Asus eee T91 Tablet Netbook update
I posted on July 15th that the new Asus Netbook Tablet was finally shipping and that it felt like Christmas.
When it arrived, I loved it. It runs Windows so I had to download Firefox, ZoneAlarm and AVG, and then I could start having fun. With the tablet turned around, holding it and carrying it around is so much easier than carrying a notebook form with the screen up. I took it outside and read an ebook, occasionally bouncing to Firefox to check to see if there were comments on the blog that needed to be taken out of the moderation queue. I loved it. And then the wi-fi wouldn’t connect, so I rebooted it to see if that would fix it. Except, when it shut off, it wouldn’t turn back on. At all. Nothing I tried worked, so I called tech support, and nothing they suggested worked either. It was dead, except for one little light to show the battery was charging when I plugged it in. But the on/off switch did nothing. And using a pin for the reset button didn’t work either. Dead, broke, non-functioning. It wouldn’t turn on.
I called Amazon, but they were out and didn’t expect to get more stock for three to five weeks, which meant if I wanted another one anytime soon I had to get an RMA number and send it back to ASUS. Which I did. They’ve had it for days now, and the status when I check online shows it is being repaired. Right, they are spending 20 plus hours to repair it? No, if it were going to take that long they’d just send me a new one. Which they should be doing anyway since it died so quickly.
And their customer service is not very helpful, either. I won’t go so far as to say rude, just unhelpful and uncaring.
So, the bottom line is that while I had it, I loved it. But I spent $500 on something that worked a few hours and then stopped working, and the factory isn’t being very helpful about getting me one that works. I would normally call it a $500 brick, except it doesn’t weigh enough to call it a brick.
July 29th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
I’ve been in I.T. for many years and I know how frustrating that is.
I’m not yet sold on the tablet PCs. I have to say that my Kindle is the best ever! I will find the best product for the best use. Sometimes a technology device is like a houseboat. It’s not a good house and it’s not a good boat.
I have a laptop for work & real computing activities. I have a netbook for all the reasons you’ve stated in previous posts. And I have a Kindle for reading.
I know that’s a lot of devices and can get pricey. Some devices can be cross functional but I’ve found that’s the exception rather than the rule.
I know you’re probably still committed to the tablet idea but with the amount of reading you do, I would say that a Kindle should be in your future! Then, stick to the netbook or laptop for the other stuff.
July 29th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Ugh! Sorry to hear you’ve had so much trouble with your new toy. So disappointing when I know how much you were looking forward to it!
Hope they get themselves in gear soon and fix it or even better, replace it with one that works perfectly. Hey, if they had any clue how many people are reading your reviews I’m sure they’d be jumping quickly to fix it!
Hope better days for your tablet are right around the corner.
July 29th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
That’s completely disappointing and frustrating!! I hope you get it back quickly! I was interested to read your review of this tablet and I feel let-down for you!
Wendy @
http://www.adoptionandfire.com
July 29th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
dbm – I’ve looked at, and even lusted after, the Kindle. A lot. But in the end, I have too many problems with it and the DRM that it operates under. Not to mention I’ve been burned by proprietary formats in the past (not ebooks, other things) and I don’t trust files that only work on one device and not multiple devices. Most of my reading is still done on old fashioned books, probably 80% of it is a hard copy of a book, and 20% is an ebook. The ebooks are generally books I doubt I’ll want to read again, or books that are on sale enough that I don’t mind buying it in ebook form with the understanding that if I love it I’ll probably buy the book when I find it somewhere used at a good price.
I like to read and re-read my books. I want to know that books I buy today can still be read ten years from now, and with proprietary formats, ten years from now you never know what might happen. How many times have I talked about re-reading a series before a new book in that series comes out? Guilty Pleasures (the first Anita Blake book) was first published in 1993, and yet I still read that book again probably once every three years, most recently in May of this year, 16 years after it came out.
Also, even without the whole DRM and why I haven’t bought a Kindle… on a netbook I can easily switch over to check email and to check in on the site occasionally, almost seamlessly. If nothing is going on then it takes three or four seconds to check both places and then I’m back to reading. I can’t do that on an ereader.
Here is just one article showing a potential problem with the Kindle:
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/07/26/readers-need-help-from-authors-and-publishers-to-retain-digital-ebook-rights/comment-page-2/
If you don’t understand what “in the cloud” means, they explain it here:
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/03/29/the-benefits-of-cloud-computing/
I can go on and on about the difference in owning a hard copy of a book vs having a DRM license for an ebook. For some books I don’t mind paying to just have a DRM license instead of paying to actually own the book, but I feel better having the ebook in a format that works across platforms and not just on one device. Also, I at least have physical custody of the file the way I buy them; they aren’t “in the cloud” and controlled by a book seller. I have copies on my netbook, laptop, and desktop, plus they are all uploaded to a server that helps me keep them synched between all of my computers.
July 29th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
Please if you are near an apple store drive there, walk in, try out some machines.
Kristine