Asus T91MT
I got a new tablet computer / netbook last week for taking notes in class. I really like this tablet, but it has a few quirks that really need to be ironed out. I’ll get to the complaints in a moment.
The first thing I noticed about this computer once it arrived is that it is very small and very light. It has an 8.9 inch LED backlit display and weighs around 2lbs; it is very portable. It only has 32GB of hard drive space, of which the operating system accounts for nearly half. Asus makes up for the small drive by having TWO SD card slots, which is wonderful. One of the slots is protected by a semi-permanent cover and is labelled “Expansion Slot” while the other slot is the more traditional front facing open access design. Both slots are spring loaded.
They key asset that this netbook leverages is that its screen rotates and flips down to convert the computer into a tablet. Sadly the T91MT does not have a accelerometer to determine the screen orientation automatically. Instead one must either press and hold the button next to the power switch or use ctrl + an arrow key to select the screen orientation. The button stopped functioning for me as I was removing the bloatware that came with the system, and even after reinstalling all of the Asus software it still does not function. I have also not found out how to rehotkey the rotate button.
The single largest problem I have with this netbook is how slow it is. It only comes with 1GB of RAM and uses the slower 1.33GHz Atom single core processor. I really would have appreciated the 1.6GHz chip and slightly better graphics, but I knew about all of this when I got it. It preforms adequately for taking notes, although it does struggle when I am drawing graphs during math class while recording audio of the lecture. You can’t really play games on this computer, although I did manage to tweak Warcraft III to run at around 10FPS on DoTA, which is better than some other old computers. Web sites with heavy flash usage are almost unusable, including Youtube. The videos play, but there is a lot of stuttering. I’m also not sure why Asus included the webcam as no software I have is able to stream and receive video calls (including Gtalk or several SIP programs). The camera stutters so badly that it causes the audio to ripple and lag as well, making it completely unusable.
I’ve loaded Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10 to one of the SD cards and found out that the touch screen doesn’t work out of the box. I haven’t done too much work to try and get it working, but I thought I would let you know.
The power supply is also really small and very easy to carry around. The netbook runs on 12v and 3A with a 10% tolerance, so this is theoretically capable of running directly off of a lead acid battery. While it is also technically capeable of being wired directly into a cars electrical system I would recommend getting a car adapter of some sort in order to clean up the power from the car.
I’ve paired this tablet with my Android G1 in order to tether my internet access for use on the go. It works extremely well. I would recommend making a shortcut on your desktop for the bluetooth profile so that it becomes easier to connect the two paired devices. It takes a few seconds for Windows to setup the connection, but once established you get the full 1mbs connection that bluetooth can provide. In a 3G zone I consistently get 800kbs downloads and 130kbs uploads.
The battery life is nice, clocking in at around four to four and a half hours for my usage (1/2 screen brightness, high performance mode). The T91MT can be found online for around $480, so you pay a good deal extra for the benefit of the touch screen. I think that the next generation of this product should iron out most of the issues I have with this model. Overall I really like this little computer, in spite of its limitations.
It’s way better than an iPad and cheaper too 