The battle of the swivel headed touchscreen notepads

                   ( image from http://i.gizmodo.com/5124948/asus-t91-your-1+inch-thick-convertible-eee-pc)

With the unveiling of the new Asus T91 swivel screen touchpad mini notepad (no price as yet!)at the  Consumer Electronics Show last week I sense a new benchmark appearing for mini netbooks for 2009. The battle ground  in UK schools will be joined by the Intel Classmate with an in school price of around £260.

Both use the battery saving intel atom chip.

The T91 :

The T91 comes with a swiveling 8.9″ touch screen monitor. It runs an Intel Atom Z520 processor with 1 GB of RAM built in. Asus built both solid state and hard drives into the T91 for a combined capacity of 52 GB.

Asus also included a few first-ever features in the T91. The netbook will be the first to offer both GPS and a TV tuner card built in.

The T91 will ship running Windows XP home and is expected to support Windows 7 once it’s released. Asus has stated that a Linux version is possible, but has not said definitively whether it will offer a Linux version. (tech.blorge.com)

The Intel Classmate :

CONVERTIBLE CLASSMATE AT A GLANCE

Screen swivels 180 degrees

Touch screen

Water-resistant keyboard

Built-in rotating camera

Rugged outer case

60GB hard-drive

512MB memory

Pre-loaded software

Source BBC Technology

The classmate as you would expect looks to be more robust and will stand up well to a hard life in the classroom, while the Asus is an unknown quantity on that score - however previous Asus models have been a hit with both teachers and kids.... let battle commence