Hugo Ortega plays with Fujitsu T4020

I announced several posts back that I’d been handed a Fujitsu T4020 Convertible Tablet PC. Today, although not intended as a full review, I decided to posts some thoughts.

I must disclose that my original purpose for having this device was somewhat selfish. Since I’d been handed the role as blogger for the CeBIT Australia Fair I knew that my primary dilemma in accomplishing this task would be my love for the slate pc. I hunted and looked through my piles of Tablets to only realise that I have a rather refined Slate fetish; the only convertible/hybrid I own is a HP TC1100 which would definitely be under-processed and under-sized for the task.

David at Fujitsu answered my call rather enthusiastically with the delivery of a “Brand New” T4020 Convertible Tablet PC that had been sitting in the office and designated as a “Emergency Only” Tablet… I peeled open the boxes, and layers of insulation, to find what at first site appears to be a rather good attempt at post-modern Tabletism. The reason I term it post-modern is that Fujitsu’s design team has gone to considerable effort to create a funky machine; with its rounded edges and two-toned grey/silvers it seems that Fujitsu colour coordinators have definitely done away with PC Beige as a preferred hue.

Booting the T4020 quickly gives the Tableteer a glimpse of great things to come…speed (impressive for an Intel® Pentium® M Processor 750 1.86GHz, 2MB L2 cache, 533MHz FSB) ! As we all know faster is better, right? In this case absolutely, positively better. From the word GO this Tablet screams. Gone are all the proprietary software bits that make very good computers run like dogs, i.e. infamous with IBM and Sony VAIO. When I first booted this device I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in the Windows environment well before many more fabled machines. One Windows Mobile fanatic friend of mine pointed out a very ironic little quirk in this device just recently: “stupid isn’t it that the fingerprint scanner is located on the body of the computer and not the screen? What if I want to swipe my finger when in Tablet mode?”

All-in-all the keyboard feels great and the weight/functionality ratios are all tipped in the favour of the T4020. I like it so far but stay tuned for a more comprehensive Video Review later next week.