ASUS Eee PC T91 gets pre-production hands-on

There's a lot of people eagerly anticipating the ASUS Eee PC T91 convertible netbook-tablet, and bit-tech's early hands-on with a pre-production prototype certainly won't do anything to staunch that interest.  The 8.9-inch touchscreen netbook will get a new, chiclet keyboard like the Eee PC 1000HE before it ships, and unfortunately has a non-removable battery, but there's still plenty of good news to tide us over.

Of course, being a prototype there's room for improvement.  bit-tech take issue with the touchpad, which is less responsive than on other Eee PCs, and the display is a fingerprint magnet.  On the positive side, the inclusion of a DVB-T TV tuner, 3G data card and GPS functionality all make for a very capable netbook, especially if ASUS can bring it in between their guide price bracket of £360 to £420 ($524 to $611).

Inevitably, though, they conclude that the touchscreen is only as useful as the software ASUS give the T91 to run.  We've got relatively high hopes for the Eee PC Touch UI, having seen the latest demo video, but there's of course things like touchscreen responsiveness to take into account.  The ASUS Eee PC T91 is expected at around the end of April 2009.