Asus Starts Shipping the Eee PC Tablet for $499

Looks like the best tablet offer I've seen so far. I still say there's not much point in tablets period, though.

beats an iPad... by a multiple infinite.

Whoa, if they could deliver a nice interface for the tablet mode then it would be one of the most interesting options out there. Also, it is going interesting to see how accurate the touchscreen really is.

Hum.. so let me check this idea..
To make a good tablet.. you need to make a cool rotating screen netbook?
No one see the fun in this?


Charlie bit my finga! again!

Nice, but the exact reason I didn't want a traditional tablet
ie
A swivel hinge that is the first thing to break
is on this

I almost expected Asus to whip off the keyboard and stick the screen in its place, but hey ho, I can see millions of former netbook users buying this instead of the iPad

shiittttttt

and i got a acer aspire with touchscreen because the T91 didn't pan out at all and now they go and release a 10.1 tablet.....

wtf.... now i feel cheated since I don't game that much with that 4570 aside from pissing off ppl during MW2's launch in class...

There were some reviews for this netbook that make the touch interface sound a little shaky on that tablet. It is pretty cheap though, and those reviews were a while ago. If they've polished/fixed the touch interface since then I may be interested. Though more than likely, I'll just buy a regular netbook if and when I do so.

It ships with Windows 7 Starter. How are you supposed to take advantage of the multi-touch display when Windows 7 Starter does not support multi-touch.

Also, I'm entirely not interested in trying to run Windows 7 on a single core CPU with crappy Intel integrated graphics and only 1 GB of ram.

That's usually what defines a netbook... you can take the thing anywhere, but don't expect to do a lot more than reading email, surf the web, watch a video or listen to music.

And basically you don't need much more power than what is offered by these things to do that.

If you want/need to do more the netbook market is not what you are looking for. Move along (but don't expect the prices to remain the same).

doesn't anyone else think $499 is a bit too expensive? I have a hard time spending that much money on something that lacks CPU power.

You couldn't do half of those things simultaneously without massive slowdowns. At $500 we aren't in the netbook market anymore.

That's why I'll use linux.

Instead of the hinge, couldn't have they developed some kind of easily connectable/deconnectable connector to instead of pivoting the screen you would just, clip it of, turn it and clip it back on?

Rotating connectors for digital information aren't a good idea. Passing a cable through the hinge should be more reliable if they make it right.

I wonder if this tablet has pressure sensitive stylus? if so I'm on board.
Having this for drawing especially on the go would be awesome for the price.

Not even rotating ... unplug + plug again, a bit like the Sidewinder X6 keyboard (if you know it).

What's funny is that a normal netbook is 300$ So add 200$ to make it into a swivel tablet-netbook.

Then a normal laptop is about 450$ these days, now add 800$ to that to get the equivilant swivel tablet-laptop.

Wake me up when you see a 2.2+ Ghz dual core, swivel 14" tablet with keyboard for 700$. Or 900$ if you throw an ATI 5650/real video card on it.

Yeah it's cool but I do wonder how long it would take to snap the swivel screen.

Oh come on guys... It's Asus. It's not like these burst into flames on contact with water... I'm sure they had 10 engineers asking this very same question. Also Zenthar: you've had to integrate a hinge somehow with this connector and however I think it would be cool it would create more problems than it would solve.

I've had a T91MT (the 8.9" version) for a couple of weeks now.
So far, I've found the touch interface very accurate and have no problems navigating within Windows even on the small screen. It does feel a little sluggish when I'm coming from a Core 2 desktop, but really it performs better than I'd expected. I'm hoping adding the extra gig of RAM will help that. The swivel hinge seems really sturdy and I don't expect to have any problems with it breaking anytime soon.

i have been using a fujitsu t4210 tablet for close to 4 years. it has a similar hinge as the eee tablet and for sceptics that such a part will break easily, i can attest that it doesn't. i have changed keyboards, stylus pen, harddisks but have never needed to service the hinge.

My old Toshiba M200 beats this thing to a pulp. Kinda of sad really that its been so many years and the pivitol of TabletPC technology is a shiny new shell.

There is a practical use for a Tablet, but as long as its stuck to an Intel GMA chipset it will never be useful.

anyone else catch the model number? t101? maybe asus should change their name to cyberdyne

the early preview of Eee PC T101MT is not as good as people are hopping for (even after solving some problems in the pre-production model).
However according to the early review, most of the sluggish performance is due to the underpowered atom cpu. no matter w/ the touch or not.. it is still a NETBOOK. Yes it does everything.... if you don't mind to wait...

Here is the link of one of the early review
http://www.slashgear.com/asus-eee- [...] s-0780660/

I agree the swivel will break. Plus the other downturn with it is Windows 7. Give Acer or someone else a few months and a real iPad competitor will emerge. I know they are hard at work on them now. Acer will come out with a aluminium (their Timeline laptop is aluminium now) one running Android with a user replaceable battery and probably a SD card slot too. Evn if it is composite or ABS plastic it still could be nice. No swivel and keyboard, that's where Android comes in.

It's called new and then there is the M$ tax.