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Fujitsu LifeBook U1010 (3.5G) Notebook Review Print
Wednesday, 07 May 2008
 
Article Index
Fujitsu LifeBook U1010 (3.5G) Notebook Review
2 - Battery and Connectivity
3 - Screen and Input
4 - Conclusion
Page 3 of 4

Screen and Input:

The screen on the U1010 is a 5.6-inch “SuperFine” Wide-Screen, capable of a resolution of 1024x600. Not a big resolution by anyone’s standards, but nonetheless quite impressive for such a small screen, and big enough for web browsing, documents and the occasional video, having two windows open on the screen at the same time is pushing it a bit though.

As the U1010 is also a Tablet capable/convertible PC, the screen is of course a touch screen, but unlike the screens of the other Fujitsu tablets we’ve looked at in the past, this one doesn’t utilise a Wacom digitiser panel, instead it’s more like a PDA screen, so if you lose or can’t be bothered using the stylus, your finger will do just fine – providing you don’t mind cleaning the screen more often.

Included Stylus
Included Stylus

Stylus at Home
Stylus at Home

The input resolution of the touchscreen is very good, just as good as the Wacom panels on the other models we’ve looked at, whether using the Stylus or anything else your handwriting or drawings will be smooth and precise, the only downside is that sometimes it doesn’t register that you’ve clicked(pressed) on something the first time you use it, something the Wacom panels ever suffered from.

Of course when putting the U1010 into tablet mode, you can rotate the screen from traditional landscape mode into portrait mode. This is done automatically when you move the screen into tablet mode, and can be done manually with the press of a button on the edge of the screen.

The screen can be moved to many angles
The screen can be moved to many angles

U1010 in Tablet Mode
U1010 in Tablet Mode

There are a few buttons and features around the screen, such as the screen rotate button mentioned above, there’s also two programmable hot-keys, which by default will turn on/off two small LED lights which illuminate the keyboard (a very cool feature), and the other brings up the handwriting input panel on the screen. Another button over to the right under the fingerprint scanner acts as both an Alt key for the previously mentioned hotkeys, and a Ctrl-Alt-Del shortcut, a very smart inclusion as pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del on this keyboard can be a pain, as ‘delete’ needs the Function (Fn) key pressed as activate it, so it means you have to press Ctrl+Alt+Fn+Del which can be awkward.

Lights for the Keyboard
Lights for the Keyboard

Up Close - When it's off you wouldn;t know it was there.
Up Close - When it's off you wouldn;t know it was there.

The cursor input and mouse buttons are on opposite sides of the notebook, and are designed to be used while holding the notebook with both hands, almost like a gamepad. This works quite well but means both hands are occupied just to work the mouse. Next to the cursor/pointing stick there are buttons used for scrolling within applications and a function key which changes the function of the hotkeys around the screen. There’s a lot of features and functionality in this notebook, just need to learn how to access it all with all the function keys.

Pointing Stick (yes that's what it's called)
Pointing Stick (yes that's what it's called)

The keyboard…. Ah the keyboard. I really don’t like this keyboard. While it is precise and everything works as it should, it is just too small. There is no way you could be a writer and use a keyboard like this, the keys are so small and close, and the bottom line of keys is more offset to the right than a standard keyboard, so touch typing is almost out of question without learning it all again. Not to mention both hands won’t actually fit over the keyboard anyway. I think I could SMS on my phone faster than I could type on this thing without making a mistake every second word.

Image

It’s only a 56-key keyboard, so many of the function keys, such as caps lock, delete, tab, the arrow keys and the F-keys all have to be operated with the ‘Fn’ toggle key, which is very annoying and tiresome. I mean I know why they’ve done it, they really didn’t have a choice if they wanted to make something this small, but it really hampers productivity, I mean when I’m filling in forms or even writing an article, I use the Tab key all the time, but with the U1010 I have to press the Fn key and the space bar (seriously, they put Tab on the space bar???), which is just weird.


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Display 2 of 2 comments

1. 26-05-2008 06:36

3.5G/AUS
Strangely enough, all the mobile broadband over SIM cards in Australia (except Telstra, of course) run over 2100Mhz HSDPA (What you would call 3.5G). So I can only assume either the SIM is actually quite old (no 3G network access rule), or Vodafone won't let the notebook register on its network.. I'd have no clue why though. 
 
Or maybe you just forgot the *99# dialer? :)
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Daniel W

2. 09-05-2008 10:19

M.
Seems an interesting machine, if only Fuji did not install that crappy bloatsystem that Vista is on it... I'm sure XP would fly on this system, and would make the battery last longer.
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F.Moreau

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