Touch Tablet Review: Keep Dreaming

The Asus Eee T91 is a return to netbooks go by — a midget 8.9 - inch screen , 16 GB SSD — except for one matter : It ’s a touchscreen pill .

toll : $ 499

Verdict : Have you ever wanted to touch Windows XP ? No ? There ’s a pretty good reason for that — it ’s a really chintzy touch experience , even with more or less large - than - common buttons . It ’s kind of like trying to poke poke poke around Windows Mobile 5 with a stylus — the onscreen keyboard ’s small keys give us moderately horrific flashbacks . ( This is at least partly because the T91 is running received Windows XP Home , notWindows XP Tablet version . ) The “ touch optimized ” Internet Explorer is a gag . That ’s okay , Asus screw all of this too , so they ’ve included their own custom interface that sits on top of XP called Touch Gate .

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The UI is glossy and glowy and widgety — firing effects , reflections and giant clitoris burst . It can be imposingly bland in action , give way how dinky the T91 ’s guts are ( 1.33GHz Atom Z520 ) . It has its own apps inside , like a gaudy photo political program , notepad for scribbling , and internet radio set . There ’s widget desktop indoors as well . you’re able to move between the Touch Gate homescreen , widgets desktop and Windows XP by flicking left or right . It ’s confusing and annoying though — why can you only have five program on the Touch Gate homescreen ? To get to other apps , you have to move a slider sit below to “ unlock ” the rest of the apps , which pop up up in a semi - circle . From there , you could plunge one , or trade in out the apps that appear on your homescreen .

But let ’s just cut to it : I ’m just not sure why anyone would need this , block up other third party apps you ’d instal that would unleash the potential of the tablet . ( Which is perfectly decent from a hardware standpoint — the touchscreen is somewhat accurate with the stylus after calibration , though the lead - backlit covert bear from the distinctive Asus subduedness . ) With the exception of being able to literally scribble note and some whizzbang pic flick gestures , there ’s nothing you’re able to accomplish with Asus ’s tradition thingumabob OS overlayer you could n’t do on a veritable netbook with a veritable Windows XP build . And a glorify app launcher for a handful of tradition apps + a thingummy desktop that essentially exist just to dwell on top of Windows XP to make touch actually usable are n’t exactly compelling reasons to spring for a tablet , especially when more often than not , the experience only crucify because the software package seems to misconstrue what you intended a tap to mean .

If there ’s a specific reason you want a Windows XP tablet with a crampy screen that doubles as comely last - gen netbook with a crampy projection screen , then for $ 500 , the T91 might be your ticket . But if you ’re just hurt for a cheap touchscreen tablet to dick around on the net , you ’d be better off waiting forthe $ 300 CrunchPad . The T91 was much better as the glimmer of hopein our middle at CES .

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