Should we consider $US500 a good deal?

Yes and no. The formfactor is thin and quite small — 3cm thick and just 1.45kg. That’s great. It’s a big-screen netbook… which I guess is a small laptop.

I mean, I’m not arguing that this is probably the most promising netbook of all time. But remember when we were getting Core 2 Duo computers like this from Dell/HP/etc for the same price? Yeah, they were chunky machines. But what happened to those computers? Where did they go?

I know I’m not hallucinating here.

Yes, the 1201N looks like a very cool little laptop, and I’m pumped to use an Eee that can handle HD video on a beautiful screen and through tempting HDMI-out. I’m not really upset about the Eee itself. I’m upset that the budget, jack-of-all trades laptop has virtually died as we’ve seen this artificial performance cap put on the budget laptop market. Then again, maybe Ions have enough power that none of us will mourn the loss of cheaper, fatter Core 2 Duos. When reviews hit and the dust settles, we’ll know for sure.

Until then, read Laptop’s impressions: [Laptop via Netbook Choice via Engadget]

The Eee Keyboard’s netbook-like specs include a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 16- or 32GB solid-state hard disk, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and HDMI.

The official confirmation backs up DigiTimes’ “industry sources” who not only claimed that October looked likely, but estimated the price should be around $US400-$500. Asus didn’t elaborate on cost, but fingers-crossed that it can keep things that low. And with Windows 7 debuting on October 22, hopefully the Eee Keyboard will ditch XP altogether (though it may have a Mobilin Linux option). We’ve [PC World]

Though it cites unnamed “industry sources” (which could mean anything), DigiTimes gets specific for the Eee keyboard’s pricing: around US$400-500. The keyboard has a built-in 4-inch display, 1.6Ghz Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, 16/32GB SSD, Wi-Fi and a wireless HDMI dongle.

Meanwhile, the Nvidia Ion-based 20-inch Eee Top ET2002 AIO, and Eee Box nettop are expected to cost about $US670 and $US300 in September.

The ET2002 has an Atom 330 CPU, 1600 by 900 resolution, 2GB RAM, 250GB hard disk, and 802.11n Wi-Fi.

Bonus news: DigiTimes also says HP is expected to launch an Ion-based netbook in September, along with some new ultra-thin netbooks. We’re gonna be busy! [DigiTimes]

Price: $US499

Verdict: Have you ever wanted to touch Windows XP? No? There’s a pretty good reason for that—it’s a really crummy touch experience, even with slightly larger-than-usual buttons. It’s kind of like trying to poke poke poke around Windows Mobile 5 with a stylus. (This is at least partly because the T91 is running standard Windows XP Home, not Windows XP Tablet edition.) The “touch optimised” Internet Explorer is a joke. That’s okay, Asus knows all of this too, so they’ve included their own custom interface that sits on top of XP called Touch Gate.

The UI is glossy and glowy and widgety—lighting effects, reflections and giant buttons abound. It can be impressively smooth in action, given how dinky the T91’s guts are (1.33GHz Atom Z520). It has its own apps inside, like a flashy photo program, notepad for scribbling, and internet radio. There’s widget desktop inside as well. You can move between the TouchGate homescreen, widgets desktop and Windows XP by flicking left or right. It’s confusing and annoying though—why can you only have five programs on the Touch Gate homescreen? To get to other apps, you have to move a slider sitting below to “unlock” the rest of the apps, which pop up in a semi-circle. From there, you can launch one, or trade out the apps that appear on your homescreen.

But let’s just cut to it: I’m just not sure why anyone would want this, barring other third party apps you’d install that would unleash the potential of the tablet. (Which is perfectly adequate from a hardware standpoint—the touchscreen is pretty accurate with the stylus after calibration.) With the exception of being able to literally scribble notes and some whizbang photo flick gestures, there’s nothing you can accomplish with Asus’s custom widget OS overlay you couldn’t do on a regular netbook with a regular Windows XP build. And a glorified app launcher for a handful of custom apps + a widget desktop that essentially exist just to lie on top of Windows XP to make touch actually usable aren’t exactly compelling reasons to spring for a tablet, especially when more often than not, the experience simply frustrates because the software seems to misinterpret 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 decent last-gen netbook with a crampy screen, then for $US500, the T91 might be your ticket. But if you’re just aching for a cheap touchscreen tablet to dick around on the internet, you’d be better off waiting for the $US300 CrunchPad. The T91 was much better as the glimmer of hope in our eye at CES.

Asus custom touch interface is flashy without bogging down system too much

Touch is accurate after calibration-provided you use the included stylus

It’s half tablet, half last-gen netbook

Windows XP + touch is not the good kind of touch

In the age of 10-inch netbooks, the 8.9-inch screen is weenie-sized

Now bear in mind this is the single-touch, XP-based model that was shown back at CES, not the multitouch version that’s been buzzed about as of late. In other words, it’s a touchscreen netbook with a versatile hinge. The specs, according to BuyDig, include an Atom Z520 processor clocked at 1.33GHz, a 16GB SSD (plus 20GB of “Eee storage, which I assume to be an SD card), 1GB of RAM, Bluetooth and 802.11n Wi-Fi. You could do worse on a tablet, spec-wise—and really, for $US500, I’m not sure you could do better. [Portable Monkey via Slashgear]

Combined with an extra microprocessor and some custom scripts, the RGB LED illuminates with a different colour depending on whether it’s email, an IM or a new tweet awaiting one’s perusal. With as much extraneous bundled hardware and software bloats most laptops, you’d think someone like HP or Dell would simply integrate such luminescent feedback into their complete line. You’d think. [justblair via lilliputing via CrunchGear]

Not surprisingly, it looks like an elongated notebook. One that uses a lot of tape to hold those cables tight in place.

[Blogeee—Thanks Martin]

The keyboard houses an entire Atom chipset inside it’s body which is separate from the touchpanel. But the touchpanel also uses the XP power to run Skype, MSN, and serve as a media remote, among other things. Engadget Chinese said it worked pretty well, and if the video is any indication, the 5-inch, 800×480 screen uses a capacitive panel. The keyboard is rumoured to launch sometime in June, in either Wired or Wireless UWB models, but little is known beyond that. [Engadget]

We’ll presumably hear more about the new Eee line once Computex starts tomorrow, but for now we can see the larger Eee will be packing the same guts as the one Mark reviewed except for that mysterious, huge battery. We’re not sure if we can believe Asus on that stat, but if it gets even half that, we’ll be pleased. [Engadget]