As I mentioned yesterday, UMPC Portal’s Steve Paine recently got his hands on a Gigabyte M912M tablet style netbook. And today he’s posted the video to prove it.

Overall, he says the device is quite responsive thanks to a decent hard drive, the 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, and a decent touchscreen display. Unlike virtually every other netbook on the market, the Gigabyte M912 series includes a swiveling display that lets you fold down the screen over the keyboard to use the laptop in tablet mode.

At 1.3kg or almost 3 pounds, the Gigabyte M912M is a bit heavy to hold in one hand and use in tablet mode. But the computer’s low price (for a tablet PC) of about $700 to $800 makes up for that. Ultimately, Steve decided to purchase his review unit.

You can check out the full video after the break. And you can read more about the Gigabyte M912M in the Liliputing Product Database.

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The Gigabyte M912M and M912X tablet style netbooks are now shipping in Europe. The M912 series of laptops stretches the generally accepted definition of a netbook in two ways. First, they’re a bit on the pricy side, at about $700 to $800 US. And second, it has a touchscreen display that you can swivel and fold down over the keyboard to use the computer in tablet mode.

But the Gigabyte M912 sports an Intel atom CPU and an 8.9 inch display, which helps keep it within the realm of netbookdom. The M912 series comes in several flavors. The M912X has a high resolution 1280 x 768 display, while the M912M has a lower resolution 1024 x 600 display. But as UMPC Portal’s Steve Paine points out, the M912M might actually be a better bargain. It sells for about 50 Euros ($70) less, and gets better battery life.   

Paine does say the fan seems to run more frequently on the M912M than on the M912X, which makes it a noisier computer. But he says it also keeeps the PC from getting as hot to the touch as its more expensive sibling. 

The Gigabyte M912 is available from Mobilex in the EU. If you’re in the US, you can place an order through importer Dynamism. It’s not available from other US based retailers yet.

If you’ve been scratching your head trying to figure out whether the upcoming Gigabyte M912 mini-tablet PC comes with a 1024 x 600 pixel display or a 1280 x 768 pixel display (I’ve seen reports of both resolutions), it looks like Chippy over at UMPC Portal has solved the mystery – there’s more than one model.

I mean, I already knew there’s be several models with different hard drive sizes and operating systems. But here’s the breakdown on the screen resolution. While all models will have an 8.9 inch screen, the M912V and the M912X will have a 1280 x 768 pixel display using inverter technology while the M912M has a 1024 x 600 pixel display using LED back lighting technology.

The M version will have an 80GB hard drive, while the X and V models have 160GB hard drives, Bluetooth, and presumably higher price tags.