ASUS Eee PC T91MT-PU17-WT Tablet White Netbook - 5 Hour Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)

by Asus

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.5 x 1 inches ; 2.1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B002U0KECM
• Item model number: T91MT-PU17-WT
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,688 in Computers & Accessories (See Top 100 in Computers & Accessories)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 30, 2009

Product Description

ASUS introduces the newest member of the Eee PC T91 family, the T91MT with Multi-touch. Just like its predecessor, the T91MT delivers ultimate portability and simplicity with an easy-to-use touchscreen that enables user to effortlessly navigate applications and the Web at a press of a finger. As big as a paperback novel, the lightweight Eee PC T91MT is the world’s smallest and slimmest touch PC. Plus, it boasts long-lasting battery life with the energy-efficient Intel Atom Z520 processor, exclusive ASUS Super Hybrid Engine, and LED-backlit display, so you’ll be able to easily bring the thin and light Eee PC T91MT whenever and wherever you go. The Eee PC T91MT is built for ultimate mobile versatility. Conduct on-the-go meetings, read e-books comfortably in tablet mode, show-off your photo album to friends, or jot down some important notes using the stylus writing tool, whatever you choose to do the Eee PC T91MT makes it easy. The preinstalled Touch Gate software makes surfing the Web, navigating through folders and accessing your favorite applications simple and efficient. The T91MT's new multi-touch feature makes for even easier navigation, allowing you to zoom in and out, flick and rotate content with only two fingers using the touch screen. You also get easy, on-the-go access to your treasured data with a shock-resistant 32GB SSD hard drive and 500GB of Eee online Storage**. The Eee PC T91MT is built from the ground up to be your multi-purpose, mobile companion for all your needs. To protect your investment, ASUS also includes a sleeve case with the T91MT, perfect for carrying it while out and about.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Madness?, this is Multi-touch!!!, November 12, 2009

By 

Lucas - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: ASUS Eee PC T91MT-PU17-WT Tablet White Netbook - 5 Hour Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium) (Personal Computers)

Since I've started using Ipod Touch generation 1 a couple of years back, I decided the future is all about touch screen and I told myself I would only buy mobile devices that would have access to touch screen. So I was looking forward to this netbook, as it was exactly what I've been hoping for in terms of concept and design.

Initially I was disappointed with the touch features due to lack of response, but after over a week I've started to like it. Don't get me wrong, the T91MT uses a resistive screen so it is never as responsive as the IPhone Capacitive screen but once you get used to the amount of pressure you need to apply, the T91MT response pretty well to touch commands. The main culprit of lag and unresponsiveness is the low powered CPU. I've notice while it is tablet mode, the processing power is restricted to only 800mhz. You will only get the full performance of 1.33ghz in netbook mode, this may be purposely implied to lower the system temperature in tablet. The difference in performance is very noticeable while watching online videos.

Multitouch zooming is not highly inaccurate, instead of making small smooth changes; it makes leaps that zoom from 100% to 125% or 100% to 75%, depending on the program. Some program has smooth animation between zoom to give the illusion that the zoom is more fluid. The biggest problem here is still processing power. If you are running zoom while low in processing resources you will likely to make inaccurate zoom, going over the desired zoom level due to lag.

There is a official demo video floating around on YouTube of the T91MT, this is the same video that is installed onto the netbook that shows every time you startup. It can be misleading; the video shows a different version of Touch gate that has a different background graphics. They have show very smooth animation in their software, it is unlikely the real thing will perform this well, due to once again, lack of processing power. The real thing is much choppier.

However on the positive side, the design of the netbook itself is solid and reasonably attractive, one of the big selling factor of this notebook is the small form factor and the tablet option. The netbook is very portable, I find myself getting it out during long queues like I would usually do with my Iphone. It can operate in tablet mode without going back to the keyboard, thanks to the virtual keyboard in windows 7.

The battery life is reasonable to good; it runs down quicker in full performance setting, around 3hrs, which is what I usually have it in due to the lack of processing power. I installed the extra 2GB ram memory right away; it didn't make much of a difference in terms of system performance. In addition, a lot of online videos are unwatchable or choppy. Youtube content cannot be played in HQ and depending on the video some will be choppy even in LQ mode while in tablet mode. Youtube is much more playable in netbook mode. Hulu has the same problems, more severe than Youtube since a alot of their video is in a higher quality format, Hulu is barely playable in netbook mode. Watching video's from hard drive is a different story, they play rather well, they don't suffer like those online videos.

I will also mention Asus's in-house software. The Touch Gate and Eee docking software are rather poor. In the touch gate, the online radio has a trial period and a link to Internet explorer was very unnecessary. Touchgate was designed for the XP to give them some touch screen functionality on that platform which was lacking in touch functions, but in windows 7 they are rather redundant since windows 7 was designed for touch screen. On top of this, the program itself is laggy.

Another problem I ran into is the palm rejection. The palm rejection software "Intelliwriting". It only works with sticky notes and windows journal. But this is not its only problem, this software is inaccurate, causing you to draw with your palm. It also distorts your text, making productive work very frustrating. I've turn this feature off and train myself to write without pressing my palm on the screen by using landscape mode making use of the side of the screen as a form of physical palm rejection. Updated - After a couple of weeks testing the T91MT, I can tell you that palm rejection is a lost cause. It is very difficult to write for longer than a few words on this net book, the palm rejection software distorts so badly that it is not worth turning on. A active digitalizer would've made a world of difference. Writing is only useful for making a couple of annotations.

The netbook has 2 USB ports and 2 SD/SDHC slots if you have the money, you can purchase 2 SDHC cards to increase the disk space by 64gb(2x32gb). This is kind of expensive, but does give you the option to expand without compromising portability.

The netbook is functional for reading PDF's and Amazon's Kindle. It is easier to read Amazon kindle, as that is less processing intensive. PDF magazine with lots of graphics can load slowly between pages and zooming can cause lag if you use the tablet mode, due to the reduced clock speed. I've learnt to use the pdf software's internal function to change screen orientation rather than using the netbook's function, that way you will scroll your books from the side like they are naturally. Another interesting fact is the notebook fits very well on the standard book holder at your local gym, so you've the option of working out while reading your pdf books or watching a movie on your netbook.

I've installed Photoshop CS4, Illustrator CS4, ArtRage and Corel Painter 11. Photoshop works surprisingly well despise the low processing powers. Applying filters only took a few seconds. Photoshop demanded much less power than I had imagined it would.

There was initially a problem with the drawing tools on all these programs, they would not perform short strokes and sometimes would not draw at all. After some tweaking with settings, I worked out that this problem was caused by touch gestures sending both commands for drawing and moving the canvas at the same time, which confused the software. To fix this, I disabled "Single Finger Panning" under "Pen and Touch" control panel, this solve much of the drawing problems.

In conclusion, this device is not bad but could've been much better with more power. The touch screen function gets more responsive as you get used to it. The portable format lets the user to work anywhere. It works very well as a portable tablet. However the palm rejection is a lost cause, realistically you cannot do any kind of productive handwriting on this netbook, this netbook desperately needed a active digitalizer. The other main let down of this netbook is the processing power. The overall lag caused by this is discomforting, if Asus had put in a high powered cpu and gfx, this would be a award winning product. Note that your processing power will be lowered in tablet mode(800mhz), you can however work around this by putting your netbook to sleep during netbook/laptop mode then change to tablet mode while it is powered off. Once you repower on you will keep the same clock speed as the laptop mode(1333mhz), but this may cause heating problems.

I was initially very angry with this netbook, as Asus make a deceiving marketing video giving false expectation of the netbook, but as time went on this netbook grew on me. It makes a nice toy for reading and watching movies on the move, it is a cross between a iphone and a netbook, but it is not much of a productive tool in it's current form.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The tablet form makes it work for me, November 12, 2009

By 

Daniel Ball Houston "dbhouston" (Austin, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: ASUS Eee PC T91MT-PU17-WT Tablet White Netbook - 5 Hour Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium) (Personal Computers)

The ASUS T91MT is my second try in the netbook market. A conventional Dell netbook proved pretty useless to me and ended up as my nephews' Nickelodeon/PBSKids machine. This one caught my eye, though, because I've very much enjoyed my larger HP TX2500 series tablet. Did the tablet option justify the price premium? To me it has.

The build quality feels surprisingly solid; the rotating hinge mechanism clicks reassuringly into place. The decision to include a permanent battery concerned me, but the choice allowed ASUS to distribute the weight around the chassis, making it more comfortable to hold in tablet form. As with any 8.9" netbook, the keyboard is a challenge to use, but that's where the tablet really comes in handy. Win 7's onscreen keyboard works just as well for me as any netbook keyboard.

I've had the machine for a week and am very pleased with the form factor so far. Windows 7 provides very nice touch features, making Asus' own TouchGate overlay completely unnecessary. With a little tweaking (taskbar on the right, full-screen browsing, etc.), the small screen does what I need. Outlook is a little cramped, but browsing in tablet form is truly a joy.

The screen has a soft matte surface with minimal reflection issues even on low-power settings. Sensitivity is excellent and I am able to consistently hit my mark even with my grown man fingers. I have not had a chance to use OneNote on this machine in a real life setting, so I can't say how well it works for inking notes in a meeting or class. Just playing around, I know the digitizer on the HP tablet seems to make inking a smoother process. There is a setting to allow for palm rejection when using the pen, which will be very nice.

The choice to go with the Atom Z processor caused me some hesitation. However, having used an N-series processor before, I don't think the slight reduction in processing power will impact many users. It's a netbook and users need to approach this or any other with reasonable expectations. Moreover, in order to maximize battery life, users will generally allow a netbook to operate at a reduced capacity most of the time. There are moments when this one hesitates in opening programs, and there are some programs it seems incapable of handling (Win 7's novel surface applications, for example), it can run a graphics heavy PPT with ease.

Also, Amazon has just released the first iteration of its Kindle for PC software. While it needs some improvements (full screen and easy rotation, maybe the ability to annotate), I've been able to read very comfortably whether at a coffee house or in bed. At the lowest power setting, the screen causes no discomfort for long sessions. Really, that's been the best surprise of the week with this machine.

The bottom line for me is that the tablet option makes the price premium worthwhile for me. I've been able to leave the heavier notebook at home and leave the house for hours without even bringing a power cable. I expect this to be my new travel companion for many trips, too, if I don't expect to have to do a lot of writing on the road. All in all, very pleased with the purchase so far.

The only other machine I was considering as an alternative is Archos forthcoming 9" tablet. It will be smaller and lighter, but with a conventional hard drive and Win 7 Starter Edition. Of course, that requires a leap of faith that (a) you'll really be happy without a physical keyboard and (b) that Archos will make good design and software decisions. But, since the Asus has the field to itself for now, that was a non-issue.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I Like It, November 12, 2009

By 

Wes "Wes" (Alexandria, VA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: ASUS Eee PC T91MT-PU17-WT Tablet White Netbook - 5 Hour Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium) (Personal Computers)

I've been trying for a long time to find a tablet form factor that works for me. This one works.

I'm interested primarily in surfing the web and reading PDFs when on the couch or in bed. I had tried a used NEC LitePad -- a great device but older and just too underpowered; and a Dell XT -- too heavy and too short on battery life; and the Viliv X70, which is near perfect but doesn't provide enough storage (16gb ssd) in its $599 version and has a 7" screen at 1.75 lbs as opposed to the t91mt's 9" screen at 2 lbs. What I've been looking for is the following:

1. Something light enough to hold in one hand lying in bed (2 lbs and under), a form factor in between an iphone and a regular tablet
2. Something powerful enough to run Microsoft Word and Adobe Professional (so that I can easily read and annotate PDFs); and decent enough power that I'm not frustrated in general -- good enough online video playback.
3. The ability to touch using my fingers (I have no interest in inking with a stylus) -- with something approaching the feel of an iphone: light touch, the ability to scroll down using the thumb directly on the page, etc.; multitouch with windows 7 a bonus.

The t91mt does all of these things quite well. I was a little worried when I first started using it and installing software: I had Dropbox (I use this for online file backup/sync with other computers) running in the background and during its first sync of a large number of files it uses a lot of CPU. Adobe Professional and Word took a long time to install. So during all this the t91mt was sluggish, and surfing the web was frustrating. Also, the Asus calibration tool isn't very good -- so I wasn't getting the accuracy I liked with touching.

But now that I'm done with all the intense multi-tasking, the tablet runs very well -- very responsive. And after running the Windows 7 calibration the touching is very accurate.

Because it's less resource-intensive, I have a better experience surfing with Google Chrome than with Firefox (not to mention IE); Youtube does well embedded and fullscreen; Hulu not so well -- you're ok if you don't go full screen. For a more iphone like browsing experience, Firefox with the grab-and-drag addon is really nice; it's just that video performance seems to suffer with this browser. I wouldn't steer you to this device if you have a) intensive online video needs (I'm not sure about downloaded videos -- haven't tested) or b) a desire to take notes with a stylus (unless you can get used to keeping your palm off the screen when inking -- stylus input is blocked when skin touches). And keep in mind that this is not a true capacitive screen and it's only a two-point multi-touch; on the iphone-feel scale some applications do better than others as far as scrolling/dragging, but in general I think the pinching is pretty clumsy (it's hard to control how far you're zooming in and out).

Another note -- I'll be upgrading the RAM -- as it is, 750mb of the 1gig are used on bootup; this doesn't seem to affect performance when you're doing one thing at a time, but I'd like to see how it does with 2 gigs.

In general I'm very pleased, and I think I'll keep this rather than the Viliv x70, which is an excellent machine and hard to part with: I'd say the x70's screen is slightly less responsive (but still very responsive) yet slightly more accurate; with XP, the Viliv is a little faster in general and has a feature which allows it to boot and recover from standby much more quickly. For Video, the viliv is much better -- you don't get any dropped frames even with Hulu full screen. The devices feel very similar in weight, and both are comfortable for me. The extra screen space with the t91mt and the keyboard are decisive factors, not to mention Win 7 (which is very pretty and pretty quick). (The add-on UI's for asus and the viliv are equally useless -- I disable them).

For a more thorough review (by someone else), see: [...]