Gigabyte has announced plans to launch Windows 7 versions of two of the company’s latest netbooks in Japan. The Gigabyte T1028X convertibel touchscreen netbook will be available with Windows 7 Starter Edition and a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 CPU. 10.1 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel touchscreen display, 1GB of RAM, 250GB HDD, and a 6 cell, 7650mAh battery.

It’ll run about $800, which makes me wonder why Gigabyte couldn’t have sprung for Windows 7 Home Premium instead of starter — especially since Windows 7 Home Premium includes enhanced touch capabilities and support for multitouch displays (although it’s likely that the T1028X still has an old fashioned resistive touchscreen).

The Gigabyte Booktop M1022 is also getting a Windows 7 makeover. The new version is the Gigabyte M1022X which features a 10.1 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 250GB hard drive, and 6 cell, 7800mAh battery. Like the TouchNote, the Booktop will ship with Windows 7 Starter. It’ll sell for about $740 in Japan.

Both models support up to 2GB of RAM, feature 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and Bluetooth 2.1. The only major difference from the Windows XP versions of these netbooks is the bump from a 160GB hard drive to a 250GB hard drive. And you know, Windows 7 Starter Edition.

via Netbooked

The Gigabyte TouchNote T1028X is a portable laptop with a 10.2 inch display and an Intel Atom N280 processor. But if I stopped there, it would sound pretty much like every other netbook on the market, when the truth is that this machine has more goodies packed into it than just about any other netbook available today.

The first thing that strikes you about the T1028X is its 1366 x 768 pixel touchscreen display that can be folded down over the keyboard for use in tablet mode. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The laptop also has an integrated 3G module, an ExpressCard/34 slot, and a 6 cell battery that’s good for around 5 hours of run time. It also has the usual netbook staples including 3 USB ports, mic and headphone jacks, an SD card reader and Ethernet and VGA ports. It ships with 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive and Windows XP Home Edition.

But there are a few issues. A few of the keys on the keyboard are smaller than you’d expect, the touchpad buttons are located on the left and right sides instead of below it, and the T1028X costs more than virtually any other netbook, with an MSRP of about $699 in the US. So is it worth it? That depends on how much money you’ve got burning a hole in your pocket. You can certainly find cheaper netbooks, but good luck finding one with all of these features.

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One of the Gigabyte TouchNote T1028X’s defining features is its touchscreen display. And while the computer ships with Windows XP Home Edition, which means it doesn’t include all the bells and whistles that you might expect from a tablet PC, the touchscreen is pretty responsive. What’s more, Gigabyte includes a few basic applications that make it easy to use.

For one thing, the simulated right-click feature works quite well. If you’re using the netbook in tablet mode, and want to right-click on an item to open a context menu, all you have to do is tap your finger or stylus on the screen and hold if for a second or two. The Asus Eee PC T91 has a similar feature, but it requires inhuman levels of accuracy to use. Nine times out of ten, I couldn’t bring up a context menu on the Eee PC T91 using the touchscreen alone. But I haven’t ever had a problem performing the same action on the TouchNote.

One potential problem with the Gigabyte TouchNote T1028x is that the sharp, 1366 x 768 pixel display doesn’t leave a lot of room for error. If the screen isn’t aligned properly, there’s a decent chance you’ll hit “cancel” buttons when you’re aiming for “OK” and vice versa. But there’s a simple utility for aligning the touchscreen.

In the video after the break, I demonstrate both of these features, plus I show how you can use a button on the side of the device and the netbook’s status LEDs as a battery meter.

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As I mentioned the other day, I have a whole lot of mini-laptops sitting on my desk at the moment. So I decided that today would be as good a time as any to do a little keyboard face-off.

I’d already kind of decided that of the netbooks I’m using this week the Samsung Go (shown in the bottom of the picture) has the keyboard that feels the best. I like the chiclet-style layout, the keys are comfortable and responsive, and their laid out quite nicely with a large right-side shift key and arrow keys below it. I’d also decided that the Gigabyte TouchNote T1028X (pictured at the top) had the worst keyboard, thanks to its extra-thin punctuation keys for the period, comma, and question mark.

But you know what? The typing test results told a completely different story.

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I’ve been testing out a number of netbooks over the last few days, including the Samsung Go (pictured above, left), and Gigabyte TouchNote T1028X (pictured, right). Like most 10 inch netbooks on the market today, the Samsung Go has a 1024 x 600 pixel display. The TouchNote T1028X, on the other hand, has a 1366 x 768 pixel touchscreen display. The picture above gives you a rough idea of how much more text you can fit on that higher resolution screen. But just an idea. Because I’m starting to think that no 10 inch netbook should really have a display this sharp.

The T1028X isn’t the only 10 inch netbook with a 1366 x 768 pixel display.  That resolution is sort of a magical number for many people, because it corresponds to 720p, which means HD video. The Sony Vaio Mini W comes with a similarly sharp screen, and the HP Mini 5101, Mini 1101, and Dell Inspiron Mini 10 are available with 720p display options.

On the one hand, there’s no doubt that you can fit a whole lot more on the screens. But there are a few problems. The first and foremost is that the text is so sharp that it’s hard for me to read from the  netbook for more than 20 or 30 minutes without getting a headache. I’ve tried adjusting the dpi from 96 to 125 and that helps a bit, as does using large fonts and adjusting the zoom level in Firefox and other web browsers. But these changes are often inconsistent throughout the user interface and just result in making the experience of using the T1028X even more disorienting.

There’s another problem too, and it’s one that I’ve also noticed with Intel Atom powered machines like the Asus Eee Top ET1602 with a 15.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel screen. The 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 and 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processors have to work a lot harder to pump out graphics to higher resolution displays. So while Flash video from web sites like Hulu looks great in full screen on a netbook with a 1024 x 600 pixel display, it’s choppy on a 1366 x 768 pixel screen. This is a problem that could eventually be resolved by offloading some of the responsibility for processing Flash video to the graphics processor, but right now the integrated GMA 950 graphics in most netbooks isn’t optimized to work with Flash, and neither is the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M processor used in the NVIDIA ION platform.

I know some folks will feel differently about this, and never met an extra pixel they didn’t like. But I’m starting to think that 1366 x 768 pixel displays should only be used on laptops with 12 inch or larger screens. Even on those machines, that resolution is pretty darn sharp, but at least it’s not quite as blinding. It would be nice if there was an accepted resolution between 1024 x 600 and 1366 x 768 that netbook makers could comfortably use for 10 inch netbooks, but aside from the occasional 1280 x 800 or 1280 x 720 machine, I haven’t seen much.

What do you think? Do you have a netbook with an HD display? How do you like it? What do you think would be the perfect resolution for a 10 inch netbook?

Yeah, I’ve got a backlog of netbooks to review. The next week or two should be fun. I’d like to thank Samsung, Gigabyte, and Lenovo for sending me these models to review. The little guy in the back of the second row is my Asus Eee PC 1000H. That’s right, I’ve actually managed to hang onto the same netbook for nearly a year. It’s a dinosaur, but it still gets the job done.

The folks at Gigabyte were kind enough to send me a TouchNote T1028X convertible tablet style netbook to review. This machine isn’t the first touchscreen netbook to hit the streets, but it has a few features that really set it apart from the crowd:

• It has a 10.1 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display
• The screen can be folded down over the keyboard for use in tablet mode
• The netbook also has an ExpressCard/34 slot, in addition to 3 USB ports and an SD card reader

Sure, the TouchNote T1028X isn’t the only netbook around with any of those three features. But it’s the only one available today with all three. The large 7650mAh battery should provide pretty decent battery life.

Whether all of these things justifies the netbook’s high price tag is another question, and one that I hope to be able to answer after I get to spend a little more time with the TouchNote. It’s available for $698 from Amazon.

I’ve only had the TouchNote in the house for a few moments, but I’ve noticed two things right off the bat. First, the high resolution screen is ridiculously sharp. If you don’t have perfect eyesight, you’re probably going to want to spend some time adjusting the fonts on this model. Second, while the netbook ships with a stylus, there’s no slot in the computer for holding the stylus, which means you’ll need to stick it in your bag or pocket if you want to use the stylus on the go. Update: It turns out there is a stylus tucked away in a little compartment near the screen. I guess the stylus that came in the little plastic bag was a spare.

You can check out my unboxing and first look videos after the break.

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Looking for a touchscreen netbook with a 10 inch screen, 1366 x 768 pixel display, and 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 CPU? Right now there’s pretty much only one choice: The Gigabyte TouchNote T1028X, which the company recently rolled out as an update to the original TouchNote T1028M (which has a lower resolution display).

While DigiTimes reports that a number of netbook makers plan to launch touchscreen models next year, right now the only companies with convertible tablet-style netbooks are Asus and Gigabyte. And Asus hasn’t released its 10 inch model yet, so the only option from that company is the Eee PC T91 which has an 8.9 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, a sluggish 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 CPU, and a small 16GB solid state disk.

The Gigabyte TouchNote has a larger screen, bigger keyboard, and more powerful processor. It also includes a 160GB hard drive and an ExpressCard slot. Unfortunately, all those extras come at a price. PC Micro Store is charging $698 for the Gigabyte TouchNote T1028X, while you can pick it up for about $20 less from Amazon (although it still ships from PC Micro Store)

If you ask me, that effectively prices this laptop out of netbook territory. But for now, it’s still one of the cheapest 10 inch convertible touchscreen notebooks available.

via UMPC Portal

The Asus Eee PC T91 and Intel Classmate PC 3 (aka CTL 2Go PC and other rebranded netbooks) aren’t the only touchscreen netbooks available in the US anymore. Gigabyte is bringing its TouchNote T1028 netbook to America, and you can pick it up today for $599.

That’s about $100 more than you’d pay for the other two touchscreen netbooks. But the Gigabyte TouchNote T1028 has a few things the others don’t, including a high resolution 10.1 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display and a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 CPU. The netbook, which can be used in either tablet or clamshell mode also has 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, a 6 cell battery, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, and runs Windows XP.

The Gigabyte Booktop M1022 is also now shipping in the US. This $449 netbook has pretty standard specs including an Atom N280 CPU, 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, 6 cell battery, and Windows XP. But its one claim to fame is a docking station that lets you connect a keyboard and mouse in order to user the netbook as if it were a desktop computer.

In other news, Portable Monkey reports that Gigabyte has launched a WiMax capable version of the TouchNote in Taiwan called the TouchNote T1028X.

via Portable Monkey