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Joanna Stern reviews the ASUS Eee PC T101MT

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Joanna Stern has a thorough rundown of the ASUS Eee PC T101MT convertible tablet netbook, including everything you could possibly want to know about the touch experience, though once you read it, you won’t want to experience it for yourself. Sounds like it’s pretty good for a resistive touchscreen, responsive and even offering multi-touch. But…

why in the world would ASUS ship a $499 multitouch-capable tablet with an operating system that doesn’t support multitouch or even have integrated touch capabilities?

Yes, the T101MT ships with Windows Starter Edition, same as most netbooks, which does not include the pen and touch features of a premium version. ASUS does their best to offset this deficiency with a variety of software utilities offering touch gestures, on-screen keyboard, and handwriting recognition, but this brings us back to “the inconvenient truth about Windows 7 touch support.” Vendors think cursor control is good enough for touchscreens, and Microsoft doesn’t do much to dissuade them.

Adding to the bafflement is that they went with third-party options for all those features rather than spring for Windows Home Premium. Clearly, ASUS knows they have to provide that functionality, but think the added cost of Home Premium is too much to bear. That’s not good for us or Microsoft.

Anyway, check out Joanna’s post on Engadget for all the details as well as a video demo.

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. GoodThings2Life

    04/28/2010 at 5:02 am

    Wow. That is really really stupid. Especially since the experience in Windows 7 is quite decent. Although, anyone can Anytime Upgrade to Home Premium easily and inexpensively, and then just uninstall the 3rd party apps if they’re not needed…

  2. ChrisRS

    04/28/2010 at 9:38 am

    What is the cost differential to the manufacturer?(Starter + 3rd-Party vs. Home Premium) It is certainly less than the anytime upgrade price of $49.

    Starter for a plain netbook is OK, but a touch enabled netbook needs the touch bits in Home Premium. It will br a bad experience for the user and generate more bad press for MS, Touch, Ink, TabletPC etc. (Bad is bad. It does not matter if it is also incorrect.)

    IT will be touted as another reason it tokk Apple and teh iPad to do it right. (Which appears to be on target, this time.)

  3. Nigel Wilson

    04/28/2010 at 12:28 pm

    UK (& other European) version has Windows Home Premium. However, you’re still stuck with a processor that is just about capable of running it and a resistive screen. The wait for an affordable tablet PC suitable for inking continues……

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