by Johnson Vue

Fujitsu has introduced a new tablet into their lineup. The new LifeBook T1010, makes tablets more affordable for students. The most important update to Fujitsu's tablet is that it uses the new Intel 45nm processor and comes equipped with DDR3 memory. These new updates should increase the life of your battery and enhance the performance of your tablet.

The total price for this pre-configured T1010 system is $1,326.33 with 10% discount coupon. At the current time they are also featuring a $50 mail-in rebate.

Specifications:

• Intel Core 2 Duo Processor P8400 (2.26GHz, 3MB L2 Cache, 1066 FSB)
• Windows Vista Home Premium (Service Pack 1)
• Microsoft Works
• Microsoft Office 2007 Home & Student (60-day Trial)
• 13.3" WXGA touch screen display (Passive Digitizer)
• 2GB DDR3 – 1066 SDRAM (1 x 2GB configuration)
• 160GB S-ATA 150, 5400 RPM Hard Drive
• Dual-layer Multi-Format DVD Writer
• Integrated webcam & digital microphone
• 3 USB 2.0 Ports
• 15-pin D-sub connector for VGA output
• RJ-45 & RJ-11 Ports (LAN & Phone ports)
• Intel WiFi Link 5100 (A/G/N)
• Bluetooth Wireless
• Main Battery – Lithium Ion (6-cell 10.8v, 5200 mAH, 56.16 WHr)
• One-year International Warranty
• Model FPCM11381

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I am currently a college student and need to replace my aging IBM X41 tablet. I have decided to buy this Fujitsu T1010 model because of its price tag. I also wanted to try out the passive digitizer on a tablet to see how it compares to the active digitizer of my X41. Other tablets I have looked at and considered are the Fujitsu T2010, Fujitsu T4220, Fujitsu T5010, Toshiba M700, Asus R1E, and the Lenovo (IBM) X61T. My main usage for this tablet is to schedule my tasks, take notes in class and program applications for businesses.

This tablet was purchased directly from the Fujitsu website on the 16^th of August and shipped on the 21^st of August. The tablet arrived promptly to my home on the 22^nd of August and was shipped from Japan. I believe that anyone who is on a budget and wants a new tablet, this is the best tablet as far as pricing is concerned. The current price on Fujitsu's website is $1,349 with a $50 mail-in rebate making the price $1,299.

Build and Design

The tablet looks like the T5010 model. The frame of the tablet feels very sturdy and is not flimsy at all. Overall it feels like solid plastics were used to manufacture these tablets. The only looseness I felt was when picking up the tablet. On my right hand I could feel the casing of the T1010 push in a little bit on the underside of the DVD-RW drive. The ability to swivel the screen to the left or the right is convenient for users if they really have a preference to which way it needs to swivel.

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Pushing on the screen doesn't seem to do anything to this tablet either. There is no rippling of rainbows at all on the screen. It feels like the screen can handle pressure very well. When twisting the frame of the LCD screen, it barely budges. You can be well assured that this tablet was designed with quality in mind.

Display

The T1010 comes with a 13.3" Wide XGA display and has a display resolution for 1280 x 800 pixels. This model has Intel GM45 for video graphics. It can also display out to an external monitor with a resolution of 1600 x 1200. The complaints most people would have about the screen is the quality of the screen. With dark backgrounds such as black, the screen will reflect and create a blurry image. The screen also gets worse in direct sunlight, as it produces glares. So it is typically a good idea to work in dark corners or spots where there is less light.

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Because this model uses a passive digitizer the screen quality is poor compared to active digitizers. The viewing angles are also limited, but at the right angle you can see your screen clearly in front of you. Tilting your head left, right, up and down you can see that the viewing angle is not great. This is a good thing if you don't want people looking at your screen while you're doing work. As far as testing goes, I didn't detect any backlight bleeding if there are any.

Speakers

The sound produced by most tablets isn't great. I don't expect the sound to be spectacular at all. I did some testing on www.audiocheck.net and it was able to produce sound from 10Hz up to 200Hz fine. Testing 20Hz to 20kHz also ran fine and testing the sounds of mosquitoes at 17.4kHz was rather annoying. I may be getting old but I can still hear all of these sounds as my hearing is in very excellent condition. I tested Youtube for sound and most of the sound seemed to be coming out of the left speaker only. The right speaker for some reason remained silent, I believe it has to do with the encoding of audio files for Youtube videos. Testing sound on AudioCheck, both speakers seemed to work fine. I would recommend using headphones if you plan to do any listening at all. After further testing of audio from Youtube with my Grado SR60 headphones, the sound quality was fine on both of my headphone speakers.

Processor and Performance

So far the tablet feels really snappy when running applications in Windows Vista. I don't have any noticeable slowdowns at all and there is little to no delay running applications. I can open up Microsoft Word 2007 and OneNote2007 very quickly without any delays. I don't have Photoshop installed so I can't test the performance of Photoshop. However, I can say that you will not be disappointed in the performance of the T1010. This tablet has a 2.26GHz processor which drops to 1.59GHz when in battery mode and will ramp up to 2.26GHz if needed. The hard drive is 160GB S-ATA 150 5400 RPM hard drive, so far I don't feel any particular slowdowns with a 5400RPM hard drive. The tablet also comes equipped with DDR3 Samsung memory modules. For those who want to play games on this, I wouldn't advise to buy it for gaming purposes. For gaming you should consider looking at something that has a dedicated graphics card.

Benchmarks

I tested the T1010 with Super PI to 2M digits and the total time it took was 52 seconds. In Everest, I tested memory and it scored 5884 MB/s. Overall, I think the hard drive did well in the HDTune testing.  The T1010 scored 1016 points in 3DMark06 and 4,762 points in PCMark05.

PCMark05:

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PCMark05 measures the systems performance as a whole. As you can see the T1010 is on top of the competition with the new Centrino 2 processor technology.

3DMark06:

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GPU Test:

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HDTune:

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Heat and Noise

The only heat that I feel is near the left side of the touchpad where I rest part of my palm. It does get a bit warm but not too hot that it is unbearable. If you plan to put it in your lap it can get a bit warm so I would suggest using it on some sort of table. There is almost no practical noise coming out of the tablet. Usually when I use my X41 tablet I will be able to hear the fan ramp up and down when the processor is kicking in overdrive. There's no noise that I can hear so far after testing for a little over three hours.

Keyboard / Pen / Touchpad

Surprisingly the touchpad is really responsive to moving your mouse cursor on the screen. Most laptops I have used have problems with slow or unresponsive touchpad. I am used to using IBM's pointer stick placed in the middle of the keyboard. The pen is sturdy and solid; it doesn't feel cheap and is well built. The keyboard is pretty solid although I feel that it may be just a little flimsy.

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Ports

The T1010 has one USB port on the left side and two on the backside. Along the backside it also has a D-Sub 15 Pin VGA out to a monitor along with RJ-45 and RJ-11 ports. The optical disk drive is mounted on the right side. On the left side with the one USB port is a memory card reader and inputs/outputs for a microphone and headphones.  The memory card reader can read SD cards and Sony memory sticks.

Left side view of the ports. (view large image)

Right side view of the ports. (view large image)

Back side view of the ports. (view large image)

Bottom view of the T1010. (view large image)

Front lid view of the T1010. (view large image)

Wireless Connectivity

As far as wireless goes, it works well enough to access the Internet through my router. I tried downloading a file but I believe it was a bit slower than using a cable. I'm not sure if it had to do with the site I was downloading it from but it was a bit slow but it's connectible. The card that is used is an Intel WiFi Link 5100 A/G/N, it's able to connect to three different types of bandwidth, it's useful if you still own an old router that only does A. Most people will have G and N routers already. I don't have any complaints here.

Battery Life

I tested the battery in high performance profile (max brightness) and it lasted me approximately 3 hours and 23 minutes long before giving out. That is not too bad on high performance, most of the time I was surfing the web, typing, listening to music, and watching Youtube videos. If I would have decreased my screen brightness and put my tablet into Power Saver mode, I think I would have made it to at least 4 hours of battery life or even more.

Software

The tablet comes installed with Windows Vista Home Premium. I wish they would have offered Business Edition for the T1010 but since this tablet is a budget tablet it wouldn't be possible. It comes with a 60-day trial of Microsoft Office Home & Student 2007.
The tablet comes packed with 7 discs:

• Roxio Creator LJ
• Built-in Camera Software by ArcSoft Webcam Companion 2
• CyberLink PowerDirector DE / CyberLink MakeDisc
• Fujitsu Recovery & Utility Disc
• Fujitsu Drivers & Application Restore Disc
• Microsoft Works 9
• Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 OEM (With Product Key)

Other pre-installed software is Google's Picasa software, Norton Internet Security, and Microsoft Works. There isn't really much trial software and junk installed onto the tablet.

Other / Passive Digitizer vs. Active Digitizer & Hand Recognition

Let me just say, passive digitizers are terrible at accuracy of handwriting. The hand recognition needs a lot of improvement and it may take you a while to adjust to the feel of the passive screen. The accuracy is not very good in my opinion. Here is a sample:

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Conclusion

The Fujitsu T1010 does hold to be a good value compared to other tablets with passive digitizers. However, I just feel that Fujitsu could have done more to improve this model and made it something worth while to invest in. I believe there is only one downfall to this tablet, which is that it has a passive digitizer rather than an active digitizer. The tablet is stable and runs applications quickly and has almost close to four hours of battery life. For this much power in a tablet, it is pretty good with battery life.

Again, I assure you that you will not be disappointed with the performance of this tablet. However, you will be disappointed with the quality of the screen due to glares created by sunlight or other sources of light. The poor viewing angles might turn away many potential buyers, but remember this tablet was designed so people can actually afford it and not for all the bells and whistles you could get with the T5010. I believe the T5010 is about exactly the same as the T1010 but with integrated TPM, an active digitizer, a black LCD screen mount, and the ability to replace the optical drive with an extra battery pack. If only the T1010 model had an active digitizer as an entry level tablet it would be the best tablet for the money, even if Fujitsu didn't allow you to have the choice to replace the optical drive with an extra battery pack.

Pros

• Overall sturdy design
• Allows screen rotation left or right
• Runs applications really well
• Stays fairly cool
• Competitive pricing for entry level tablet
• Battery lasts for 3+ Hours
• No backlight bleeding or dead pixels

Cons