The PC Report

The Asus Eee PC T101MT is the latest touchscreen addition into the Eee PC range – and it also packs a swivel display. The official word on this laptop is that it comes with a 10.1″ swivelling resistive multi-touch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1,024×600, an Atom N450, up to 2GB of RAM and 320GB hard drive, Windows 7, webcam and the usual netbook-style ports and a 6.5 hour max battery life.

As per usual, Asus has denied us info on a price or release time frame, but we also know that with the netbook purchase you get a free one year 500GB Asus WebStorage trial.

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The latest rumour out of the Apple camp is that of a new 22-inch touchscreen iMac to join the ranks of the other current-gen 21.5″ and 27″ non-touch systems. The new Mac is rumoured to be shipping sometime in 2010, with Quanta producing the model and Sintek Photronic supplying the panels. Like most Apple rumours these days, any actual info from Apple could be months (even years) away.

It isn’t surprising to see rumours for a touchscreen desktop iMac with loads of rumours surrounding the unconfirmed Apple Tablet with a modified Mac touchscreen interface. They could (and probably will) port some aspects of the Tablet interface to the new iMac. It will also be interesting to see the design of the new iMac; whether they choose to keep the same design as the 21.5″ one or go for a whole new design.

While it may seem like a gimmick to some people, I really like the ability that touchscreens give to devices, including laptops (of course, alongside a proper keyboard and trackpad). The Acer Aspire 5768PG seems to be a good choice for people like me: a 15″ touchscreen display along with Windows 7 Home Premium launching October 22nd – of course, if it makes it over here to Australia

Along with the aforementioned 15.6″ touchscreen, the Aspire 5738PG will come with a 2.2GHz Core 2 Duo, ATI Radeon HD 4570 graphics, 320GB of storage and 4GB of DDR3 RAM alongside the usual array of connectivity features including WiFi a/b/g/n, webcam and HDMI out. If you lust for a touchscreen to go alongside your Windows 7 installation, you’ll be able to grab this laptop for around US$799.

In a scoop by Times Online it looks as if the next entrant to the Asus Eee series will be the “World’s cheapest” e-book reader. The device’s design is clearly designed to resemble a traditional book, with the two touchscreens representing two pages and will be unveiled by the end of this year.

The Eeebook will offer many features other ebook readers on the market today don’t have. It will have features of a typical laptop too, including speakers, a webcam and a microphone. Asus plan to release a budget version and a premium version of the Eeebook, with the budget version thought to be targeted to be around 100 pounds or US$160. Note that the closest competiting ebook reader currently on the market is nearly double this price.

Asus do what they did with netbooks, and manage to make e-book readers common. Coming from someone who bought an EeePC 701 in the same week it was released, I can’t wait to check this out.

Medion is a brand you don’t often hear about (but I do often see down at the local Aldi supermarket); they produce cheap computers and electronics. It seems like they’ve released a pretty nice multitouch suppporting X9613 all-in-one PC.

It comes with a nice and large 24″ touchscreen panel along with another small SlideShow screen in amongst the media buttons along the bottom and the large volume knob. The internals are packing a Core 2 Quad Q9000 mobile CPU at 2.0 GHz and a GT240M GPU which should easily be able to play any sort of media you want. The prices for the X9613 range from €1,499 to €1,900 – I doubt I’ll be seeing this one at my local Aldi.

“What?,” you say. Suzuki? As in the car maker Suzuki? Nope, here we’re talking about the relatively unknown Suzuki Technology who confusingly shares the same name as the car maker.

Anyway, they’ve decided to release a netbook, dubbed the Neutron 701 MNI, complete with a 7″ touchscreen swivelling tablet-like display. Insides wise it packs the usual Atom processor along with a up to 4GB RAM, but what sets this netbook apart is the inclusion of an ExpressCard slot and S/PDIF out, two features we usually only see in full-sized laptops

Even though Suzuki has put up a page for the netbook, we haven’t got any details on availability, release date or price. Shame, for such a nice netbook.

Ever wanted to have a touch screen, but couldn’t afford it or felt it was too desk-ridden. I have a solution for you: The Magictouch Touch Screen Add-on.

It’s a translucent pad placed over the screen of your laptop and is tied to the back of the screen. It costs 170 US dollars and it’s fully compatible with Win7, Vista and XP and fully enables touch capability. There are many different sizes; the one pictured is for a 15.4 inch laptop. If interested, go to http://www.touchscreens.com/mt15w-usb.html