Wow, ever since I heard about the T101MT, I sure have been blogging about it a lot. Well that’ll change soon because…well…I got a T91MT. In a round-about fashion I won one. I should have it in my grubby little hands leaving disgusting fingerprints all over it’s glossy finish as you’re reading this, even though I don’t have it yet. You see, I wrote this bit Friday night, to be posted over the weekend while I’m on a little trip in recognition of Easter (I take the Easter Bunny’s crucifixion and subsequent rise very seriously).

I had my choice of a few netbooks, and I could have waited a bit for the for T101MT, but I didn’t. Why not? Let’s compare:

I posted an article about the T101MT earlier today. I forgot a few things:

-Interestingly, the T91MT got crap publicity and the T101MT is getting quite a lot. Can you guess why? Most articles mentioning it are speculatively comparing it to the iPad. Tech bloggers love talking about the iPad.

-Lots of these people are confused as to whether or not the T101MT has a resistive (pressure-sensitive) or a capacitive (detects human touch) touch screen. One site even said it has a “capacitive resistive” touch screen. I’m pretty sure this confusion comes out of the T101MT being multi-touch. You can have resistive multi-touch, people!!! It’s not even that uncommon. The more recent Toshiba Gigabytes, the Viliv S10 Blade, and the Asus T91MT all have resistive multi-touch screens.

Capacitive screens tend to be more responsive and take a much lighter touch than resistive screens. On the other hand, capacitive styluses aren’t that great, and if you want to do any “inking” you’d want an active digitizer first (like a Wacom pad built into the screen), but after that the next (and far cheaper) choice would probably be a resistive touch screen.

Just wanted to tack on those additional observations,

Lark

I’m a fairly new user of Google Alerts, the service that sends you a notice when they come across a word of phrase you’ve specified.

Right now my alerts are all for gadgets. I have an alert for the Notion Ink Adam hoping to hear a solid US release date and price. I had an alert on the Viliv S10 Blade until it’s pricing and features were finally released. I also have an alert on the Asus T101MT, the 10″ version of the Asus T91MT netvertible.

I had an alert set up before the T101MT was released in some European country (can’t remember, and it doesn’t really matter which), and that press release certainly triggered a flood of alerts being sent to me. The release said that the T101MT would be released in the US in April. The first big tech blogs to remark on the upcoming April release have stated that the European version is selling for 499 euro, about $675 USD, but they’re speculating that the price in the US, when it’s released, will actually be about 500 USD.

Anyone who has set up a Google Alert to follow a new gadget or device has probably realized there are two (probably more) different kinds of posts. You know what, I’ll say three kinds of posts:

So let’s retrace my old steps.

I bought an eeePC 701. Loved it. Don’t mind the tiny keyboard. Prefer it, actually, because my fingers are now used to moving and pressing down less than on any of my other full-size keyboards.

Upgraded to an eeePC 901. Bigger screen. Better battery life. Loved the flat finish of the 701 and the beveled edges. By contrast the 901 is just a glossy, rounded fingerprint magnet. With crappy speakers. I don’t regret buying it. It does everything I bought it for, and I have watched many a season of TV shows on it during long car trips.

Can’t really use either outdoors, in bright sunlight. I’ve tried.

Got my eye out for a netvertible now. Use it like a netbook, or fold the touch-screen back and use it like a tablet. Hopefully could write on it with a stylus and stop using so much paper. Looking at:

So it looks like the Viliv S10′s pricing is going to start at $699. That’s according to Dynamism, anyway. I like the WXVGA display and the 7-10 hour battery life, but $699, and that’s for a model with Windows XP and a 60GB hard drive. Yeah, right.

I’ve been working pretty hard on a few projects as of late, and that generally results in my taking mini-breaks by wandering around my room and tidying things up. It’s started to seem pretty ridiculous to me that I have so many papers. When writing, it’s just easier to brainstorm and work out outlines with a notepad and a piece of paper. It might not be as fast and the result is quite a bit harder to read, but it’s just easier for some reason.

So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. I have a few ebooks, mostly from Project Gutenberg, as well as an ancient 18-volume set I’m slowly scanning/converting to ebook form so I can take it on the road (and not damage it by reading). I’ve considered buying an ebook reader, but have never really needed one. I used to have a Tapwave Zodiac (PDA) which I used as an ebook reader. The screen broke though, and I eventually replaced it with a Nokia N800, an internet tablet, which has gotten the most use from me as an ebook reader so far. I stopped using that a year or so ago. Since my cell phone can pretty much do all the same things, it’s impractical to the N800 around anymore, even if it did have a bigger screen (and better web browsing).

So here’s the deal: I eventually discarded the idea of using a dedicated ebook reader. Something like the Kindle, that really only reads ebooks seems impractical. I can use my phone for that, however it’s screen is almost too small for that purpose. I’m currently using my eeePC 901 for ebook reading more than anything else, but it can’t fit in ,y pocket, so it’s not as practical as my N800 was, or as my cell phone would be. I’m really just waiting until someone comes out with a HUGE cell phone that combines the best features of the N800 and my current cell phone. Perhaps the N900? We’ll see.

Asus has kind of angered me with their abandonment and mistreatment of their 9″ netbook line (saying they wouldn’t make any more 9″ netbooks, then releasing the 9″ T91 without many of the advertised features, and refusing to release the more advanced versions unless the crappier model sells). However, they’ve actually managed to capture my interest with a dedicated ebook reader. I give you, the EEE Reader. A dual-screened, foldable (like a book), touchscreen ebook reader, probably available in 7″ and 9″ models.

EEE Reader

Asus really took the world by storm with the eee PC 701. Everyone was talking about them. They piqued everyone’s interest in offices and coffee shops. I have one. The netbook is something I’ve been desiring for a long time, long before they existed. I think the desire started back as a kid watching the cartoon “Inspector Gadget.” Penny had a computer book, a portable computer mostly used to hack into any electronic device in the area. Imagine my disappointment when I asked for one some Christmas, and was told by my mom that they don’t exist. Despite the fact that it was imaginary, the idea was still planted in my head of how cool it would be to have a computer–smaller than a laptop, bigger than a PDA, that I could take everywhere with me.