Asus announced the first netbook with a touch screen computer back at CES in January, but details have been slow to emerge since. Now we have a ballpark launch date for the UK and pricing information for the first touch netbook for the mass market.

The T91 touch netbook features a swiveling touch screen monitor that allows users to interact with it like a netbook or like a tablet PC. The big difference between the T91 and traditional tablets is that it’s optimized to receive input from a finger rather than a stylus.

The Eee PC T91 is rumored for release in late May or early June in the UK market. There’s no word yet on a release date for the Americas just yet.

The recommended pricing for the T91 is £449 or approximately $675 US. This pricing might put the T91 out of the price range for many netbook buyers, but this isn’t an ordinary netbook.

In addition to the addition of the touch screen, Asus included a couple of other upgrades in the T91. The touch netbook will include a TV tuner so  you can catch standard television programming and GPS for location-based services.

It seems as though Asus is trying to stuff every plausible feature into the T91, but it could be for good reason. Netbooks are a relatively new technology and adding touch screens is a brand new phenomenon.

Asus may be trying to cover as many possible use cases for the T91 as possible. So we end up with a device with strong multimedia, user interface and location-based upgrades for any possible use.

At such a high price point for a netbook computer, the T91 is likely to appeal primarily to the early adopter of touch-based computing. There’s no telling yet whether touch screens will become a broad trend in the PC market, but the T91 appears to be a good start.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at 9:46 am under Navigation, Notebook, Online video.

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