Fujitsu T5010: First Impressions

To start off this review, I will make it clear that I did not purchase my Fujitsu T5010. I won it at the WIPTE 2009 conference in a drawing. I have had about 2 days to play with it, and have not used it to take notes in class yet, but I have a good feel for the device.

I was initially disappointed that it did not ship with Windows 7. Since it shipped before the Windows 7 launch date, I should have expected it to have Vista. There was a lot of pre-installed software included on the computer and the first boot took a very, very long time. The bells and whistles that Fujitsu included in their Vista build really seemed to slow the system down and were just not to my liking. Luckily I have a lot of copies of Windows 7, so after a few hours of playing, I installed Windows 7 Home Premium. However, this should not be held against Fujitsu since all of the manufactures do the same thing. My preference is to run a clean copy of Windows, the way Microsoft intended.

My biggest disappointment is the lack of Microsoft Surface applications. However, this is Microsoft at fault here. At this point in time, only OEM's are able to pre-install them on computers, meaning I will need to wait for them to be released to the public before I can use them. The screen on the T5010 supports both Wacom pen input and two points of capacitive touch. The screen behaves very nicely switching between the inputs, although the tip of the pen does not feel very good on the screen and needs to be broken in some. Both Paint and IE8 support multi-touch, so I have played with it a bit and enjoyed the experience so far. The touch is not as accurate as I would like, but I think most of this is how the software is handling the input.

The overall size of the computer is far larger that I would prefer. This is primarily due to the fact it includes a built in optical drive. While my Toshiba M405 included a built in optical drive, the T5010 has a slightly larger screen and the overall bulk is what I would consider the maximum size that a student would want to carry around. While I know many people who carry around 15 inch and even 17 inch computers, the biggest I would recommend is 13 inches. Compared to my HP EliteBook 2730p, the T5010 looks massive.

My experience installing Windows 7 was fairly smooth with no major problems. However, unlike my experience installing Windows 7 on HP computers, the drivers were not automatically found by Windows Update. However, the drivers for Windows 7 were available on Fujitsu's website for download. This is fine for a computer geek, but someone less technical may have some problems.

Overall, the T5010 is a very feature rich Tablet PC. With both pen and touch inputs, a built in optical drive, built in webcam, and some other interesting features, it is very versatile computer. The main thing that stands out is the fact the screen can rotate in either direction. While this isn't really a major productivity booster, it is interesting that they managed to make a hinge that can go either direction. It seems that it will hold up over time, but that takes time and abuse to really make a judgement.

I am going to finish setting up the computer over the next few days so I can use it to take notes in my classes and will give it a chance. However, the fact it is so much larger than my HP Tablet PC, I will likely not change my primary computer. Thanks to Live Mesh using more than one computer is not a problem. It is nice to have a 'reserve' Tablet PC, and with Mesh syncing all of my files, I will probably end up leaving my HP in my backpack when I get home work just use the Fujitsu at my desk.