I really, really like mini-notebooks and all the different shapes and sizes they come in. But at times, particularly in the last few weeks, I feel that if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.

Enter the Gigabyte M912, the first mini-notebook to sport a convertible form factor and touchscreen. Gigabyte released the full specs of the system on its Web site, but I had to find out for myself what a touch-capable netbook could really do.

Sleek Design, Well-Sized Screen
I know I said that the Acer Aspire one was one of the best-looking mini-notebooks I have seen, but that was until I saw the Gigabyte M912 designs. On display were various colored M912s, including a brown, pink, black, white, and a striking multi-colored, pop-art design. Images after the jump.

The external sleek design carries under the lid, and I loved that the pop-art model’s trackpad buttons were red and yellow (this design being a clear nod to Dutch artist Piet Mondrian and his famous Red, Yellow and Blue compositions). This system sports an 8.9-inch screen, and the keyboard felt very similar to that of the Eee PC 900.

Shaky Hinge, Responsive Touchscreen
Different from other mini-notebooks, the M912 has a rotatable hinge that allows the screen to be rotated 180 degrees. To my dismay, the orientation didn’t change when I flipped the screen around, and I couldn’t find a button on the sides to rotate it. Also, the hinge, while it rotated swiftly, felt a little shaky. I’m a bit hesitant about the durability.

I was actually blown away at the responsiveness of the screen to my finger touches. I had a problem finding the stylus at first; it’s located on the top right corner of the screen, but I was able to get by with using just my index finger. The system I tested in the video was running Ubuntu, and I easily opened and closed programs using my finger. On a system running Windows Vista, I was able to select programs from the Start menu with my finger and open minimized programs from the taskbar. In the Web browser, I was able to use Vista flicks to move down the page. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to try out the stylus and writing capability.

Atom Inside
The Gigabyte M912 is powered by a 1.6-GHz Intel Atom processor. It is unclear which SKUs sport what allotments of RAM. Though the systems on display seemed to run Vista decently, only time will tell if the Atom processor can support all of Vista’s needs and capabilities. The system, as you can see in the boot-up video below, took about 55 seconds to launch the Microsoft OS, about 30 seconds more than the boot time on the MSI Wind.

Early Verdict
Seeing a mini-notebook with a swivel screen that includes touch capability is like a breath of fresh air, but we’d like to see how the M912 performs as a Tablet before we decide if it’s a formidable competitor to the MSI Wind NB or Asus Eee PC 901.  Stay tuned, as we hope to get more details on whether this sub-$600 mini will be coming stateside.

Hands-On Video

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Boot-Up Video

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