No larger than an oversize paperback, Fujitsu Siemens' LifeBook P1510 convertible ultraportable tablet has Jørgen Sundgot slobbering like he's rarely done before.
Ever heard of a convertible ultraportable tablet before? We didn't think so. That's because just about the only notebook fitting the bill is the LifeBook P1500 series from Fujitsu-Siemens. Of course, we've managed to lay our grubby mitts on a specimen of this swiveling little sensation, and we'll go ahead and spoil the fun for you right away: we like it. We really like it.
By God, that's small
A hair smaller than
the Fujitsu-Siemens LifeBook P7120, the LifeBook P1510 is a small marvel of engineering at 232 x 167 x 37 mm and 1 KG with its standard, 3-cell battery. As a tablet convertible, its display swivels to allow use of the notebook in either laptop or tablet mode, the latter of which presents the user with the sole entry option of an 8.9-inch screen equipped with a passive digitizer of the kind employed in handhelds and a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels.
As a result of this combination, the screen of the P1510 is something of an odd beast; its size greatly contributes to the portability of the unit yet also causes it to teeter on the brink of usability. Furthermore, it's not as crisp as other tablets we've seen, but fortunately offers impressive precision and adequate brightness along with decent graphics performance courtesy of the Intel 915GS chipset which draws between 8 MB and 128 MB from the main system banks.
Framing the display is a few useful and user-configurable buttons, indicator lights and a biometric fingerprint reader - a nice touch which is also tied to the notebook's Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip for added security.
Connected to the screen by way of a sturdy hinge is the remaining half of the P1510, which among other things plays host to a compact yet surprisingly comfortable keyboard at 80% of full size, complete with tap-enabled trackpoint stick and a tri-button mouse array. Smaller than that of, say, the Toshiba libretto U100, it allows for more than adequate input speeds, although naturally slows down text input somewhat.
Modest, yet sufficient
Despite being smaller than even Lenovo's
ThinkPad X41 Tablet, the LifeBook P1510 offers decent performance courtesy of a Pentium M 753 processor running at 1.2 GHz paired with a maximum of 1 GB of slightly dated DDR2 400 MHz SDRAM; somewhat limited in terms of quantity, yet still sufficient for most productivity applications. This is joined by a choice of hard drives of either 30 GB or 60 GB, both of which spin at 4,200 RPM and, by recent standards, fall a tad behind the curve.
Connectivity, meanwhile, is comfortably comprehensive. Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g and Bluetooth 1.2 are both on board with high-range reception and performance, whereas 10/100 Etherbet, a 56K V.92 modem, dual USB 2.0 ports and a VGA port offer wired options. Lastly, SD/MMC and CompactFlash Type II expansion ports round out what must be considered a solid offering for such a small unit.
Speaking of small, one of the reasons for the modest size of the P1510 is a similarly modest-size, 3-cell battery. Oddly enough, it's also mounted in front of the keyboard, but this is in fact a plus as exchanging it for a 6-cell battery will boost battery life with average use from a couple of hours to in excess of four hours - and offers an excellent palm rest where there was virtually none before.
One distinct drawback, however, is the complete lack of an optical drive - although not in the LifeBook P1510 itself, but rather its docking station. Also, it doesn't take too much for the fan to kick in, but fan or no fan: this one's a lap scorcher.
No frills here
With Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 under the hood, the P1510's performance is - as could be deduced from our comments concerning its specifications - neither particularly good nor bad in and of itself. Add its small size to the equation, however, and things start looking up considerably. Most users will only need to make one small adjustment before taking this tablet into use, and that is its font size (or DPI) since default settings can have even users with 20/20 eyesight squint at times.
Once up and running, users are greeted by a modest choice of 3rd party software including Corel's Grafigo for the more drawing-oriented jotters; the self-explanatory F-Secure Anti-Virus and Norton Ghost 2003 for making full system backups - handy for road warriors who might need to rebuild a laptop on the go. Similarly, the biometric security of a unit that is designed to be accessed frequently is a particularly nice touch, alleviating the need to exit tablet mode merely to key in a password.
Availability
The Fujitsu Siemens LifeBook P1510 is at the time of press available throughout Europe, starting at €2,500 EUR for a base configuration. The same notebook also sells as the LifeBook P1510 from Fujitsu in the US.
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