I spent three weeks getting to know the deliciously tiny Fujitsu P1510d, a convertible touch screen notebook. Here, then, are the observations of a mobile tech addict who has been spoiled by working on an active digitizer tablet for over a year.
General Hardware Notes
My first thought when I looked at it was, “why does its lower lip stick out like that?” Recalling the IBM ThinkPad X41T I’d seen a couple of months earlier, I realized that this must be an extended life battery. My suspicions were confirmed not much later. I must say that 7 hours (the published rating) is a lovely battery life. My best portable (not counting my PDAs) has only 3.5 hours to give, which is the rating for the P1510’s normal battery. True, it’s reported that the Electrovayas can stay up for nine hours, but the P1510 is still doing better than the average Tablet.
I was surprised to see that the processor was a 1.2gHz Pentium-M, but after experiencing the heat that little machine (it sports an 8.9 inch display and is a real load-lightener at 2.2 pounds) puts out, I could understand why the processor wasn’t any faster. The system can hold up to 1 gigabyte of memory; the device I used had 512 megabytes installed. The 60gb hard drive was more than sufficient for leaving the original XP installation on one partition and installing Windows Vista Beta 1 on a second partition.
I found the locations of the USB ports (one on either side of the keyboard) to be smartly placed. I appreciated and used the Secure Digital slot, but was disappointed that I could find no way to make the device boot from an SD card. I found myself wishing for a PC Card slot, instead of the Compact Flash slot. I have plenty of CF cards, but I have an adapter for them, as well. I tried, but never actually made use of, the fingerprint sensor.
I rarely used the port replicator. In fact, I was surprised that it didn’t seem more substantial. There was actually more to it, but in handling it, I got the impression that it was no more than a simple, light piece of plastic.
Video
The P1510 is a widescreen device. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that instead of the 800x480 resolution I’d resigned myself to seeing, I was actually viewing at 1024x600. The resolution could be increased to 1280x768, but this would force the viewer to pan around to see everything. I admit I don’t have a lot of experience with evaluating LCDs, but I found the screen to be a thing of beauty, bright and clear. It was even legible in sunlight, though I’m not in any way stating that it should be purchased for outdoor use.
Article comments
1 - Kathy Schrock
FYI...the Tablet PC OS became available on the P1510D just yesterday! (You have to go to the cusomize page on Fujitsu's US site to choose this option.)
Kathy
2 - Jim
Fry's had the 1510 sitting right beside the ultra portable Fujitsu 7120. There was no comparison in screen quality. The 1510 looked like something from the 90's - very dull display. The 7120 was clear, sharp, crisp and brilliant. Could the 1510 display unit have been faulty? Anyone else compare the 1510 to another fujitsu display?
3 - MiniMage
Lisa Glade of Mobile Tech Review had this to say:
"Why don't tablets look as good? Because they must have a tough layer on top that can take repeated contact with the pen, and they have a digitizer layer which works in conjunction with the electromagnetic pen."
Now she was talking about Tablet PCs with active digitizers, but perhaps this applies as well to devices with passive digitizers. Some tablet lovers have actually removed the protective coating to get a brighter and less grainy view; most, it seems, were very happy with their decision. I've been quite tempted to try it, myself.
4 - erick
I got mine from fujitsu auction site - got a refurbished p1510d /xp w/ table pc, 30gb, 512mb memory, ritepen, evernotes. atheros abg wifi, Full warranty.
I haven't touched my ipaq PocketPC since i got it last week! I love it's portability,capabilities. yes there are little cons, and pros at most, but that's w/ most any other gadget i own... And the price i paid for was just a few dollars less than a brand new samsung Q1. I'm happy!