The T91MT has an 8.9-inch 1024×600 screen with a 256-level pressure sensor, runs on an Atom Z520 processor with 1GB RAM, a 32GB SSD and all the standard wireless and connectivity. It weighs 960 grams with the battery, which is pretty sweet, and comes preloaded with Windows 7 Home Premium.

Multitouch does come at a bit of a premium though, with the T91MT set to set you back $999.

[Asus]

With a 17.3-inch (1600×900) display, the 3kg system starts with a 2.1GHz Dual Core T4300, DVD burner, 320GB HDD, 4GB RAM, 512MB Radeon 4570 and a footprint that can support a slew of ports — two USBs, one USB/eSATA, HDMI, Display Port, VGA and Firewire.

But you can scale the power all the way up to an i7.

The multitouch display (we’re looking for confirmation on whether or not it’s capacitive tech) supports the pre-installed Windows 7 along with Dell’s own touch software.

The Studio 17 Touch is on sale now to ship this December. [Dell via Electronista]

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 X100E looks to be a substantial physical redesign from Lenovo, who typically falls so thoroughly on the function side of the form vs function debate that they may not even be aware there is another side. The new chiclet (or “island”) keyboard looks great, much less busy than previous ThinkPad layouts, and the overall design seems to have calmed down significantly. Hell, it’ll even be available in colours. Colours! From Lenovo! (Looks like red, white and black are the extent of the palette, but still).

It should be packing a low-power AMD Athon “Neo” processor, 4GB of memory, up to 500GB of hard drive storage, and boast a 5.1-hour battery life while weighing less than 1.4kg. But the most enticing part has to be the price: Previous ThinkPads have been extremely pricey, often even more than equivalent Macs, yet the X100E is rumoured to come in at $US500 to start. No info quite yet on a release date, but we’ll keep you updated. [Ubergizmo]

The Asus G51J 3D is the first laptop to feature NVIDIA’s new 3D vision technology, and it takes advantage of a high performance, 15.6-inch 120Hz LCD that, when coupled with shutter glasses (yup, you still need glasses) garnered these praises from Laptop:

…unlike the TriDef technology that powers Acer’s 3D laptop, titles optimised for 3D vision give you a great sense of depth without negatively affecting gameplay. On first person shooters, for example, we found it difficult to aim when using the Acer 5738DG. On the Asus G51J 3D, you don’t make any compromises in terms of control or accuracy.

For the 3D tech, you’ll take a resolution hit (there’s no 3D 1080P display option) and pay a $US200 premium, making the full gaming $US1700.

Keep in mind that Acer’s system, while utilising only rudimentary polarised glasses 3D, costs under $US800. [Laptop Mag]

I say almost, because there was still some noticeable frame dropping. But still, I could actually watch HD flash video (windowed and full-screen) without it stuttering like a slideshow. One issue with YouTube: the CPU pretty much went into overload once the video was playing, and on the third viewing I had to Force Quit Firefox to wrestle back control.

But this is good news for hackintoshes, and netbooks in general. In my post earlier today about AnandTech’s Flash 10.1 CPU-utilisation tests, some Giz readers with netbooks reported that they’ve noticed a difference, too. Let’s post those comments here so other readers can see what sort of netbook you have, and if Flash 10.1 is worth trying.

For the record, my MSI Wind U100 has 2GB of memory, a 1.6GHz Atom N270 processor and integrated Intel 945 graphics. (Pic above is of the Dell Mini 9).

They say that sub-$400 netbooks are 20 per cent more likely to fail in the first year. But no real surprises there.

SquareTrade says it randomly selected over 30,000 laptops and netbooks covered by its warranty plans for the study. Brands with a minimum of 1000 laptops included Acer, Apple, Asus, Dell, Gateway, HP, Lenovo, Sony and Toshiba. Accidental damage and software issues handled by the retailer were not included in the numbers.

Summary below, while the full report can be found at: [SquareTrade]

• Over 31 percent of laptops will fail in the first three years of ownership.
• Of these failures, two-thirds came from hardware malfunctions (20.4 percent) and one-third (10.6 percent) was reported as accidental damage.
• Asus and Toshiba were the most reliable manufacturers, with fewer than 16 percent having a hardware malfunction over three years.
• Netbooks are projected to have a 20 percent higher failure rate from hardware malfunctions than more expensive laptop computers.
• Manufacturers proved to be a more reliable determinant of reliability than the type of laptop and should be a greater factor in making a purchase decision.

Let’s hope this isn’t another disappointing and unholy union of a smartphone and a netbook. There aren’t many details available about the model as Qualcomm intends to truly show it off at CES 2010, but they do explain that the Snapdragon chip will result in “lower price and longer battery life than what netbooks offer”.[PC World via Electronista]

The key feature about Arrandale, versus current Core i5/i7 processors, is that it’s manufactured using a 32nm process, meaning it’ll be less power hungry. Remember the jump to the Penryn Core 2 chips a couple of years ago? Same speeds, better efficiency? Like that. The three coming out in the first half of 2010 are the Core i7-640UM (1.2GHz), Core i7-620UM (1.06GHz) and Core i5-520UM, all for “ultra thin” laptops.

We’ll also see some 32nm chips for the desktop, codenamed Clarksdale, announced in January. Mmm, chips. [Digitimes]

It varies from netbook to netbook — Toshiba’s NB205 withstood Windows 7’s power greediness better than HP’s Mini 311. It’s somewhat expected though, with features like the fancier Aero user interface to name one probable cause. Personally, I’ll take Windows 7 and the dead battery. [Laptop]